How it works

My husband is not of my faith.  I am a very active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka Mormon) and my husband is atheist.  This is quit the shocker to people when we tell them.  The question that we hear from almost everyone is, "How does that work?"  Well, I'll tell you...

My husband, Jared, and I first laid eyes on one another about 16 years ago.  He was a senior in high school.  I was a junior.  He was this super cute baseball stud.  I was a friendly yet shy girl who worked in the student store.  Jared would come into the store at lunch and usually get the same thing, a cherry coke and a snickers bar.  After a while I would get his order out as soon as he walked in the door.  This was my shy way of flirting.  Around Valentines day of that year, our ASB sponsored a compatibility test.  You filled out the questionnaire then paid $2 to get your results which would tell you who of the people who filled out the questionnaire you were most compatible with.  Guess who was at the top of my list?!  The cute baseball stud!  I think this made me even more shy around him.  I wondered if he too took the test and got the results but I never asked him.  In fact, I'm not sure if we said more then hi or bye to one another the whole school year.  That summer I got a job at a local restaurant.  Guess who worked there?!  The cute baseball stud!  At this point I was becoming a little more brave with boys but he was dating someone and soon I too was dating someone.  A year and a half passed.  My parents were going through a divorce.  My home life was hard to bear sometimes and I found myself leaning more and more on my friends, finding any excuse to not be home and believing less and less in marriage.  I broke up with my on again/off again boyfriend of 2 years and was ready to just be me.  I had given up on "stupid boys".  Jared happened to be single at this time too.  I can remember the first time he asked me to hang out with him just he and I.  It was such a lame (sorry honey) excuse but I ate it up.  He asked me to go cell phone shopping with him because I "seemed like I would know about cell phones".  LOL.  That excursion led to another, then another, and another.  Our parents kept asking us what was going on between us and we kept saying "We're just friends."  After a few weeks we both knew that we were more than just friends.  We were in love.  This fact was a little scary for both of us in the beginning.  At this point Jared was agnostic and had no plans of joining the church and taking me to the temple to be married.  He knew that's what I wanted so Jared did the honorable thing and broke up with me.  I was so sad.  I knew that I had found the man I was meant to be with.  I cried and cried but then on the way home from our meeting I had the sudden feeling that this was not the end of us.  We would be together.  A few days later Jared came over and told me that if I understood that he was not going to convert to Mormonism that he would like to get back together.  My only question for him was "when we have children, will you support me raising our children in the church?"  He was on board.  The rest is history.

When Jared purposed to me my family was worried.  They couldn't understand why I would risk my eternal destiny for this boy.  They warned me that life married to a non-member would be difficult.  I would likely fall away from the church and find myself in a life that I did't want.  My father was probably the most supportive during this time.  He believed that I had a good head on my shoulders and knew what I was doing.  I spent a lot of time on my knees during this time.  Every time I prayed to my Father in Heaven for guidance I got the same answer, Jared's the one. 

During our engagement Jared would come to many church activities and occasionally come to church too.  My bishop married us so we met with him a few times before the ceremony and actually had dinner with his family before the wedding as well.  Jared knew the congregation and they knew him.  So after we were married Jared actually came to church with me most Sundays.  It was so nice to have him there, holding my hand, being so supportive.  When I look at my husband, I don't see a non-member.  I see a man who loves me, supports me, is honest, moral, and is just an all around good guy.  About 3 months after we married, I had members of my family, including my mother and my little brother who was on a mission at the time, tell me that they could see why I married Jared.  They told me that the two of us are supposed to be together.  Jared is supposed to be in our family.  I couldn't agree more.  They could finally see beyond the fact that Jared and I didn't share the same faith.  They could see what I saw all along in my sweet husband.

After being married for 4 years I decided that I was ready to make the commitment to go to the temple.  It was an exciting time but also a little difficult because I had envisioned Jared and I going to the temple together and that would not be happening.  My husband was SO supportive of my decision.  Jared attended temple preparation classes with me, was present when I received my patriarchal blessing, and even waited outside the temple when I went through for the first time.  It was the next best thing to him going through with me.  And even though I secretly wished Jared was there inside the temple with me, I felt so proud of him and loved him even more that he was not going to do something just because someone else wanted him to.  Jared would always be true to himself and his convictions.  And in turn would support me doing the same.  I've seen people join the church because someone else wanted them to, not because they in fact had a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the gospel of Jesus Christ.  They never last long in the church.  I believe strongly that no one should join the church for another person.  Only get baptized because YOU know its right.  I've told Jared this several times over the years. 

I'll be honest,  I do think life would be easier if Jared and I shared the same faith.  Of course it would be.  But we don't and so we deal with it.  We do more then deal with it.  We use it in our favor.  It forces us to be more understanding and compassionate to each other.  We don't just "get" each other's views.  We talk about our beliefs with each other all the time always trying to understand the other a little better.  We love and support one another and our differences.  We talk a lot about religion and faith.  We understand that we have different opinions and views about the creation and scripture and Christ, etc. but we never say the other is wrong or make the other feel like their opinion doesn't matter.  Just like all couples should love and respect each other it means something more to us coming from different religious views.  We know that having a split faith family is only going to get more challenging as our sons get older.  We are raising our children in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and we both fully expect them to be baptized when they turn 8, receive the priesthood at 12 and go on missions when they graduate high school and turn 18.  However we know how important it is that they understand that they have a choice.  God blessed us all with free agency.  Honestly it will break my heart a little if the boys choose not to be members of the church.  I know that just like I respect my husband's choice to not become a member of the church I would have to respect my son's choices as well. 

How do we make it work?  A lot of love, respect, support, and understanding.  We're just like any other couple.