Re: Life is Beautiful: Please read

Submitted by Straight_Talk_Luigi (United States), Apr 7, 2008 at 02:15

Hi there! And thanks for sharing your story!

First of all, WHOA! I think you need to slow things down a bit. The WORST thing you could do is RUSH into this without a clear head, and if you can't even get that in this relationship, it's not worth it. Things won't just go away and work out if you get married right away, and I've noticed this to be an unfortunate way to think on here.

And if you don't get anything else from here, whatever you do, DON'T DON'T marry someone just to have kids and feel complete.

I'm not a woman, but I can understand your need and want to have children, but it's not healthy or a good idea to rush a life-alternating decision because of time. There's still time, Life, it may not feel like it, but you just have to slow down a little, and catch your breath. If you do go to Italy, yes, there is still time for you to have children. More and more women are having babies at a later age. The important thing is that you aren't looking for a fling and then expecting a typical family life shortly after.

I'm going to cut the chase here: the fact that the both of you don't agree on religion is a problem.

The fact that this man of yours doesn't think his children should be able to choose their own religion at 18 is VERY disturbing to me, because in Europe and in America they are LEGAL adults, and he cannot tell them what they can and cannot believe whether he likes it or not.

The problem with your situation, Life, is this DEMAND---be it only ONE, for now anyway----may only be the tip of the iceberg. At the very least it's possible some of his family or possibly he himself will begin to resent you if you do not convert after a time.

How do I know this? Because in my time, I have dated mostly non-Catholic women. I myself am a Catholic, and whenever the idea of marriage ever came up, I always told them that the kids at least would need to be Catholic. A lot of times, I knew it wouldn't happen, yet I kept the relationship going, almost out of false hope and because I didn't want to get hurt (the worst reason EVER to keep a relationship going) but as we would get closer, it just drew up more tension between us, even when my woman agreed to do so. Yet, I knew in my heart it would be difficult for a non-Catholic or non-Orthodox woman to put forth the effort in making out well-rounded Christian kids.

like Dr. Pipes says in his blog above, it is a REQUIREMENT for Catholics to raise their children as Catholics---whether the spouse is Catholic or not. The same is true for Islam. That's one big reason the they are two largest world religions.

Now, I've touched on this before, as you may have seen, but Muslim leaders are NOT objecting to such marriages, because they think well, the Catholic will convert to Islam and raise the kids as Muslims. A lot of times, they do. But, I've know of a theory where Christian wives who have secretly raised their children as Christians under the very nose of Muslim fathers, one such case was in Iran. These are the bitter experiences that Stephen Humao, the Japanese cardinal, (a cardinal is the office just below the Pope), talks about.

At the very least you need to communicate to him how you REALLY feel about religion and your kids in religion. Because otherwise he's going to press this on the kids, even against their will, I fear.

I just don't like the sound of this, Life, not just because of the religion, but because of how he's making it an all or nothing deal, and he's forcing the issue with saying how they'll have to be Muslim after age 18.

I honestly think that it's a preview towards the type of life you might have. I mean, by you're post, I can just sense how stifled you are by all this, and from what you've been saying on here, I'm not convinced this is the right man for you. Yes, you love him. But the question is: Do you want to live a life with someone who has fundamental differences with you? It's things like lifestyle and religion that ultimately make or break a marriage.

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