For many people, religion is a must do and for some it’s not. While you may find this hard to believe, for some people the religious component in their marriage is not something they discuss. There could be a variety of reasons for this, from the fact that religion is deeply personal to them and they practice privately. I have known many successful marriages where this is the case.
Is Religion Important to You?
If religion is important to you, if it’s important for you and your spouse to share that journey, then there are things that two of you should be talking about. If you are wondering how religion might be important now that you are married when perhaps it wasn’t when you got married in the first place – understand that things change. People change. You may have reconnected with the religion and faith of your childhood, you may have engaged in a relationship with someone who is passionate about their faith or perhaps the two of you are on a spiritual journey together.
So how do you start this conversation? I’m not talking about an attempt to convert or to change your spouse’s mind, I’m talking about a conversation. If your journey is about rediscovering your spiritual sides or even if you are both trying to discover if religion, faith or spirituality means anything to each of you – then it’s important to talk about it and here are some questions that can help you the two of you to get that conversation started:
- When you were a child, how did you and your family celebrate religion? How did that make you feel? Did you just go through the motions or did your family experience really enhance the depth of your religious experience and/or vice versa?
- What major religious events marked your youth? Do you have deeply fond memories of those times? Did they affect you in some profound way?
- Are your parents still practicing a belief in the divine? Did you abandon their beliefs or did you discover something else?
- Do you practice your religion daily, is it a way of life? Do you just attend services at specific times? What are your thoughts on the divine? How do you feel that faith or belief affects you?
- What spiritual items have meaning for you? Do you own any? Are they important because of your faith or because of how you received them?
- Is it important for you to set what your child’s religious identity will be? Do you want to be a guide on their journey or the architect of it?
- Is there a daily religious practice you perform? Why do you perform it? What is your level of satisfaction with these acts?
- Is there anything about your religion or the system of belief that you don’t like? Why?
Remember, these are just conversation starters – they aren’t designed to all be discussed in one sitting nor are they meant for the two of you to pick each other apart – they are to help you explore how you both feel and what is important to you. You may not have answers to all of these questions – but you don’t have to – that’s the point – searching for the answers together.
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