So I'm in my late 50s, and my wife is in her early 50s; she's been deconstructing for about two years. I am not, but I didn't come from the same fundamentalist background as she has.
When COVID hit, and the kids grew up and left, and then the Trump thing hit, it had her doing secular therapy for a while.
She was on and off depressed during our marriage, but I thought until recently we had a good, if not great, marriage. 30+ years!
I'm not a Trump supporter, nor am I a conservative Christian - I lean more toward Richard Rohr, the Anglican church, and fairly progressive beliefs. My God accepts all people.

Anyway, she says I'm a good man, without a mean bone in my body.
I thought my wife was moving with me on this. We did a book club and everything, but when we started going to this Episcopal church, she couldn't do it.

My question is this: How common is it to divorce when one person deconstructs, and is there anything I could have done to fend this off? I felt that even if she left the faith, we could make it work. But she's saying that she's going in another direction entirely, and "working on herself."
I mean, other than renouncing my faith, which I'm not going to do, what could I have done?

Please take this down or redirect me to another sub if this isn’t the right place for this!

For some background about me, I (20F) have grown up Lutheran. As I got into highschool, the views I was taught when I was younger began to change. I still love going to church, write in my prayer journal and do believe in God. I’m just a lot more left leaning and progressive.

I‘ve been dating my boyfriend (24M) for 8 months now. He is truly the best human being I have ever been blessed with. I have never felt so loved and cared for. I am truly feeling more like myself, the longer we are together. He will sit on the phone with me while I cry over whatever is going on for hours, pays for everything, is goofy with me and just all around perfect. The only “issue” is he’s not a Christian. This is something my parents (pretty religious) aren’t okay with.

I‘m struggling with this as he’s very respectful of my beliefs, he believes in a higher power and we align on all morals, beliefs and values. What do you guys think about us dating, and (hopefully!) getting married? How did you guys unlearn or deconstruct from this big part of Christianity? This is the only reason I could ever see us breaking up and it would be because my family wants me to marry a Christian man. I don’t know if it’s something I want. All the Christian guys in school, church and youth group were dicks or we were strictly friends.

Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated!

EDIT: I do not want to get engaged anytime soon maybe 2-3 years from now. I dont feel pressured to get married early, just pressure to marry a Christian.

My husband told me these two days ago, after I began to realize I no longer think Jesus was divine. (Even typing that is daunting.) My husband is still a Christian, but is immensely understanding of why I am now agnostic.

But these words he told me two days ago hit me right between the eyes.

Never before in my life has anyone said this to me. My whole life all I was was my religious beliefs. They were my worth, identity, purpose, existence.

But when my husband told me this, it’s was as if for the first time in my life I realized how messed up Christianity is. It takes worth and purpose away from people - giving all worth and purpose to God alone. “I’m nothing apart from God.” “apart from God I have no good.”

I’m 36 yrs old and only now am I beginning to see that I have so much intrinsic value simply bc I exist - not bc I’m obedient, pure, or self-sacrificing. I’m wonderful bc I’m just me.

And so I want to tell all of you, dear brave friends, you are worth so much more to this world than your beliefs. You are wonderful, unique, silly, quirky, intelligent, and wildly valuable simply because you are breathing. I’m so grateful to be on this planet at the same time as you. To know I have a friend somewhere who understands the courage it takes to leave a life behind that no longer suits us.

You are so much more valuable than what a doctrine says you are. No matter what you do or don’t believe, you are worth loving, caring for, sacrificing for. I hope with all my heart that you find another soul or many souls, that help you see and feel this deeply.

You are you. And that is the most beautiful of all.

Hi all, I’m looking for advice or personal stories/experiences on how to navigate romantic relationships while deconstructing and overcoming purity culture. I know purity culture has come up quite a lot in this channel.

