Marrying someone with different religious beliefs. My name is Paul
Friedman, I founded The Marriage Foundation and let's talk about this but
let's distinguish between religious beliefs and religion because in today's
world, and this is actually not a new thing. People end up marrying someone
who's of a different religion, maybe even still the same overall religion but
different beliefs within that religion -- there's different sects. There's two
parts. One part is that you belong to a different religion, maybe one of you grew
up as a Christian the other as a Jew, maybe one grew up as a Muslim the other
as a Hindu and in those cases where we're just talking about religious
affiliation not beliefs, the biggest problem is going to be family. Your
beliefs are not necessarily going to be the same as the dogma that is espoused
within the particular religion that you belong to but families get funny.
I know of situations where one parent decides, "I'm not going to the
wedding. They're not going to get married with my blessings," that's very sad
and frankly, there are a few things you can do in those cases but not a lot. So
what you try to do is be non confrontational with that particular
parent and you try to ease into some sort of compromise, not always going to
be possible but you at least do your best. In those
cases, if you're not going to get cooperation from a parent that is the
parent basically deciding that they want to continue to impose their authority
upon you as an individual and they have lots of excuses for doing so. They use
words like tradition, family values but they miss a very important point. That
point is very important to you and that is that you are marrying the person that
you're going to be with long after the parent has left this earth. This is your
choice and it's a big deal so I'm going to give you foundational information
that will help you do the right thing. Number one is huge and that is that in
all of your life from prior till now until you're passed away there's only
one person who you will choose to love and not be compelled to love
unconditionally and that is the spouse. You see even our children, we don't
select them based on their qualities it's a surprise package when they're
born and you were a surprise package to your parents and their role in your life
was not to control you past the point of where they can influence you in ways
that helped you become a better person. Their job was to raise you on behalf of
God not to take charge and pretend that you belong to them. So, what they're doing?
Yeah, we can use words like inappropriate and it is inappropriate for a parent to
interfere and maybe you're the parent -- it is inappropriate. Now that doesn't mean
that you go up to that parent and say, "You're inappropriate." You still have to
be respectful towards your parent. You still have to recognize that they have
flaws as individuals also but you look past their flaws to love them with all
of your heart but not more than the one you're choosing to spend the rest of
your life with. So you love them but you stop allowing them to dictate your life.
They just don't have a place in that. Your life is moving forward. They're not
going to send you to your room. They will badger you, try to make you feel guilty.
Try to offer you a sense of you should be "loyal" to them and/or to
their religion but that does not mean that it's yours to carry.
It's sad. There's no question so you do your best to include them to have them
come to the ceremony. Maybe make some concessions depending on what their
beliefs are. You do the best you can that's all you can do but you certainly
do not allow their beliefs to interfere with yours. Now let's get to the other
side of this where you have different religious
beliefs. Some of those beliefs and let's call them spiritual beliefs and
religious beliefs. Religious beliefs, I think of as dogma so the religion that
one belongs to has laid out how they perceive God, how they perceive morality,
how you should in order to win the favor of God
that's the dogma and it could go anywhere even within certain
religions. I could use Judaism as an example. In certain sects Judaism
believes in reincarnation. In others, they don't even discuss it. Does it matter?
No, what is important is then when your children come that they are raised in a
consistent manner when it comes to meeting God they should recognize God as
a loving mother, father, friend regardless of the religion in which those ideals
are encased and that's what's most important. It isn't important using
reincarnation again whether someone believes in it or not. Your beliefs don't
send you to heaven or hell using that as an example. It's your behavior and that's
all it is. It's your behavior. For some people, heaven on earth is more than just
talk because they live in harmony with what they think of as God's will
and they maintain communication with God either through prayer and/or meditation.
And if you teach your child to love God that God is in their life.
In fact, the predominant force who even gave the children you as parents to them
they will be fine. Everyone should be raised with some
spiritual understanding. The greatest of which is that love is God's greatest joy
that he gives us and that is what we can always rely on is God's love. And
that as parents, you want to reflect God's unconditional love not just to
your children but to your spouse. So the problems that may come up will usually
be social. Even social within your own marriage work through them. There doesn't
have to be agreement, there could be agreement to just not discuss. If there's
different religions involved and one of you is strong about adhering to your
religious beliefs and dogma and remaining in that particular institution,
religious institution then the other should gladly defer without comment,
without criticism -- it's very simple. Hopefully, this was helpful for you and
you gained some benefit. Blessings to you, blessings to your
spouse or your spouse to be, and blessings to your family.