Joshtown

Im not done with the relationship at all. There have been a few times Ive thought it was over, but we have been able to keep things going. We've recently had a very productive talk and I'm very happy with where things are and where things are headed. I certainly don't believe that every issue has been solved, but we are in a much better place right now. Our relationship will always be a work in progress but as long as we maintain openness and honesty going forward, then we can be happy. I appreciate all the thoughts and comments regarding this issue. Thank you.

Yeah I have to check myself when I blame myself fully for what has happened thus far. I don't take full blame for everything but I do recognize that my actions in seeking information about atheism, philosophy and self-knowledge have led us to this point. It certainly is not the only factor but it is the main reason. We've had enough conversations at this point that I understand where things stand with us for the most part. I am always reminding myself to focus on my long term happiness over this short term pain. Its very difficult for me not to feel guilty however for the state of our relationship. I don't know if I should feel guilty at all but I can't seem to overcome that feeling that I'm the one most responsible for what has happened.

Thank you to the three of you for responding. I'll try to provide some more helpful information. My question is, why didn't she choose to come on this journey with you? Did she offer any feedback on the ideas you were discovering during their appearance? Religion was always something I kept for myself, probably for a number of reasons. So when I started down the journey to atheism, yes I talked about it with her at times, but I kept a lot hidden from her. I would bring up certain questions to try and gauge where she was at with her beliefs, but while she was questioning our specific religion, I was questioning the very existence of god. In terms of anarchism or voluntaryism, that has been a very gradual process as well. Her and I have always been on opposite sides of the political spectrum, even when I was a statist. She's never been interested in discussing politics so we didn't discuss much about politics. So we didn't go down that journey together because she was not interested in examining those beliefs in herself. We were married young and as I said, we were both religious at the time. When I think about our relationship then, we really did not have too many things in common. It seemed like since we were both religious, and both were "fun" and "nice" people, we thought we'd be okay. And I think that if I never discovered philosophy we'd probably be okay. But since I've taken away our one true common interest of religion, that has really shined a light on how vacuous our relationship truly is. That is how she sees things from her perspective: that we didn't have much in common to begin with and now I've taken away what we did have in common its my fault for the problems in our marriage. The discussions we have now about anything real are few and far between. I would not say that the discussions are empathetic by any means. I certainly try my best to be empathetic but when the other person has no interest in self-knowledge its simply impossible. I don't think I answered it above, but no, thankfully we don't have any children. And I am so glad about that. That would make things so much more difficult than they already are.

I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts or experience with changing beliefs well into a marriage. In my case, I've been married for a number of years and I basically did a complete 180 on who I was when I got married. I was raised Catholic, was Catholic when I was married and was a Catholic until about 2 years ago when I became an atheist. Add that to the self-knowledge I've gained in the last couple years with the help of FDR, and I'm a completely different person now. Needless to say, it hasn't been good for my marriage. Has anyone had similar experiences in this area? I don't know if I'm looking for advice or for someone with a common experience but I wanted to see what people have to say. Thanks.