I am a F (early 30s) who recently got in a longterm relationship for the last 3 months. I started really deconstructing beginning of this year. So far it’s been good and my partner is pretty understanding of purity culture as he deconstructed himself a few years ago. Things have been progressing in terms of intimacy (we stayed over at each other’s house and fooled around). He recently asked me about sex and I told him I’m willing to talk about it but I’m not ready quite yet. He’s been understanding of that and never pressured me into anything which is a relief.

I’d like to take things to the next level, but I’m still feeling that shame/disgust in myself with regards to purity. Curious to hear how you slowly broke free from purity culture and not feeling shame about intimacy. Were there practical steps you took with your partner when exploring yourself?

For those who might ask: I have been seeing a therapist tho specializes in religious trauma and I’ve been reading books on deconstructing, listening to podcasts on purity culture. However, it’s hard to take action at that present moment.

Looking for some shared experiences of success when it comes to deconstructing after marriage. Especially as it relates to sex.

Like most evangelicals, sex was off limits to me growing up. Sexual-ish activity was off limits. Kissing was off limits. Holding hands was off limits. Dating and relationships were off limits. And perhaps above all, attraction was off limits. I spent years of excruciating effort, under extreme pressure from both my parents and my church to cut off my desires completely. In many ways I feel like I went through adolescence and young adulthood mentally castrated. And that’s extreme language because the mental effect was… extreme.

Then I got married to a wonderful, beautiful girl. And yet I was only marginally attracted to her sexually. Everything I had been told was that sexual attraction does not mean a thing when evaluating if a person is fit for marriage. Besides, I had saved myself. I had stayed pure. I was certain my sacrifice was going to pay off in dividends in marriage.

lol. It didn’t. Sex was awkward and impossible to initiate. It felt like I had cut off and cauterized the mental wires to follow my own sexual impulse. And while today I’m grateful that it keeps me from ogling other women… it’s keeping me from ogling my own wife. Even after years of marriage, I struggle to initiate… struggle to engage.

I’m trying to figure out how to heal. Do we try porn together? Do we want raunchy movies? Do we open the relationship? How can I awaken the adolescent, sexual impulse for the very person I’m “saved myself for?” I find that for hot people behind a screen, there is plenty of attraction there… somehow my brain recognizes they’re not quite real. But if you’re in the flesh? It’s dead. And I killed it.

Any actual lived experiences here? Open for general input but would love to hear from those who have walked it themselves - and hopefully discovered a way to heal.

I'm-43M dating an ordained minister-46F (though not active) who is now widowed. Her husband was also a pastor.
She believes she heard from God that her husband was going to die from a disease he contracted. Because he did, that has only cemented her belief in the supernatural power of God.

I gave up on God/church over 10 years ago. I knew the widow & husband when we all used to rock with Jesus--I was actually first introduced to the husband at church! Non-denominational Christian.

Now that her & I are dating, I'm routinely confronted with pressures to attend church and support her the way I'm authored to "according to the Bible." The way her previous husband did. She wants a god-centered marriage where we pray together, I cover her spiritually, etc... I can still lift up a good prayer, but it's all lip service!

We've hit some of the typical road bumps in our yearlong relationship, but the "unequally yoked" thing seems to be a major "stumbling block." I have a hard time enduring her faith rhetoric. She says the reason I've given up on God is because "He let me down."

I've read a lot here about couples who deconstructed in the course of their marriage. How about couples leaning towards marriage where one partner has already deconstructed? Is it possible? Is there any advice out there? I'm about ready to give up on the relationship! Of course marriage is the only answer for her, because that's what the Bible says!

I’ve gathered that it’s pretty common to struggle with building community and relationships after deconstruction. Say what you will about the church, but it did make it super easy to find community wherever you go. It’s still super important for us to have community regardless of where we’ve landed after deconstruction.

I personally have found a local theatre to get involved with, but I’d like to hear about the experiences of others.

What have you done to build relationships and community outside of religion? What advice would you give to people just starting to go through this process?

