Dear Lisa, I am in a great relationship with a guy who is not Catholic, he is an atheist. But he is an incredible person and treats me well. What is the big deal about having to date a Catholic, anyway? He seems just as nice.
This is an excerpt from an email I recently received, and the writer asks a great question. These days, it may seem petty to some single Catholics when people advise them to date and marry someone who is also Catholic, as opposed to someone of a different faith.
Yet, there are several excellent reasons why this actually is good advice, and the most important reason is in recognizing that the ultimate purpose of marriage—beyond love for each other and having children—is to get each other to heaven. Because of our human imperfections, this will always be challenging, but if you are committed to someone who does not hold the same faith you do, achieving this goal could become all the more complicated. When couples have struggles over different beliefs, it often results in the Catholic partner leaving his or her faith in favor of the other partner's.
Can't We All Just Get Along?
Some people believe as long as a couple is in love and gets along well, it doesn't matter if their religious beliefs – or lack thereof – differ. But think about that for a moment. When you commit to something or someone in any way, you become yoked to them. Employees are yoked to their company's owners and their policies, for example, because of their commitment to work for them and represent the owners' beliefs and philosophies to the public. Many people over the years have quit their jobs due to disagreements with these things, and the great thing is, an employee can quit.
Marriage, on the other hand, is altogether different because you’re not supposed to just quit. When a spouse quits her marriage, regardless of the reason, generations suffer. So it makes sense you would want to fortify your relationship for the long haul by selecting people who hold your same values and philosophies about life, the afterlife, and morality. All of this is important because big disagreements about the faith can lead to future marital discontent.
The happiest couples, according to the experts, have a mutual identity and the only way to achieve this type of singularity is through first, having a strong sense of your own identity and having someone compatible with whom you can unite—which means even in social dating, you should be looking for like-minded people to spend time with.
During my single years, there was one guy in particular I really liked and we were compatible in many ways. However, we came from different faith backgrounds and the things we disagreed upon most were always related to our different religious beliefs. We could laugh hysterically about certain things, enjoy going out to various places with no problem, but when it came to discussing deeper issues, we kind of just danced around them. I finally had to ask myself if I would ever marry him because of course, dating forever was not my goal.
I imagined what being his wife would be like on many occasions, especially interacting with his family whom I loved, but who held his beliefs. I had no doubt a good portion of our life together would be exciting and fulfilling, but I knew I would never be able to hold a meaningful conversation with him because his views were so different and he had no interest in my convictions.
But a bigger problem for me was knowing that when problems would arise in our relationship, we would not have a solid foundation to fall back on. For these reasons, I called the relationship off. We remained friends, but it was always awkward between us after that and it was so sad. I couldn't help but feel that if my faith had played a bigger role in who I dated, he and I would still be good friends.
Today, I am married to a wonderful Catholic man and we see eye-to-eye on all the important issues. Being faithful in the quest to marry a Catholic was worth it. So, I encourage you to have the conversations that are important to you, and if you begin dating someone who fits in every way except in the realm of faith, don't be afraid to have those discussions to see how compatible you really are and if the relationship will be a blessing or cause problems in the future.
I am always interested in what you have to say, so feel free to drop me a line at [email protected] or visit me at LisaDuffy.Com.
