My husband and I have been married for 30 years and have 2 grown up kids who live far away from us. We have never been big practicing Christians but took our kids to church while they were growing up and sent them to kids classes so they would have a basis of religion. About 6 years ago my son was battling a serious heroin drug problem and ended up going into therapy. He now lives across the county from us and is doing well and is sober. This led us to join a NARANON group which helped us immensely especially me since I was overcome with guilt and emotion and was not in a good place. NARANON also uses the 12 Steps the same as AA. My husband started the steps but I didnt. Slowly but surely he became more involved in Christianity and now has told me he is a believer. He attends church regularly and reads the bible every day and goes to bible study.
I feel like I am now married to a stranger. Where we once had the same beliefs, not really believing or disbelieving, he is now a devout Christian. We dont talk about it much, my choice, but occasionally he will say something like "im praying for you and I have hope that you will change "
I dont know what to do. I dont feel the same way about him as I did. He mentioned my swearing the other day. Not that I swear a lot just occasionally when Im angry. He used to swear too and now its a big NO NO.
Im just writing to see if there is anyone else who feels like I do.
I was hoping retirement was going to be a great time for us but I feel that GOD is having too much of a good time with my husband to let me have him.
It sounds stupid but I am jealous. I want my old husband back. Even though he says he is the same and he still loves me, I wonder how can we stay together when we are so far apart.
Thank you for listening.
Subscription Note:
Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
Wow, hard to know what to say. Firstly my sympathies as you seem to have been through a lot, and I'm glad your son is fighting his addiction and is sober. You said that you don't discuss your husbands new found religions, and that this was mainly your choice. Can I assume you have tried to have a candid discussion with him about it, and this did not go well?
I really don't see that you have much choice, but to discuss this honestly with each other. It's only natural to fear the consequences for your marriage, but only you both can decide if who you are now is who want to be married to. I can't really think of much else to offer, a marriage to someone you love is worth fighting for, but sadly people do change, and sometimes who they change into is so different to who we married, that we fall out of love with them. I wish you luck anyway, and hope you can make it work somehow. A word of warning you should both be wary of making demands the other cannot accept, ultimatums seldom help mend a relationship.
Sorry if this doesn't help, but I have never experienced what you are going through, though I have other people in my life whose beliefs are sometimes anathema to my world view. I tolerate them as long as they don't try to preach to me, then I speak my mind, and it seldom goes down well with such people, who feel obliged to share their beliefs but dislike it when others object. A lifelong friend of my sisters is a theist, and caused some momentary friction on Xmas day, but in the end I walked away, and stopped discussing in order to keep the peace, as she wanted to preach but not listen. It's very difficult then. What I dislike most is the patronising way she pretends you're unfairly attacking her beliefs when you argue back, as if she can say what she likes but any counter argument steps on her rights. Sadly I see no middle ground with someone who thinks their beliefs give them rights they won't afford others.
Again I hope things work out for you.
It does not sound "stupid" at all. Religion has gotten its hooks into your husband. That is most unfortunate. It has shattered the dreams you had for your retirement years and that is even more unfortunate. Without trying to sound harsh. "It is also life." Religion attacks people when the are most vulnerable. Go to any soup kitchen in town an you will find the good Christians willing to give you a bowl of soup so you can live another day as long as you sit and listen to a sermon.
So what do you do now? Confront, Allow thing to Continue As they Are, Join. Can you see another option? Make a choice or don't make a choice. You are here now. Not doing anything is simply allowing things to continue as they are. Making a choice has options.
* Confront your husband and tell him you are unwilling to live your life this way. It is religion or you. (Is your greatest fear he will choose religion?)
* Insist on counseling. You should find a secular counselor in your area. I suggest the (Secular Therapy Project.)
* Find a way to discuss religion with him in a non-threatening way (Good luck on this one.) Possibly a book swap. He agrees to read one of your books and you read one of his. After that, discuss the books.
* Separation: Take a break and try to clear your mind. Go on vacation. Take some time for yourself. Re-evaluate your life. Decide what you want your future to be and understand clearly what things you can and can not control. (Taking a break is still a decision to allow things to continue as they are, especially if you make no decision while on that break.)
In the end, life is short. Religion appears to be meeting some need that he has at this point in his life. I guess you need to decide between living with it or living without.
I fully get how painful this can be. It's a bit like having a painful boil on your ass. You can ignore it and hope that it goes away. At the same time it could get bigger and infected and eventually cause you more pain and more suffering. It might go away at some point in the future all on its own. Still, until that point you will have to live with the pain. Finally; you could just lance the damn thing, get some treatment and get the whole mess over with as quickly as possible so you can at least be pain free as you move into the future.
Good Luck to you. Let us know what you decide.
Unfortunately new found faith, and faith in general, thrives on opposition. Such people are encouraged to expect and resist persecution because they are 'doing the right thing'. In fact, opposition could strengthen someones conviction... It is hard to fight an invisible enemy, especially one that is afforded freedom from rules we are bound by like logic, reason and responsibility. So I would advise against a 'direct assault' for fear of worsening the situation.
You say he feels like a stranger, and that can cause a lot of hurt. I've been in a situation like that and my heart goes out to you.
I'm not a marriage counselor, so let me not give any more advice.
I would just like to say that I know these situations can be tough, and I hope everything works out. :)
@Dendale
Tough situation. If my wife suddenly went deeply religious that would be rough, and I love my wife very deeply which would just make it hurt even more. To me someone that goes deep into the religious end when they were not before, is a scenario where they abandon reason, logic, and commonsense for hope that is based on a lie. I would still stay with my wife though probably, however if we had kids and she started pushing religion heavy on them... messy.
I say this a lot lately, but bears repeating here, if highly religious people just kept their unevidenced opinions to themselves and did not push their opinions on anyone else, I would be mostly fine with it, live and let live, let people believe in santa claus if they want to. Problem is they don't, and all major religions history is littered with enormous numbers of examples where religion does anything but mind its own business. Whether by force, (war, etc) or by brainwashing children, religion continues to push their completely unevidenced opinions on others is a core trait of just about every major religion today and throughout history.
Religion is a very old very refined con, and like all cons is swoops in on the vulnerable. Like those $20-40 US dollars an hour working from home hand drawn signs you see on side of roads in many places in the USA, someone already working a decent paying job will easily ignore that scam, but someone that is looking for work or has a miserable near minimum wage job currently, they may think it might be a scam, but they will give the number a call because they figure "what do I have to lose?" (-Only all your personal information including social security number! Plus they may charge a ~80$ materials fee, or processing fee, etc.)