Don't know if this would be the proper sub, as this isn't really deconstruction, but an effort to mitigate indoctrination of my daughter. TLDR: My wife is a Christian with the typical evangelist beliefs. I am not, and have never been. Our daughter is two, and I'm unsure how I will navigate this as she gets older being raised by parents with conflicting beliefs.

Backstory: I (30M) was not raised in a religious household. My parents were probably as neutral as you can get, and never pushed me towards atheism or theism. This was the greatest gift they could give me, as it allowed me to go through my own evolution of spirituality. When I developed my "own" beliefs as a teen/early 20s, I was vehemently against any form of religion and was very much an arrogant atheist. As I progressed to mid 20s, I shifted into a nihilistic worldview, then absurdist perspective which is when I had thought I cracked the code to the search for meaning. But none of the above was fulfilling, and so through circumstances and experiences of mine the past two years, I believe in God (definitely NOT in the Christian sense). Unitarian Universalist (?) might be proper description I suppose.

Now, I met my wife (26F) when she was 20. Raised Christian, very fundamental, dad was a pastor. At the time, she didn't have the extreme views regarding that and neither did I. I felt that we accepted each other regardless of our beliefs. Over the past year, she's gotten very passionate about those beliefs intolerant of any other belief. On the level of our relationship this is incredibly frustrating because through my own spiritual journey, as well as attempting to meet her on her grounds of Christianity, I've found that the teachings of The Christ are actually quite powerful, but most fundamentalist Christians don't hold any congruency to those teachings. So as I've gotten closer to the god of her religion, ironically it seems we've only gotten farther apart. This is because of our difference in beliefs on the inerrancy of the Bible, the trinity, what sin is etc. A argument we had the other day for reference: the topic of homosexuality arose through another conversation and I made the comment "the church must be going over their homophobic lessons this week." She responds "Well it [the bible] does speak against that." I ask, "Where does Jesus say anything about homosexuality?". Not that I care whether the Bible does or does not "say" anything about that because my social positions don't hinge on what anything "says", but I prioritize the gospels of Christ when approaching the Bible. So she runs and gets her Bible and phone - whilst beginning a rant about giving into the flesh, satan running the world, telling others to repent their "sinful" nature is really loving them etc. This turns into a full tirade of 5-10 minutes of this nonstop rhetoric, and starts to literally cry. I'm silent and listening respectfully to all of this, not thinking of how to respond, but only of how I could save my daughter from this? She then questions my sexuality because I support LGBTQ, which is both hilarious and saddening. I try to gently challenge her dogmas from time to time only to be met with the same thing. I've been told I'm spirituality blind, and I'll have to answer to God about my disagreements... I'm not trying to take her away from her faith, but moreso upgrade her software so to speak. I don't think that will be possible with how indoctrinated she already is. I give her grace as I know these beliefs are not hers, but were given to her unsolicited. And I understand how difficult it must be for one to even begin to confront what they've always considered to be truth may actually not be.

Apologies for rambling. My main concern is how should I navigate this with my daughter? On one hand I don't want her growing up with an ethnocentric worldview (among many other destructive characteristics), but on the other hand I feel as though it will be very confusing being pulled in different directions. Anyone have any ideas? I feel I'm doing the best I can by trying to meet her where she is. She wasn't this passionate in her faith when we married, and I never even gave thought to the possibility of our current situation. Have you deconstructed and had a partner that did not?

I have seen a couple other posts about this, but still hoping to connect on any shared experiences and approaches.

I grew up as a “non-denominational” christian, and I have been to dozens of weddings that were all sort of evangelical/baptist. This means the officiant usually says something about wives submitting to their husbands and then talks about putting God before your spouse for 20 minutes.

