No matter what happens, best of luck being a daddy, and take good care of your child, y’hear?

I share a similar experience in having deconversion take a long time, mostly internal. The open part was admitting doubts, but I don’t think I even admitted them clearly to myself until the end, when faith came off all at once. Natural to me, shocking to my wife. Lots of emotions for most of a year, much better now about a year later.

It takes a lot of patience from both sides to make things work (obviously), and I think it is important to take the long-term view of things. like you said, people can change, and it’s not easy.

I think the shifting that takes place though can make the middle ground easier to find. Honestly, in one year since leaving the faith, I can much better understand a liberal or progressive faith, and while neither my wife or I are there, liberal Christians, we can find a lot more common ground to discuss things there.

Children are a blessing for atheists and theists. Our kids are certainly one reason my wife and I work hard to make our marriage work, but that has been a good thing, fighting through the tough times. Hope you both enjoy your child together and find whatever understanding you need. My heart goes out to you both.

I tried to keep my request to Richard as brief as possible (as I am sure he gets many requests for advice) but still convey the point–which was to describe the breakdown of communication between me and my wife. I probably should have been more diplomatic in my description…

I certainly didn’t intend to make my wife out to be a villain by any means! (I’m afraid I have, and that’s my mistake). She is not. However, the hysterical reaction I encountered was unexpected and completely out of character of someone I have been with for over 10 years.

To be fair, I realize my “declaration” of being an atheist was equally out of character of me–even after expressing past doubts. It was a much bigger deal to her than I anticipated.

I’m hoping I didn’t make a colossal mistake by bringing a child into the picture. But I made that decision because I love her very much, not because of her Christian beliefs. We want to have a family and I accept the fact that she may never believe the same way I do. I am certainly willing to compromise, work on our problems, and improve communication.

I will certainly take Richard’s advice to heart. I do understand this is a disturbing problem for her. (After all, I used to be one of those “fundies”)! So I understand where she is coming from.

I believe people can change, but it’s certainly not easy. A person’s core beliefs are influenced by a variety of influential factors like fear, indoctrination since birth, culture, family, and suppression of outside views–it can be difficult to have an open mind.

In my case, it certainly helps when there is a friendly and understanding atheist who befriended a fundamental, conservative Christian like I used to be!

People are not static, unchanging things like statues. They grow, they change. To expect life-long immutability in all things is childish naivete. Some changes are too much for their partners to adjust to. Many changes can seem too big at first, but with some effort, they later can seem minor. The smallest size of the problem that overwhelms a person’s ability to adjust is a measure of their maturity and personal strength. Often getting through a challenge leaves people more mature and stronger. I think that both BT and his wife have what it takes, if they can only bring it out.

Couples have overcome much more difficult challenges than this. They did it by both meeting their ability to respond.

It’s a reasonable expectation that people won’t ever reconsider their religious views??

I would say yes, it’s a reasonable expectation in that reasonably one might assume that most people won’t. Just as it’s reasonable to assume that there won’t be snow tomorrow morning in Los Angeles.

It’s not, however, a reasonable thing to demand that someone never reconsider their religious view.

You rock. That’s all. Erik and I don’t agree on religion, but we follow your posts, and we 100% agree on THAT!

There is a big difference between blaming someone else and understanding the root of the problem by accepting your share of the blame. Bad Timing has changed his life view and it has caused problems in his marriage. He needs to understand this and stand in her shoes before attempting to fix the problem.

His wife married a fundamentalist and had the reasonable expectation that her child’s father would be a fundamentalist not an atheist.

While I wouldn’t suggest for an instant that you cite Dawkins when talking to your wife, I think he also assessed himself as a cultural Christian, simply due to the society he happened to be born into.

Curtis, while BT has changed in religious views from the man his wife married, isn’t it (or shouldn’t it be) our normal expectation, that we will change, and the people around us will change too?

and there are people who fix problems.

Blame and fault are very primitive ways of thinking. They focus on the past and on punishment. They don’t improve one molecule of a bad situation.

One problem solver is more valuable than ten million blame finders.