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Can an interfaith relationship really work?

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If their families really love their children, they will accept the other, reguardless. If these two really do love each other, they will do what they want, when they want, with or without the family's approval. If I cared for someone enough to love them and neither one of our parents accepted our love, I wouldn't care and still would do exactly what I want, when I want.

vash
 
Originally posted by: rahvin
The real question is can Liz and Henry resolve their own religious differences? If they can, can they then tell their families to stay the hell out of their lives and have each person defend the other to their parents. It's amazing how accomidating parents can be once they are denied access to grandchildren because of the way they treat the children's spouse.
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liz believes in the divinity of jesus christ the son of God and as her savior, along with the notion of the father, the son, and the holy spirit as being the fundamental belief of catholicism. henry believes the exact opposite. for one to resolve their religious differences would be complete rejection of their religion. this is a lot more than just families being nosey, and grandchildren are NOT going to bring both sides to the table. it's not like henry is white and liz is black, these are core beliefs.
 
Originally posted by: vash
If their families really love their children, they will accept the other, reguardless. If these two really do love each other, they will do what they want, when they want, with or without the family's approval. If I cared for someone enough to love them and neither one of our parents accepted our love, I wouldn't care and still would do exactly what I want, when I want.

vash
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goddamn! are all of you really that naive? where's ffmcobalt when you really need him? this is COMPLICATED. it might be easy and stupid to you, but it's certainly not to them and many others who are in their position. if you weren't brought up in a religious home, you cannot begin to understand what it would be like to completely anbandon your family, everything you were brought up to believe is true. have some compassion and try to sympathize with them rather than telling them they are stupid for loving their families at least as much as they love each other. religion isn't a fairytale joke to everyone.
 
Originally posted by: dolph
goddamn! are all of you really that naive? where's ffmcobalt when you really need him? this is COMPLICATED. it might be easy and stupid to you, but it's certainly not to them and many others who are in their position. if you weren't brought up in a religious home, you cannot begin to understand what it would be like to completely anbandon your family, everything you were brought up to believe is true. have some compassion and try to sympathize with them rather than telling them they are stupid for loving their families at least as much as they love each other. religion isn't a fairytale joke to everyone.
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If they were really devout, and I mean REALLY REALLY devout, then they wouldn't be together in the first place.
 
Originally posted by: dolph
Originally posted by: rahvin
The real question is can Liz and Henry resolve their own religious differences? If they can, can they then tell their families to stay the hell out of their lives and have each person defend the other to their parents. It's amazing how accomidating parents can be once they are denied access to grandchildren because of the way they treat the children's spouse.
Click to expand...

liz believes in the divinity of jesus christ the son of God and as her savior, along with the notion of the father, the son, and the holy spirit as being the fundamental belief of catholicism. henry believes the exact opposite. for one to resolve their religious differences would be complete rejection of their religion. this is a lot more than just families being nosey, and grandchildren are NOT going to bring both sides to the table. it's not like henry is white and liz is black, these are core beliefs.
Click to expand...


Precisely. This is what they were brought up with... they have been conditioned according to their respective cultures, and their cultures reject one another. This goes deep. They can try... and if they try, I hope that they succeed. 🙂

In my case, I was brought up to be relatively open minded and to know I could choose my own spirituality/faith, and for a short time I tried to adopt my husband's beliefs. That was the only way he and his family would accept me. I thought, "Love conquers all". Then I realized that the word conquers is a word usually used when describing war.

😀
 
Originally posted by: Dezign
My friend Liz has been dating this guy named Henry since we were juniors in high school. She's in her second year of med school now, and they've been together for almost six years. The problem is their respective religions. Liz and her family are Catholic, and Henry and his family are Jewish. Both families are very devout and very set in their ways. Liz's family doesn't care for Henry because he's Jewish, but they have met him (however grudgingly). Henry's family, on the other hand, refuses to have anything to do with Liz. They purposely exclude her from family functions (Henry's parents recently celebrated their 20th anniversary with over 400 people, and Liz was not invited) and refuse to acknowledge her even though their son has been with her for over half a decade.For the longest time, Liz and Henry have held onto the "Love will overcome all" ideology, but their relationship has become strained because of the family situation. Both are very close to their families, and both highly respect their parents and their parents wishes (obviously not to the fullest extent, but still). She called me up crying and asked for advice... she's very hurt knowing she'll never be accepted into his family, and she can't imagine marrying him without both his and her family's consent. She wanted to know if it could work out, it it could ever work out... the relationship is almost perfect in every way except for the family/religion situation.Can anyone relate to their situation? If so, how did it work out?Peace,Dezign
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in my limited personal experience i found that the kink aspect overpowered the faith differences in interracial.

 
It matters more what the couple believes than what the extended family believes. It's a really bad idea for someone with opposite viewpoints regarding God to get married. Eventually they will have kids who don't know what to believe... so they most likely will believe in nothing.

For my wife and I, we started going to a church we both liked when we were dating. Her family eventually started going to the same church. We share the same beliefs and it's cool to sit with them at church sometimes, but ultimately what they do has no bearing on what we do. Marriage is where you leave your parents to make a new family. As long as you have your priorities straight (God, marriage, extended family, friends) things tend to work out.

