So, in Dating...is Religion a Deal Breaker?

[alfreda89]

An article over in The Atlantic asks the question -- We all know there are deal breakers in our search for The Right One. Is Religion one of those deal-breakers? Should it be?

It was for me. I realized that I could marry someone of another faith, but only if he respected my right to believe what I believed. Yet kids I'd met who were raised between two very different faiths usually ended up believing in neither.

Hard choices. Hard decisions. I know someone who was a devout Calvinist who married a Catholic, and loved her so much he agreed to let their children be raised Catholic. His family is still appalled, I imagine, although she is the most wonderful person you could imagine.

Comments

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

For me, the answer is both yes and no. Yes, it could be a deal-breaker; no, it didn't have to be. I could never see myself marrying someone who was devoutly religious in any of the One True Way faiths, nor would I have married someone who insisted that our children be brought up religious*. I suspect I would have had a hard time even with a Nominal Christian, because of the "fish don't see the water" problem. But as a not-very-devout pagan, I haven't had any trouble living with a declared atheist. I think the key is finding someone for whom it's about the same level of Big Deal that it is for you, and then seeing if there's a major conflict between the religions.

* Of course, that would already have run up against the deal-breaker of "insists we must have children" in the first place.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Not for me -- but then I'm an agnostic Briton, in a country where religion is minor for most people.
My deal-breaker is politics. The marquis and I differ in some ways on politics, but we're both leftish. I can't imagine being able to cope with a hard-line right winger in my life!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

It was for me, but for many it's not. (I'd dated enough hardline atheists to decide I didn't want to live with one.)

[aishabintjamil.livejournal.com]

I think I'd have to say yes. I don't mean that in the sense that my partner has to be the exact same faith (she isn't). But my spiritual practices are a big enough part of my life that a partner who didn't at least understand and respect them would be a recipe for disaster.

I'm a priestess, and there are times when that will come first. I suspect that's a problem for clergy of all faiths where they marry at all. It adds an extra level of difficulty to a relationship. I accept that there are many paths to follow, and another may be equally good for my partner, as mine is for me, but when you marry someone with a vocation, you're effectively entering a 3-way relationship, even if you don't share their path.

We talked a lot about that up front, and I think it helped that we both had vocations in our own way, so we understood at a gut level why we weren't necessarily the #1 priority. Which isn't to say it's easy - just that's it's manageable.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

That was my thought about it. Although I had been raised Presbyterian, and was a Christian, I did not think I could throw that all over to marry a Jew whose family would have been offended if I'd put up a Christmas tree. So I knew that relationship was not going to last.

Yet I also knew I could not marry any of the Christian men I'd met at my second college -- good men, but very, very evangelical in their Christianity. And I did not and do not subscribe to that interpretation.

Still, living with men who had no spiritual base at all (but were still controlled by childhood religious perceptions and tropes) didn't work out either. Now, I am intensely spiritual but do not believe that any one group has a corner on the market. I study spirit through the ages, and hope to find someone who is open to the idea that there's something else. What, we don't exactly know. But it's there, and we have things to do here first.

Living a life in the Light works for me. Perhaps I can find a man for whom that is also the case. A non-smoker -- that's my other deal-breaker! Cigarette smoke gives me migraines.

I know a couple who are Liberal and Conservative, but they respect each other deeply and do not waste time fighting about that or trying to convert each other. She was raised a conservative Jew, and he agreed to convert when their children were born and going to Hebrew classes. He even started keeping Kosher when dining outside the home, slowly changing over.

Sensible people who care about each other figure out what works for them.

[ladypoetess.livejournal.com]

Yes and no.

Being poly, I'm not dating 1 single person. One of my partners is an atheist, but understands that my faith is vitally important to me and remembers my holidays, etc. even though he doesn't share them. For him, not a deal-breaker. However, he's also not a 'primary partner' for me - he lives in California, I live in Pennsylvania, we talk often enough, but not every day, we will never live together or share daily lives, chores, and household finances. (Incidentally, the partner he does live with just had twins, so he's a bit busy these days. :) )

My primary partner shares my faith, and this was going to be a deal-breaker. My previous primary partner had been very vocal about being an atheist AND thinking that anyone who had faith in anything 'supernatural' was stupid, deluding themselves, etc. After him, I realized that I had, had, had to have someone who had a deep personal faith (whether my faith or not - so long as my faith was respected) if I was going to share my every day life with this person. Imit's faith was quiet when we started dating, but definitely there and compatible with mine. We'd spent years talking about moral, ethical, philosophical, and religious ideas, and realizing that far more of our views matched up than didn't. His faith was part of what drew me to him, and it only strengthens what we have when I witness his faith (as it does for him with mine).

[originalkitsune.livejournal.com]

It has been a deal breaker in the past and still *could* be but it depends. As long as the person's ideal core values and yours are the same/similar and he doesn't force you to change yours, things could still work.

I had to break from a guy because he was a Jehoveh's Witness and he was trying to push me into it which i resisted. We're still friends to this day but that's as far as it goes.

I grew up with 2 different religions but chose neither but that's not everyone's response. My sister chose the Roman Catholic Church despite the church's hate towards people like her. My high school best friend was raised Methodist and Roman Catholic and she eventually chose Methodist.