The Secrets To An Interfaith Relationship
How couples find compromise living with two gods under one roof.
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"Oh, it's all the same place," she overheard one say to the other. "There are just different ways to get there."
On a Wing and a Prayer
It's easy to fall hard for someone different from you, but who actually stands the best chance of living a long, happy two-faith life together? Studies show that couples who assign similar values to their faiths are more likely to succeed, according to Joel Crohn, PhD, author of Mixed Matches: How to Create Successful Interracial, Interethnic, and Interfaith Relationships and a psychologist in Calabasas, California, who has counseled interfaith couples for more than 25 years. If only one member of the couple is religious, he says, the secular partner runs the risk of becoming "more and more peripheral" as children come into the picture.
"What love conceals, time reveals," he says, meaning, when it comes to interfaith, the devil is in the details: The problems you face probably won't emerge immediately, but bubble up as you try to tease out your day-to-day life.
Which is just what happened to Elizabeth, 34, and her boyfriend, Joshua, 31. Elizabeth was raised in a conservative evangelical Christian church in the Midwest; Joshua grew up an atheist Jew with an Israeli mother in El Paso, Texas. But after three happy years of dating and cohabitating in Washington, D.C., they went into a tailspin trying to discuss their future—issues like what their wedding would look like and how to raise the children.
While Elizabeth was supportive of their kids learning Hebrew and celebrating Jewish holidays, Joshua was adamant: He would not attend church with Elizabeth, and the children would not be taught to believe in Jesus. The couple consulted both a rabbi and a couples counselor. Despite some compromises—Joshua eventually agreed to let the children attend church periodically—the sessions wound up raising larger questions for Elizabeth.
"I don't care how strong your beliefs are—when you're considering giving up a relationship because you won't back away from your faith, you start to think there damn well better be a God or none of this is worth it," she says.
Voicing doubts with a capital "D" such as these is healthy, explains Crohn. "If you help people to be more specific, they will either break up, or work their way through their issues and eventually have a more robust relationship," he says.
Family Matters
There are many ways to bridge the mine-and-yours religious landscape: Troy and Sonja, Jewish and Mormon respectively and both 34, have been happily married for six years. They have gotten by swimmingly by relying on honesty and humor—"it was always my dream, growing up as a Jewish boy, to marry a returned missionary," quips Troy—that is, until their daughter Alana arrived.
Now a toddler, she adds a new layer of complexity to their efforts at compromise. While Alana divides her time equally between Tot Shabbat and Sunday church services, it’s still easy for a 3-year-old to get confused.
Discussion
Trying to live to the ideals of two religions is frustrating. For 5 years I've been pagan and for 3, I've tried to conceal my beliefs in a church and just appreciate what I can -- the music, architecture, etc. -- but it was incredibly rough on me and I had a hard time believing in my religion.
Children, in my opinion, until age 13 don't have the capacity for abstract thought needed to make decisions in religion and ethics on their own, but they also are individuals with personalities and a personal set of life experiences. They should be let to explore religion at their own will but not held to anything.
I been married three times to jewish man and divorced I think religion has nothing to do with love and respect.
I been married three times to jewish man and divorced I think religion has nothing to do with love and respect.
My religion is love, I love my mother, partner, sister, and my match! If we have everything except love, then we are only mummy, like a slogan of My Biker Date: "All we need is love!"
My husband was a Christian, a minister's kid, and a lay preacher in his church. I am Jewish with a tendency to reconstructionism. We were happily and supportively married, until his death, for 23 years. An interfaith relationship is easily sustainable as long as there is respect on the parts of both partners for the beliefs of the other. Without such respect, not only for religious beliefs but for all the beliefs and opinions of one's partners, the relationship does not have much of a chance of enduring.