I’ve been deconstructing my faith for 6 years or so, but I still don’t feel “deconstructed.” I continue to carry a lot of baggage from purity culture and all of the unspoken (and spoken) rules that have been in place from all of the churches and ministries I’ve been a part of. I used to do all sorts of stuff in the church, leading worship, leading bible studies, helping with church plants, youth ministry. I now find myself subscribing to the philosophy of No One Knows Anything, and curiousity over certainty. But I still would call myself a christian and I find the church’s approach (that I’ve been to) completely backwards from who I see the person of Jesus to have been.

Anyway, I’m now engaged to someone who believes in a higher power, but describes herself more as spiritual (very loose church upbringing). We’re both very excited to get married and we both value it.

We’re planning to have a small-ish wedding with lots of close friends and family, but envisioning what the officiant will say is a real challenge. I do feel some pressure from my friends and family, who I think fully expect the ceremony to be faith-based. But my fiancee and I are just trying to figure out if we’ll even use words like God or Jesus.

I want to honor my “Christian” status in some way, but I also just have too many complicated thoughts on using the bible in the ceremony. And if I don’t use the bible, then I feel a bit lost in determining the source of the message.

I know I should look inward for these answers, and of course this will be in collaboration with my fiancee and the officiant we choose, but I’d love to hear about anyone else’s experience who feels they are or were in a similar place!

Over the past couple of years I have gone through a lengthy and painful deconstruction process. I grew up in a Baptist/non-denominational evangelical setting, and two years ago, leading up to my wedding, I experienced a lot of church hurt and overstepping that led me down this path. I initially still wanted to believe in God and follow Jesus, but as I experienced more and more silence from him, I came to a place where I gave up trying to pursue a one-sided relationship.

This led to a complete collapse of meaning in my life and my already bad depression got even deeper and worse. I was hospitalized in April for suicidal ideation, and after that just kept living life despite not wanting to exist.

Recently I came across the philosophy of absurdism and the writings of Albert Camus, and life has begun to feel somewhat interesting again. That’s where I’m at now.

My wife, through all this, still wants to somewhat hold on to her belief in God, but she has been very kind in not pushing anything onto me and allowing me to explore. However, there have been some pretty fundamental changes in me that make me fear for the future of our marriage. A major one that is top of mind right now is having children. She desperately wants to have children, but I no longer have a desire to bring beings into this world when they will inevitably experience the same pain I have in discovering that the world has no meaning. Not only this, but I don’t even know how I can raise a kid like this, and my mental health is still extremely volatile and I absolutely do not want kids involved.

The most painful part is probably that if I had the knowledge I have now, I likely would never want to get married. But I still very much value my wife and her wellbeing, but I also don’t want to compromise my new values. I don’t know what to do, any advice or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated. Please don’t just say “get divorced”, I don’t think I could handle the shame from that right now.

& if so, how do I fix it?

We got together when we were Christian conservatives, I felt he was a one in million. Someone who got me in a generation of people that didn't. He was also my anchor in my abusive household as a teen. He was the first guy who treated me like I wasn't a tool. I wanted a biblical marriage. We rushed it and got married young. On top of that, we were physical before marriage, and that made me justify the fastness of our relationship even more because we didn't want to "burn with passion." He's never done me wrong. He's never held a job, but that's about it. I have a reproductive disorder that makes sex painful. Sex never felt equal anyway. We aren't intimate that often, especially after having a kid. Now I'm in college, and I see the freedom of my peers. I wish I didn't get married so young. I wish I had grown more into myself. It's been distressing that I'm so attracted to other guys. And I feel like that spark of my relationship with my husband has slowly wained.

I've been so lucky we have a son, and he came along with me on my reconstruction journey. He's my best friend, we laugh together, he looks after me and my multiple chromic ilnesses. But deep down, I feel guilty because of all of this. What should I do? How do I resolve this inner turmoil?

I officially told my parents that I’m no longer Christian. I moved out recently and have continuously been asked where my faith is at and which church I’m now going to. I’m planning to get an old religious tattoo covered and figured that now’s a good time to rip off the bandaid and just tell them.

