I recently left Christianity and have been an atheist for around three months. I now find myself married to a fundamentalist Christian who I no longer have anything in common with. I’m curious if anyone else has gone through this and what advice they can offer. Were you able to make your marriage work or did you ultimately get a divorce? I’m already feeling pretty isolated after losing my whole community, so losing my marriage at the same time would be really difficult. My wife does want to stay together, but as I get further away from the church, I’m less sure that I want to. All my friends are Christians so obviously I can’t talk with them about what’s happening.
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@ Underthemoon
What? So you dont have a relationship with your wife? You marriage was predicated upon your church? Is that what you are saying?
For real? You are pretty much fucked up.
@Underthemoon.
Perhaps there are better places to look for advice,such as a professional counselor.
However, I'll answer as it relates to me: I was married for 12 years. Then she left.
We were both brought up devout Catholic. I was an atheist when I met her. She called herself an agnostic and did not practice her religion. After 9 years married, she went back to the church, becoming quite involved. Our so different religious views were never an issue. They had nothing to do with the end of our marriage as far as I could tell,then or now, 30 years later.
IF your religion is all you had in common, then I think your marriage was doomed from day one.
I wish you luck in what is a horrible situation to be in. I did not want a divorce, my Catholic wife did. The experience of my marriage and divorce has coloured the rest of my life. Imo divorce should be the last resort. It is truly not an experience I would wish on my worst enemy.
Cranky...” It is truly not an experience I would wish on my worst enemy.”
LOL!!!! Fuck that’s funny. I can “picture my ex” saying these exact same words. TRUST me “he” didn’t want it either! He wanted another “chance”
and to “wipe the slate clean” and “he’d change” and “ do better”.... LOL BULLSHIT
He wanted me to continue to feed his “narcissistic victimization” and “fix” him ... fuck that.
I decided it wasn’t my job. Life was too short. I made mistakes. He made mistakes BUT it was time to move on.
After fuckin’ 25 years, he had the nerve to send me a “friend request”!!!! He’s probably alone and broke effecting the quality of prostitutes he can afford (dropped significantly).
EDITED to ALSO add: also been on the end of “him leaving me”.... Heartwrenching and didn’t have a clue “why” - found out later ...and now am fuckin glad he left.
Now I MAY BE THE REASON- not necessarily the easiest person to get along with LOL, so I’m doing the responsible thing and remaining single, simply cause I want to :)
@White
I am not your ex husband and you are not my ex wife. I'm sorry if I touched a nerve
I can assure you neither of us found anything funny about the experience.
My wife left me because she could no longer cope with my chronic depression and the [at that time] undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome.
I have never blamed her for leaving, only for the way she did it. IE I came home from work to find she had moved, with the help of a moving van. THAT I thought was cruel and an act of moral cowardice.
I was never,ever violent physically or mentally. Nor was I ever unfaithful in thought or deed..
I learned very quickly that the only people who really understand a marriage are the two people in it.
ADDENDUM: Before we even got engaged, my wife told me she had a phobic fear about childbirth. I was ambivalent about children, so accepted that. After the divorce, she applied for and got an annulment from the Catholic church.Her grounds were her refusal to have children. She was also a deeply flawed human being.
OH god!!! NO Cranks...
Shit. That didn't occur to me - and I wasn’t trying to in anyway make light of the heart-wretch, and I apologize if it came across in text that way!
Fuck I’m an idiot. I just heard those words “by him” back to me through “concerned loving JW family” who had their own motives...
I’ve been on the receiving end too, of someone leaving.
I guess I’m my own clumsy way, I was pointing out that there is life after divorce...
(You too Sheldon (sorry)
... fuck ...
I forget sometimes who’s reading)
@White.
It's OK.
I don't call myself Cranky for nothing. :-}
Contact, "Recovering From Religion."
https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/#rfr-welcome
@UTM
I sure hope the sex is good.
@doG
Looks like the “3rd” string in the three-fold has been pulled and that was all that was holding it together.
@UTM
Howdy. Welcome to the AR. Good to have you with us. Truly sorry to hear about your problem. Ending a relationship like that is never a good thing. But let me see if I understand this correctly...
I am guessing here that when you two met and got married, both of you were deeply involved in the church. (Please correct me if I am wrong.) Somewhere along the way, though, you began to realize what a sham religion really is, and you recently made your break away from it. (Good for you.... *thumbs up*...) HOWEVER....
Upon tossing aside your religious beliefs, you have somehow decided you no longer have anything in common with your wife. Moreover, the way you used the term "fundamentalist Christian" in regards to her had a slight derogatory tone to it. As if to say now that you are free, she is somehow less of a woman to you now. (I do hope I am wrong, but that is the perception I got from your statement.) On the other hand, your still-faithful Christian wife does not reject you, AND she even wants to maintain your marriage. (Apparently, you have no idea how rare that is.) So, in my mind, that begs the question: Was religion the only thing YOU believed that you and your wife have in common? Because that is very sad if it is true.
My wife is Pagan and considers herself a practicing witch. Our house is full of statues/pics of various gods, along with a couple of altars she uses for rituals. Now, with me being an atheist, one might think that sort of stuff would annoy the piss out of me. On the contrary, I find it all very fascinating. So much so that I regularly build/craft different items for her in support of her practice. Plus, we have many wonderful discussions about different aspects of various religions and a wide range of other topics. In other words, differing religious views are actually what keep our relatiinship more interesting and strong.
That being said (and I don't mean for this to sound harsh, but...), it sounds to me like you were already looking for an excuse to exit that marriage, and "losing your religion" was a convenient way of walking away from it without you having to take the full blame. Hmmmmm.... Thinking about it, I now wonder if maybe you were expecting HER to be the one to want to end it, but it backfired on you when she said she was okay with your being an atheist... Hmmmm.... *scratching chin*....
@Underthemoon:
What about the kids?
I have not dealt with this issue, so can not offer much first hand experience/knowledge.
That said:
I assume you did not marry your wife just because at one point: you and her agreed on religion. I imagine you guys had a lot more in common then just religion. Perhaps try to focus on those. And give each other space on religion stuff.
Just a thought.
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