If they've been together for 6 years, it sounds like neither one takes their faith very seriously. If that ever changes, they're in for big problems.
 
My girlfriend said she never could never be with me if I didn't beleive in god, I still don't and we've been together 2 years...

She said that in the first month.
 
There are so many variables to a happy marriage, and like it or not, family is one of them to many people, ESPECIALLY those who are products of religious background. The marraige of such people (whether culturally or religiously devout, although the two are often hand in hand) is not of the same type that your average non-religious (and to carry the parallel, non-cultural) couple engages in. It is one where, a match of most or all of the following - cultural values, religious heritage, racial similarity - is, in addition to love (or sometimes in place of it), required for a successful and enduring marriage.
As you go down the ladder from ultra-orthodox to athiest, you find that some of the requirements are relaxed, although the new effort becomes determining whether two people (and their families) sit on the same rung, or at least aren't too far apart. Often, it fails, and often, the more dominant attributes of the marriage win out - whether it be a domineering religion (you'll rarely see a mixed match involving a buddhist and a muslim where the buddhism isn't squeezed out), or the more dominant person of the couple. In the end, what you see, is that it is quite rare when such mixed marriages work. Even if both are non-religious and culturally devoid (more specifically devoid of the culture of their ancestry, since we all have culture, even if is America's de-facto MacDonald's and MTV), simple racism can be enough to sour it.
Seeing as a union like marriage is difficult enough when the cards are played right, why would you want to embark on something where you have an extra 1000 miles to climb?
 
I think they can. But I also thing that it puts a horrendous strain on a relationship.

My ex and I used to get into it once in a while, because she would ask what our children were to be raised as. I would explain that they HAVE to be (by my religion) whatever SHE is.

She never got it ... I think she liked to fight ... @@

-----------------------

And Kenazo and whoever else ... Jews never push their views, or claim that you're going to xyz hell for your beliefs. At least, not in my experience in 5 major cities all across the US.
 
it's not like henry is white and liz is black, these are core beliefs.
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On the contrary, I don't think there is anything more "core" in belief than the white/black dichotomy in America.

 
My moms Family is Catholic, and my Dads family is jewish.. when they got married my dads family disowned us basically for about 6 yrs of the marriage. Now everythings all hunky dorey.. AND us kids are catholic.
 
Ok, when it comes down to it...it's just how close are they to their families? If family is very close, I'd say forget about it. But it really comes down to if they are strong enough to just "forget about it".

My family is very devout Buddhist, or at least my parents are. We're ONLY allowed to date buddhists. Unfortunately my sister fell in love with a Catholic and wanted to marry him. All hell broke loose and my mom went pyscho on us. She would cry every day and was very depressed. She thought that my sister didn't love her for having disrespected her wishes (as if it was a choice) and basically life at home was pretty miserable. My sister was miserable too, but eventually my mom gave in with the one condition that my sister NOT attend church or let their kids get baptized. My parents are nice people, so they treat my sister's husband like a normal person, they don't shun him or ignore him. They don't blame him for his religion 😛 They just don't believe that people with different religious backgrounds will have a happy marriage. Which is totally untrue when the people involved are not that devout themselves, as is most of the cases nowadays (usually it's the parents that care)

Well as a conclusion, I don't really have an answer for you. I think for every case it's different. In my case my parents accepted it, but there are some that won't. But one thing I have left to say is that my sister is not the happiest person right now even though she is married to the guy that basically tore our own family apart. If she had to do it over again, I'm 100% sure she would have not let herself fall in love with this guy, it wasn't worth it. Not saying that he's a bad guy but that the trouble she went through to be with him was pure hell. (They were dating for around 6 years before they got married too).
 
Originally posted by: SuperTool
Also, the kid would not be Jewish, because mother has to be Jewish for that.
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I think that's probably the key issue for Henry's family. Jews are often encouraged/coerced/forced/beaten into marrying within the Tribe, especially for men.
 
goddamn! are all of you really that naive? where's ffmcobalt when you really need him? this is COMPLICATED. it might be easy and stupid to you, but it's certainly not to them and many others who are in their position. if you weren't brought up in a religious home, you cannot begin to understand what it would be like to completely anbandon your family, everything you were brought up to believe is true. have some compassion and try to sympathize with them rather than telling them they are stupid for loving their families at least as much as they love each other. religion isn't a fairytale joke to everyone.
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Making decisions based upon what your family wants you to do is simply childish and not "grown up". If everyone did what their family wanted them to do, we'd have a lot more doctors and lawyers in the world, no? Parents and family mean plenty to people, don't get me wrong, but you must ask yourself what is more important: the love of someone outside of your family that you can only find OR the love of your family which you will always have no matter what they say. I understand your reasons and this situation, but people have to be happy in their lives and they must choose what makes them more happy.

vash
 
maybe when you're part of a religion that says you should look down on people from other backgrounds, you should start thinking about whether or not you want to support that religion.

they should both tell their familes to go climb a tree. no one needs that kind of hate and prejudice in their life.
 
It doesn't work out.. Family pressure is immense..
I dated an Islamic girl before..It sucks big time when their parents hate you for no other reason than
the fact you're not of their faith.
Religion is a bunch of crock and has done nothing but control the minds of people
throughout history.
I'd rather go to hell then live a life of discrimination and ignorance based upon one's beliefs.
 
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