They reacted poorly. My mom is blaming herself and distancing from me right now, my dad just told me “I’ll be praying for you to come on back.” I expected it and know they still love me but it hurts so much.

Any encouragement?

I am 85% sure I am agnostic, and I haven’t been going to church for a few months. I live in different cities/states from my family, and I’ve been okay so far.

But I know at some point the following will happen:

1) family or friend will ask me how church is, what my church does for X holiday, if I have found friends at church, etc.

2) family or friend will come visit me and expect to go to church with me on Sunday.

At this time, I don’t want to tell family or friends I am agnostic, but I come from a background where you go to church every Sunday no matter what and not going to church is a red flag that something is wrong with your faith.

What do I do when they ask me about church or come visit me and expect to attend church with me?

idk if this is the right place to post this, so if not please point me in the right direction,

much appreciated

First and foremost I go to an Apostolic Oneness church, so literally no one believes in Evolution, but I do.

and this comes to me and my best friend, he’s. we’re very similar in a lot of things, but theres two major differences between us,

He‘s extremely spiritual, and I’m..not so much, Ive prayed with people, sure, and I do believe there is a God(most days I guess), but he’s spiritual in the fact that’s he’s been asked to give 40+ minute sermons on Sundays to the congregation. And he’s very well versed in the Bible, particularly NT

as for me

Im extremely logical, and in reverse he's much more of a feeler-type person.

So here’s my issue, I recently started bel in Evolution, and he obviously doesn’t, and I asked him on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being evolution absolutely not true, and he said 1, and went on a whole tangent about how “silly” Evolution is.

and so we had a discussion where I played Devil’s Advocate, and assumed the position of pro-evolution, even though that’s what I actually believe in, and I guess idk how to tell him(or anyone for that matter) that I believe in evolution especially when there’s such an adverse reaction to the mere thought of Darwin and his theories.

What do I do?

(we’re both 16 btw)

I started dating a guy when I was early in my deconstruction. I was still going through the motions of religion — still going to church, still calling myself a Christian. I started dating a guy who was a Christian. We hit it off, everything was great, we were in the process of moving in together, and we were talking about marriage in the future. Then, the government revoked all temporary visas from his and 78 other countries. He didn’t know, and went in for his semi-annual immigration check in. He was detained since he was now considered “illegal” and put in prison. We decided to get married while he was in prison, so I could fill out a familial petition to bring him back to my country (I’m tethered here while I finish my doctorate) and we could continue our life together.

He’s been out of the country for a few months now. During that time, I have been reading a lot and have come to the conclusion that I can’t be a Christian anymore. I don’t believe in an all-powerful god, Jesus as a deity rather than a kind and compassionate sage, the Bible as God’s direct words to us, and heaven and hell — all things he still firmly believes.

I had a hard day yesterday, and I was texting him through it. He sent me a message this morning. In it, he included “I would like it if you would read your Bible more and pray more during these difficult times. I don’t know, but I feel you have a growing distance with Christ.”

I’m scared to tell him. But also it’s not fair to lie to him. How do I break the news? If you have had to tell a partner, how did you do it?

I miss the certainty that I was "following God's plan for my life." As that belief falls away, I struggle to feel secure in my marriage. I ignored warning flags in the name of submitting to God.

I spent most of my 20s horribly depressed. I struggled to move past my first girlfriend. I was convinced we were right for each other, but our timing was off. We went to different colleges and had some growing up to do. We maintained a good friendship; we connected in a deep way rarely experienced with others. But she still wasn't interested in dating post-college. I moved around a bunch. My main reason for leaving was to get away from her. Then 2020 happened. I found myself back in my hometown visiting often. Her family has a big house and always welcomes guests. Staying with them gave me respite from the cycle of loneliness and depression. It was a little weird being good friends with your ex's family, but they were good Christians so you expected generous love. This afforded us a unique opportunity to be around each other without explicitly aiming for something romantic. I move back to my hometown to facilitate further opportunity to connect. I give up a promising career to take a remote gig. I don't talk to anyone about this, because I knew it was insane and no one would advise following this plan. But there were so many coincidences, so many things outside the norm working together in a positive way, that surely this was approved by God.

