Different religions in the same household

I'm atheist and he's Christian. I will go to Christmas service with him (and family baptisms, etc) because supporting him is more important than standing on principle. With that said, we are having a completely non religious ceremony because vows made before a deity I don't believe aren't vows at all, they're just words. We have different beliefs with politics and such as well, but either agree to disagree or simply have the discussion and move on. It's important to not take their beliefs personally and to clearly communicate.

DH was raised Jewish and I was raised Lutheran. We had a civil officiant and, at a reception venue, a rather traditional ceremony that referenced God, but not Jesus.

Now, I officiate weddings for couples of different religions, races, and cultures. We combine whatever elements are important to them.

Its really refreshing to see other couples who have interfaith marriages i consider my self Christian ( although Im not too big on churches) Fiancé is...(hes not sure) not quite atheist because he believes in God... but it works we both pray and he is open to any officiant and our venue is non religious.

FH and I are pretty well in sync about everything except for religion. I'm agnostic and he nondenomination Christian. So far, no issues, but we're both fairly easy going. I only see our families having issues if we don't include religious aspects to our ceremony.

I have a similar situation but I'm the religious one. FH is willing to have a church wedding for me and we are doing the pre-wedding sessions with my pastor (although a bit begrudgingly on his part). Similar to what you are doing with your daughter, we plan to raise our future children in the church and once they're ready, share both of our beliefs and let them decide for themselves.

It is definitely tough but I've heard from several people in similar situations that it can work if you work out a good compromise. Good luck!

While I understand the differences in religion, refusing to do the required classes is a pretty bad choice of a hill to die on, really.

Most of the classes are geared toward basic pre-marital counseling, which I personally believe should be a requirement before being allowed to get a marriage license in the first place. They present major questions that ALL couples need to discuss at length prior to marriage, and help them learn to communicate better and come to compromises when there are disagreements about major fundamental issues.

Hi Danielle,

I didn't have this problem personally (DH and I are both atheists-- he just said, "We're not getting married in a church" and that was as much as religion came into our wedding planning). However, I AM a marital counselor, and if I saw a couple for (hopefully) premarital counseling, I would suggest this exercise:

You each take a piece of blank paper and draw two concentric circles on it. Inside the little circle, you write your 'must haves' regarding the ceremony. In the outer circle you each write everything you're willing to compromise on. This helps people focus on *specifically* what they want, also forces them to keep their 'unwilling to compromise" list short.

I can totally relate to you. My fiance is an atheist and I'm not. I grew up in a Catholic household. I attended Catholic school and had communion and confirmation and all that jazz. While I still do go to church, I'm not an extremist about it. My fiancé told me that he'd be very uncomfortable with a religious ceremony so we agreed on a non-religious wedding. One of our very good friends will officiant our wedding.

I'm Jewish, my fiance is non-practicing Catholic. I don't have a wedding theme (besides "we're getting married), but since my childhood rabbi is marrying us I joke that the theme of the wedding is "Gently Jewish." We're not getting married at a temple, and the rabbi is fine with including some Jewish traditions but also keeping things rather neutral. We are also both from Polish families, so we will be incorporating a few Polish traditions into the ceremony. His family is fine with it, and things are just Jewish enough to make my dad happy. We've been very lucky to strike that balance.

As for raising a family, we've talked about wanting them to be connected to both faiths. We're not sure how religious we'd like our family to be, but at the very least we want our kids to have an awareness and an appreciation of where Mommy and Daddy's families and traditions come from. We'll figure out the rest as we go

Love that idea @zoe. Thanks everybody!

My now husband isn't religious but his family definitely is. One of his only requests was to have a minister from his church he really liked when he was younger marry us. At first we didn't want really any religious stuff in the wedding but it ended up turning out that way (obviously didn't care that much since I didn't ask him not to) and looking back it really doesn't bother me. I think it made his family happy and that was good enough for me! We didn't have our wedding in a church though so I'm glad that was never pressed on us.

DH and I both consider ourselves Christian but his extended family is Catholic and a lot of my extended family is Mormon. Because of this, we used an ordained minister who had experience with all faiths. That way we avoided offending anyone and could include and exclude what we wanted as far as religious elements. He also did not require premartial counseling. You may want to try to find someone similar in your area. Good luck!

FH is Catholic, I'm Jewish. Every year we put up a Christmas tree (smells so good) and I put a Star of David tree topper on it. FH also celebrates a lot of the Jewish holidays with me. Though, a lot of our holidays revolve around food so that helps lol. We have integrated our religions together a bit into something that works for us and don't care what our families think because they're not us. My only rule is no baby Jesus figures anywhere because they creep me out

FH and I are two different religions. He's Catholic and I am Christian. We are having a Christian wedding, FH was the one who suggested it, I was actually very surprised and willing to do a Catholic wedding but FH said that he wants my pastor to marry us, so we are having a Christian wedding.

I need this post in my life. My fh is a catholic and I'm an athiest. He really wants a priest to marry us. That's basically his only request (other than chicken fried steak for a meal, but that's not happening) and I would totally be down except I'm just uncomfortable with praying. When people start praying around me, I live in Texas it happens a lot, I usually look down respectfully but don't fake it. I don't want to start our marriage faking it. I don't believe in god so I don't want to pretend I do. Hopefully we find an understanding priest because it means a lot to him.

I'm Christian, FH is Jewish. We're actually having a Pastor and Rabbi co-officiate our ceremony and incorporating both of our traditions. As for kids, so far we've decided that we want to be very sure that our kids are familiar with both traditions and eventually allow them to choose for themselves when they're old enough to understand and not make decisions based on getting days off school, or secular Christmas ideas, etc.