So I let my wife in on my non-belief

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Permalink Reply by AcesLucky on July 21, 2009 at 1:57pm

If I were in your position and it was my wife, I'd tell her that "Perhaps one day god will reveal himself to me."

Now, don't think of this as a cop-out, it does several things. First it acknowledges and respects her belief. Second, it puts the responsibility on god to reveal himself to settle the matter. And it doesn't require you to lie. Third, it gives her the psychological elbow room to trust that god will perform. (When you're both in your 70's and you're still an atheist, she might conclude something about god's performance -- his consistency of non-performance.)

In each case it takes the burden off of you and her and puts it on something else, thus giving you both time -- to continue to enjoy each other without having to worry about each others beliefs.

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Permalink Reply by Brandon Benkosky on July 21, 2009 at 2:13pm

Good luck bro.

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Permalink Reply by IAmTheBlog on July 24, 2009 at 3:17pm

I empathize with you, arm3d, and wish you all the best of luck. It helps me to hear your story because I'm actually very close to coming out as an atheist to my wife, and I don't think she will like it. We've been married for a couple of years. Although she said she was looking for someone religious, religion has almost never come up, except when we're around family. Before we got married, I told her that I was brought up Lutheran, I wasn't sure what I believed now, but was pretty sure what I didn't believe, which was the truth (but not the whole truth). We left it at that.

I actually reread some stuff after I met her, and have gone to several church services with her and her family, trying to keep an open mind. It has only strongly reaffirmed my non-belief. Now I'm running an atheist blog/site, and I read and listen to atheist/freethought/etc. news all the time, none of which she knows (or at least, I don't think so).

The more involved I get with my atheism, the more I feel like I need to let her know this part of my life. I think she suspects something. Recently she has mentioned a couple of times that she knows that I "don't like church." She has said before she really likes the service and the music, and the fact of being together with other people. So I don't think she's very strongly religious, which might help, but it's interesting that she says I don't like church when I've never come out and said this.

She's never just out of the blue mentioned God, which I *think* is a good sign. It's only when something triggers it that she might say something. The only discussion we've had that bordered on actually discussing religious beliefs was for my nephew's baptism. She got him a Noah's Ark book and just assumed I would be fine with that. I danced around the issue for a long time before saying that I was uncomfortable with it. First, I think people should be old enough to choose whether or not they want to be baptized. Second, specifically the story of Noah's Ark was one I didn't like. She said she didn't see why I didn't like the Noah Ark's book, since it basically just had cute animals in it. We had a brief discussion about the story, I asked her if she believed it literally and she didn't give a yes or a no (I don't think she ever thought of it before). She said she saw what I meant about baptism, but disagreed that it was a problem. We ended up agreeing to disagree, and got him two gifts (the book and a stuffed animal), not saying which was from who.

I think she knows I'm not a Christian, or at least not a traditional one. But I don't know if she thinks I'm an atheist (other family members have made disparaging remarks about atheists), an agnostic, or what. I don't know if I will use the word "atheist", at least not at first. I've thought about suggesting going to a UU church, like The Nerd suggested, but like Stephen said I've heard they can vary widely, so I don't know if either of us would be comfortable. So I really don't know what I'll say, or how she'll react, but I feel like I need to say something soon. So unfortunately, you're not alone arm3d. It's a scary thing to have to tell someone you love.

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Permalink Reply by Richard J on July 26, 2009 at 8:33pm

HI.

That is exactly what happened to me!!

I immediately said that my vows were to her, and that yes I may have been a believe when I uttered them, but that shouldn't make them any less true, or make me any less likely to keep them. She said "But you don't believe in God, you said them in a Church, so the wedding is not real. You didn't mean them."

You're right about it stinging. I've been married over 20 years, and for her to say that to me was tough.

What's really hurtful about it is that she doesn't go to church, but somehow reserves the right to be a christian when she wants to invoke it. I tell her there's no evidence Jesus was more than an interesting guy that said a few interesting things, if even existed at all, and she just tells me to stop it. She thinks I'm obsessed with religion because I laugh the loudest at religious jokes and to guys like Bill Maher.

There is nothing you can do, except keep it low key, as Joe said. Luckily my daughter has decided she's an atheist, so I've got her on my side.

Good Luck.

PS. How's it going now.