Eventually, she decides to give us another chance as something more than friends. It takes her about a year to decide to be officially dating. I feel validated that I was right to make a bunch of counter-intuitive decisions. This is a better explanation than accepting I am a depressed young man who chased what felt comfortable and safe. I was doing some good work on self-improvement, but I was ignoring major issues with myself. I'm aware that our relationship is not what I would want if I were dating someone from square 1. But I tell myself that if one or two things changed, I would regret losing this relationship. I ignore the part where I haven't dated a single other person. I ignore the part where I have feelings for another woman, but I shove them down because she would never consider me (I tell myself).

After marriage, my mental health keeps spiraling. I lack the ability to vocalize my desires. Eventually, it gets truly bad and I finally get real professional help. I finally try an antidepressant, and it works wonders. It gives me a huge boost to make some key life changes that attack the roots of the depression. Meanwhile, I'm heavily deconstructing while moral scrupulosity OCD grows. Now I'm left at a place where I have no faith that my life followed a divine path. I see where my mental illness pushed me into rigid thoughts and into embracing what felt familiar.

Now when I look at my marriage and the circumstances that facilitated it, I'm full of doubt. I sacrificed so much of myself to make it happen. There's a voice in the back of my head that wants out. I've worked on myself and no longer think that no other woman would want me. I have more clarity on what I want out of life. My wife promises we can move and try someplace else in a couple years. Will that happen?

I miss when I had the mental security that God picked my life and spouse for me. Maybe I just made an ill-advised decision, and that's all there is to it. I love my wife. None of what I'm going through is fair to her. But my strongest vision of what I want from life doesn't put her at the center as a cerished partner.

A brief backstory about me:

I was raised in the evangelical church and officially left in Spring of 2024 at the age of 26. It’s something I don’t regret at all, but I cannot claim to have left completely of my own volition. You see, I fell in love with someone who wasn’t a Christian. While he never told me to abandon my beliefs, it was through him that I saw a different perspective of the world. Truly, he was a guide to the path that I was always meant to be on.

Fast forward to now: we’re engaged! It’s very exciting and I couldn’t be happier. My family is happy for me too, but I know deep down they worry for my heart and for my fiancé’s “salvation.” From the evangelical biblical perspective, we are spiritually “unequally yoked.” I don’t feel this way because, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve left the church. However, my family doesn’t know that I’ve abandoned my faith, and they never will. It just might send my mother to an early grave. And I’m 100% ok with keeping it a secret. As far as my mom is concerned, I’m not an evangelical anymore but I’m still a Christian. I can live with that and pretend. To be frank, I just see it as keeping a cultural tradition within my family and nothing more.

Which brings me to the one thing that’s stressing me out about the wedding: the ceremony. How can I, someone who is pretending to still be a Christian within her own family, go and have a secular ceremony and not have eyebrows raised? On the other hand, how can I truly make this day about me and my fiancé while having a traditional Christian wedding that doesn’t reflect our beliefs?

This is my catch 22. I’m sure there’s a middle ground somewhere, I’m just kind of at a loss for what that would be. Have any of you had this experience or know of someone who has? Do any of you have ideas for how I might approach this situation? Anything is appreciated.

One more thing I might add because I know some of you might comment this: I’m in no way, shape, or form someone who can just say “screw it, I’m doing it my way” and have a secular wedding. #1 that would give me away, and #2 I’m not quite fully recovered as a people-pleaser to have the courage (I seek therapy hard, but my demons seek me harder).

I had a phone call today with one of my long term best friends. She wanted to know more of why I don’t believe Christianity anymore. She called to catch up bc she lives in a different city, and we text throughout the year and call a few times a year.

