Coping Strategies for Interfaith Marriages

If your interfaith marriage is having some difficulties, here are some coping strategies to help deal with the sensitive religious issues that could be hurting your interfaith marriage relationship.

• When planning your wedding or other important family event, consider having something from both of your religious traditions in the ceremony. Some interfaith couples decide to have two separate ceremonies.

• Don't try to convert your spouse to your beliefs. Conversion only works long term when the change is truly desired by the converting spouse and the decision to convert was made without pressure.

• Do remain nonjudgmental. Together, look for ways to brainstorm solutions to your differences.

• Be realistic about your faith differences. Talk about the common aspects of your faith lives, too. Find ways to merge traditions. Appreciate your religious convictions and celebrate your faith diversity.

• Don't ignore your religious differences. Doing nothing and just letting things slide when it comes to religious issues will eventually create conflict in your interfaith marriage.

• Make time to learn about one another’s faith traditions. the more you know, the better you will both understand one another's religious beliefs.

• Discuss where the two of you will worship. Will you worship separately or together? Withdrawing from either of your churches is only a temporary fix. There will probably come a time when one or both of you will have a yearning to be involved in your own religious traditions again.

• Compromising your faith beliefs may not create harmony. Some couples look for a third, different religion for both of them to join, but this is usually not a workable compromise. Other couples find that their solution is total separateness when it comes to religion. Staying active in your own faith tradition and supporting and honoring one another's religion is generally a much more positive approach.

• Talk about your feelings and thoughts concerning tithing. With money issues being a top reason why couples divorce, this is an issue that needs to be decided on together.

• Before you have children, talk with one another about any issues either of you may have concerning baptism or religious education. Decide if your children will learn about both faiths or just one faith. so you know if you are going to have the children learn about either faiths or only one.

• Don't defend your parents if they interfere in your interfaith marriage. If you know that either one or both of your parents will be having problems with your interfaith relationship, discuss how you will handle their possible interference in your lives.