My wife is christian, I am atheist. We have a good system

Hello everyone,

As the title says, I am an atheist (raised Evangelical Lutheran), and my wife is a Christian (also raised Evangelical Lutheran, same organization). We have been together for about 7 years, married for 4.

I often see hesitancy when it comes to having relationships with religious folk on this sub, which is honestly entirely warranted. It can be a tough thing to navigate, and I thought I'd share my experiences just in case it's helpful to anyone. I'd also be interested in the discussion that follows.

I was an atheist for a number of years before I started dating my wife. Early on in our relationship we were honest with each-other about our beliefs and how they affect our worldview. We found it really important to respect each-other's right to hold different beliefs, even if we (particularly I) don't necessarily respect the beliefs themselves. We agreed to discard any expectation of change for one-another, and we didn't want the relationship to be built on false expectations. As you can imagine, I'd love for her to deprogram from her religious views and she'd love for me to be inspired by that sneaky ol' Holy Ghost, but we put that aside out of fairness for each other.

Of course this comes with some minor irritations. When I want to nerd out about space-time or evolution, I have to find others to share my discoveries with. Also she has a tough time with the alien conversation, but all things considered this has worked out well for us.

We are both quite progressive in ideology, which does make her an outlier within the religious organization she is a part of. She has a wonderful sense of empathy that I adore about her, and is a supporter of things like LGBTQ+ rights among many other common progressive ideologies. I would argue some of these beliefs may be antithetical to the christian ideology, but she has her own rationalizations for her progressive outlook and I think the ends justify the means in that regard. We also both share a negative view (understatement of the year) of the hateful rhetoric of most religious groups in the US.

We currently have a little toddler that we both love dearly, and leading up to having a child we had lots of discussions about how to manage our different belief systems regarding a child. We would both like to share our views with our little kiddo, but don't want to actively undermine each-other either. I imagine there will be a bit of a learning curve when it comes to this, but we've established a few 'rules' for our discussions with the little one until she's old enough to make her own decisions. It was a necessity that we agreed she gets to make her own decisions about religion when she is old enough to understand the nuances of the topic, and we agreed that she's allowed to believe whatever she chooses. If that means she ends up disagreeing with both of us and subscribing to Hinduism or something, so be it. We've established that we don't want her to be a science-denier, or unsympathetic to those different than her or as you often see in religious communities. We want to instill in her a respect for those different than us, and I think this common ground has made the conversation simpler. If anyone has any questions about this I'd be happy to answer them.

Of course, I do have to say most conservative christian women may not hold similar worldviews. I can count the number of christian women in my life that think like this on one hand. Things of course may have been simpler if I married an atheist or she married a christian, but we love the life we've built and are dedicated to making it work. We try to be honest with each-other and anticipate difficult situations which I think makes all the difference. It's not a perfect system. I know it still makes her a little sad thinking about me kicking it with Satan in Florida when I die, and I'd like for her to let me nerd out about evolution sometimes, but it's worked well for us so far.

Edit 1: I see lots of comments about her belief in hell. Yes, she believes that without belief in Jesus people will go to hell, including me. She also subscribes to the Lutheran teaching that god wipes everyone’s memory like in Men In Black, so that nobody is sad about what happened on earth / those who didn’t make it up there. Hell does not come up often, nor does it really bother me particularly. She’s also in the process of removing herself from organized religion entirely (her idea), and she is only going to teach our daughter a simplified version of christianity as technically all you’d have to believe in is Jesus. I will be teaching her about science and world history, and my wife and I are working together to introduce our competing concepts as cohesively and appropriately as we can. When she begins to question these things, we will be honest with her and respectful of each other as we have always been.

Thank you to all those who shared your perspectives of having similar relationships, or being raised in a similar household. I appreciate everyone who has contributed to the overarching conversation with concerns or pitfalls to watch out for.