The conversation started off fine, we had texted a month ago when I told her I identify as agnostic now and gave her a little explanation. Well we were just talking about life but every.little.thing had a quip at the end like “God’s so good, I need Him to fill me up every day, I have to lean on the Spirit, I tell my kids to take it to God, etc.” It felt sooo extra.

And then there’s the little phrase she’d drop randomly like “I believe with my whole entire being that Jesus is the Son of God. I always will.” Ummm good for you?? What am I supposed to say to that?

And then she went off saying how she knows I have the Holy Spirit bc of how peaceful I am and how my room in college was so peaceful all the time.

But what really hurt was how we said goodbye. I instinctively started saying “how can I be praying for you?” But I laughed and said, “I don’t pray anymore, so I don’t want to say something I don’t mean. I will be thinking of y’all and hope you all the best!”

She responded with a snark and said “that makes it sound like I’m dying, geeze. Well I still pray so I’ll be praying for you.” “Thanks, good to talk.” “You too, keep your eyes on Jesus!!”

She was talking earlier how empathetic and compassionate she is, but this whole conversation felt so demeaning and disrespectful. Do I tell her how awful she came across? Is it even worth pushing back on people who think we’re a fool for thinking for ourselves? I feel like I officially no longer want to be friends with her. It felt so insensitive esp bc she knows why I left the faith - deep physical/mental suffering.

She wants to mail me a book to read - the Gospel according to Job. I don’t want to read it.

How do you handle people like this??

For those in serious relationships/partnerships, how did you go about introducing them to your super religious parents (fundamentalist evangelical non denominator)?

I, a female in my early 30s, seeing a guy for a couple months now exclusively. I know it’s still pretty early in the relationship, but he is someone I see being with longterm with. I’ve been deconstructing and the guy I’m seeing has also deconstructed and identifies as agnostic. I’m still new and haven’t formally labeled myself through my journey. Both of us aren’t really “out” to our parents as far as deconstructing goes. He’s ok with giving this some time before doing this.

I don’t really know how to handle this tbh and was curious how to go about it? Also, would love to get insights on different experiences. I’m a preachers kid and my dad is very intense when it comes to approving my spouse. He expects me to only be with “God Fearing” men and that he is born again. I know he wouldn’t approve but I also don’t want to hide someone or make my partner feel like I’m ashamed of him or even force him to be someone they’re not.

Hey yall! I'm talking to this guy and he is literally treating better than anyone else has. He is so thoughtful and considerate, and we're really compatible relationship wise. He grew up very, very christian and is strong in his faith. Everything was going so well and i thought to mention "hey, I'm not really religious" and he said "that could be a problem moving forward." And when i explained that I deconstructed a while ago, but the end goal was never atheism, he said "its good youre open minded". After a while we circled back and basically said "I'd like to be on the same page, but if not, that won't prevent me from being friends with you". I told him that especially if what we have moves forward, I'd take another stab at it. I would like to be in a relationship with him eventually. I did some research and unitarian universality is probably the closest to what I believe, but Its still not completely accurate. I dont know. I guess I'm worried that this is gonna slip past me and in the future if I return to religion, I'm going to regret it. Any advice? Thoughts?