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Permalink Reply by Starscream on July 26, 2009 at 9:27pm

This reminds me of the last gf I had. She was very active in church. Went Sundays and Wednesdays with her mom. Went to church sponsored activities, worked in the church nursery. I started dating her without knowing any of this, but within a few weeks it came out and I didn't say anything. I decided to not ruin it just yet, and see if we were otherwise compatible. Well days turned into weeks and after 2 months I decided I better tell her, cause it'll probably be a unreconcilible difference.

I made the mistake I think of sitting her down to tell her like I was breaking up with her, although in my mind it was going to end the same way anyways. She cried, ran out of the house, and I thought I'd never see her again.

A week later she randomly showed up at my house and asked me why. We had an hour or so discussion talking about the easier stuff (I purposely tried to keep the talk non-confrontational on god, jesus etc.) and then I gave her a philosophy book from college to take home. She admitted to having doubts about god/religion but never anyone to talk to about it. She said she never knew there was a choice.

We kind of started over and I ended up dating her for another 9 months. She stopped going to church all together; got in a few fights with her mom over it. I just wish I knew if she went back after we broke up, or is still agnostic. I always doubted the speed at which she converted, I kind of assumed she did it for me, rather then on her own free will, but she might have been agnostic all along and just needed the support to leave the church.

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Permalink Reply by Meddlesome on July 28, 2009 at 4:22pm

The only thing i can say there, (apart from good luck), is lead by example, ("he is such a nice guy, god will let him in to heaven even if he is an atheist"), and gently, slowly, patiently, at a snails pace, lead her reasoning to the same conclusions you have come to.

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Permalink Reply by c on August 3, 2009 at 2:27pm

What I've noticed is that when a believer has relatives or anyone that they care about that doesn't believe, their ideas of hell and what it takes to get into heaven change. I have realtives that now think there is no hell, or realtives that think because I went to church when I was younger I'm automatically saved. Otherwise, every other belied is as fundamental as it gets.

I wonder if something similar will happen to your wifes ideas.

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Permalink Reply by Will Volny on September 1, 2009 at 9:45pm

I'm sure you've gotten information from plenty of people since you posted. I'd like to know how it goes for you and your wife. I'm in a situation where I can talk about it for two sentences and then my wife says 'I don't want to talk about it anymore.' Since my activism in the area of humanism and separation of church and state can easily be directed outside of our marriage and not involve her, I let it go. I have increasingly only brought things up if she asks, and I answer her questions very humbly. I have completely stopped trying to 'convert' her (which was really wrong of me in the first place) and just try, when she'll discuss it, to listen to her viewpoint and not focus on mine. It seems to be working at this point. Certainly my relationship with my wife is not based on religion or belief so I would never want that to taint what we have. But she also doesn't make me go to church with her or 'pretend' in any way.
As I mentioned, I'd definitely like to know how things are going with you since you posted this in July.

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Permalink Reply by Laura Largent on September 3, 2009 at 12:30pm

From the wife:

I want to start by saing that my husband is a very smart man; however, he is just not very educated. He wasn't one for school and doesn't read other than if he needs some cheats for a video game. He is part Mexican and comes from a family that is traditionally Catholic, but they aren't really strict about it. So when his father passed away last year, he found comfort in what the priest was telling him and he accepted Jesus as his lord and savior. At the time, I wasn't a card tote'n atheist yet, but I was still pretty adament against religion. I tried to be very supportive of his decision, even offering to go to church with him if he wished to do so. However, at the same time, I kept living the way I wanted to and he soon saw that living without fear is much more desireable. One thing that really helped him see was when we watched Religulous together (I go to church with him, he watches documentaries with me; the compromises of marriage). At the end of it, being the intelligent but generally uneducated person he is, his opinion of it was "if snakes could talk then, they would be able to talk now..."

Another thing that I like to use as a reference, when dealing with people who may be on the fence but leaning to the right and you want to see them take that final hop off the fence toward you, is Inside A Non-Believer's Mind: My Journey From Christianity To Freethinking by Francisco J. Miranda. It's very simply written, not full of evidence and facts like a Dawkins book, just very common sense things that we sometimes forget to bring up when discussing why Atheism with a Theist.

I am interested to see how you are doing so far, hope things are headed in the right direction ;o)

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