Video:Tips for Maintaining Interfaith Marriages

Transcript:Tips for Maintaining Interfaith Marriages

Hi, I’m Dale Atkins, I’m a psychologist and I’m here for About.com. If you are a couple thinking about getting married and you’re from different faiths, there are a few things you might want to consider before tying the knot.

Learn About Each Other's Faiths

Learn all you can, about the other person’s religion and about your religion. Read books, attend worship services, and try and understand your feelings about the other person’s religion. Each of us is raised with a series of ideas and feelings, and it’s important to understand how you feel, not only about your religion but about your spouse’s religion.Be patient with yourself and with your spouse, and with your respective families. Sometimes have a very difficult time accepting a person of another faith.

Create Respectful Boundaries in Interfaith Marriages

Draw a line, know your boundaries. Understand what’s tolerable and intolerable for you and your spouse. Comments that be insulting or may be hurtful or insensitive really cannot be tolerated, and it’s important for the two of you to understand what is acceptable and what isn’t acceptable.It’s very important that children have a very strong sense of identity and who they are. So whether or not you’re going to raise them with both religions or one religion as the predominant faith, discuss it and feel good about your decision.

Be Open to Compromise Your Religious Celebration

Adjust how you worship and celebrate. People evolve in their spiritual practice as they get older, and what’s important as a couple is that you are in touch with each other and that you respect this evolutionary process.Remember that you are from two very different cultures or two very different backgrounds. Now is the time to really understand each other, respect each other, and build your life together that’s based on those two factors. If you’d like to learn more about having a healthy marriage, please visit About.com.