Quote:

---

Nina posts:

If this has no real future, though, (marriage and family), why are you letting yourselves get more and more attached to each other? It will only make the inevitable break up that much more painful. As someone who has lived this lesson, I can only say that it will never get easier to leave him, and it will never be less painful than it will be this week. If you're really falling for each other as whole human beings, however, then religious belief won't matter. Many families raise children in both traditions, allowing them to choose which one, if any, to follow when they're on their own. It's very challenging, to be sure, but it's being done all across the country. I don't doubt that there are support groups in churches and temples devoted to this very topic. But what's there to fight about, anyway? No one is going to change the other's mind. The nature of religious belief/practice dictates that no one can think or say his or her faith is better than the other's. You belive what you do about these matters, and he believes what he does about them. If either of you do harbor secret judgements or attitudes about the other's religion, then even more so get out now. The religious issue isn't just a "fly on the windshield," Gagmouse. It's the engine of the car you're driving. If he wasn't Jewish, he wouldn't be the guy you think is great. Jewishness is as much cultural in nature as it is religious. The same goes for why you're how you are. Our faith traditions have a lot to do with who we are. My first husband was Protestant, and I, Jewish. Because we didn't want kids and weren't observant in our traditions, we didn't think it mattered. But it did. As a Protestant raised in a patriarchal family, my ex had a very different notion of "marriage," "wife," "husband," and "good marriage" than I did being raised in a Jewish matriarchal family. It just made for assumtions and clashes and misunderstandings.

---