Mixed Marriages

I've been thinking a lot lately about mixed marriages. I haven't posted on it because I've been a tad afraid of offending someone, somewhere.  Now feels right.  NB:  It is not my intention to offend anyone.  If I do so, it is unintentional.

In the Catholic faith, ours will be a mixed marriage.  Since *B* is not baptized in any Christian church, this also means that our marriage will not be a sacrament for me. When we first met, I had pretty much given up on any kind of church, Christian or not.  I didn't care, then, what he believed in. Yes, I knew he was really into communing with nature as a form of spiritual satisfaction.

When we first talked about getting married, it was a pretty secular proposition.  As plans firmed up, I realized that I wanted to get married in a Catholic church.  I had done everything else thus far, I might as well.  So we found a priest, and we talked about the three questions we will have to agree to in order to be married in the church:  we have to be faithful to each other, believe that marriage is for life, and raise our children in the church.  He also told us that we needed to go through some kind of marriage class (standard procedure).  We had heard bad things about the group sessions, so we chose the sponsor couple route.

At the same time, I had been developing in what I tentatively call my faith.  I'm still a tad nervous and hesitant.  But I wanted *B* to be exposed to the church, so we started going to Mass shortly after our first sponsor couple meeting.  We've now been going just about two months.

I know that I feel better since we started going.  I at least partially attribute my departure from therapy to feeling more fulfilled after attending church.

In the beginning, it made us stronger.  We would go, and make the drive home, feeling happy and restored.  Believe it or not, it soon started causing a bit of a rift between me and *B*.  I started to try to teach *B* some of the things that would happen in Mass.  The sign of the cross, what to say.  He felt...attacked for lack of a better word.  At least he was there, he thought.  True, so I tried to back off.  I just wanted to help.  Then he'd ask questions, trying to better understand.  And I'd excitedly answer them.  I ate them up.  I came to find myself desperately wanting him to become Catholic.  I've never really cared before.  The worst part is, I don't exactly know why I want this so.

Part of it is tradition.  My family is all Catholic, and I don't really see another religion being possible or desirable.  Part of it is that I want the classic idea of the Catholic family:

Despite what reality may be, I imagine a Catholic family to be one in which the kids are try their best, are respectful, and have complete faith (at least while they're young).  I know that what I'm going for is not necessarily based in religion, but when I see it, I feel a tug.

Regardless, *B* says he likes going to church.  He's even going to Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) to learn about Catholicism, though he's pretty certain he won't be baptized.  He has no problem bringing our kids up Catholic and even being a source of answers for them when they have questions about the church.  

So what's my problem?  I have no answer for that.  I also can't answer a number of *B*'s questions.  It hasn't bothered me so much that I have some doubts about major tenets of the church.  It does bother *B* that he has the same concerns.  Why would he be baptized in a church with which he doesn't at least mostly agree?  But then again, if he's going to church, participating in church activities, why not go full in and hope that you figure it out along the way?  In the midst of this, I question what tenuous grip I have on being Catholic.  Ugh, right now it's the blind leading the blind.

Though I'm sure I know the answer to this question:  is there any easy way to figure all this out?