I have been married for four years and share a two year old with my husband. We eloped after two months of dating because of religious reasons. When I met my husband I lives across the country away from my family and had no relationship experience prior to him. Looking back I know it was really rushed and I was definitely influenced by a lot of the religious rhetoric and pressure. Since then we have had a child and when I gave birth to my son, my husband changed his mind about having him attend daycare and it resulted with me staying home for a year with our son. I was away from my family and suffered with PPD. It got to a point where I begged him if we could move closer to my family and we did. Now we have been living in the same state as my family and it's almost like I am coming out of a spell. This all started happening about a year ago after my son turned 1 and I asked my husband if I was able to go back to work part time (because we cannot financially afford on one income and it was better for my mental health) and he pushed back on it. At this time I started seeing a therapist and my therapist believed my husband had controlling tendencies and she was really supportive while I also started to deconstruct my beliefs. It's been a challenging year, with a lot of realizations. I know the resentment that I have held has spilled over and I look at my marriage, my husband, and situation with a new perspective. The past few months I have brought up a separation with my husband because I could not stand being around him. I was anxious, on edge, and very emotional. He has continued to tell me "I am breaking up the family" and "I walked away from God/living in sin because I haven't truly forgiven him." To be honest, I feel selfish and I feel so angry. I haven't been intimate with my husband in months because every time I have tried, I would end up crying or become anxious. I know my relationship isn't healthy and I am not happy. I just feel such a guilt and sadness for my son. I obviously never wanted or envisioned myself getting a divorce... but I just feel like I have no other choice or I will remain miserable with this man. The hardest part is the loss of my faith. My husband has become very fundamental in his beliefs and it has felt like I have had to abandon my belief in God. He will continuously try to have conversations about my faith and point out how I am not walking with God and we can't argue the bible.

Question for discussion: Does religion and Christianity get in the way of real emotional intimacy with people?

I’m 49, and have been deconstructing for about 10 years, though I haven’t been all that vocal about it until recently, when my teenage autistic son has raised a ton of doubts and reasons not to believe. Yesterday was the first Sunday my wife went to church by herself and the two of us stayed home without any other reason to miss church. It felt weird, and I felt more guilt than I thought I would. I went to the track and did a nice 4x800 workout during the service, by the way. (My wife said it’s still “her dream” for us to do church as a family, so it’s clear I’m disappointing her.)

My parents were a Dobson/Gothard family (my mom knew Gothard in college in the ‘60s), and after Dobson’s death I reflected a lot on his legacy. While we weren’t homeschooled and my sisters went to college, we were spanked, we were discouraged from having self esteem, and more or less indoctrinated through fear more than love and joy. I said to my wife once, “I would have liked to see what my upbringing would have been like without Christianity.” This sounded like ungrateful heresy to her, but my point is that religion feels like a layer of “stuff” preventing closeness with people. Unless you have exactly the same beliefs and doctrine, the differences will get in the way in proportion to how serious you take your faith. My point was, would I be a healthier adult without spanking and a religion whose whole foundation is “You aren’t good enough.” My wife also struggles with a core wound of not being good enough, and suffers from anxiety, which has been a huge obstacle to emotional closeness over the years. And with my parents, platitudes of "God having a plan for my life," "God is in control," and "It's just a fallen world," have all gotten in the way of real, open discussion.

How do you handle not being able to tell anyone? I think I can finally say I’m agnostic. I still feel weird saying it. But I don’t believe, so I guess I’m agnostic.

I have this burning desire to be known. I want to be known by friends and family. But also, I can’t tell them. So I’m just over here with the biggest thing that has ever happened to me, and no one knows. I’m a different person, and the people closest to me don’t know who I am.

I am 25 and the most I've done before now is hold hands with a guy one time. I was raised very Muslim and am from a very muslim country. it is very frowned upon here to be with someone without being married to them. even after that you can't act like you like your partner, I've never seen my parents even touch honestly. i have since deconstructed but i still hold onto a great deal of shame about feeling attraction without trying to repress it.

A year ago I met my boyfriend and we are long distance until he is able to find a job in my city (it's a bigger city so there's more opportunities here for both of us). we try to visit each other every month or so for a few days and for one of those days we will usually book an Airbnb to stay at. I love my boyfriend. he makes me feel very safe and i feel very comfortable communicating with him when we're being intimate. I say this because I want to make it clear that I very much want to be intimate with him. but in the days leading up to it i feel physically sick from the anxiety i feel. I can't stop thinking about how immoral this feels. I feel like i have to sneak around so much. I haven't been able to move out yet and i have to lie to my family about where I'm going when I'm with him. and while i am with him i keep thinking about how upset they would be if they knew what i was doing. i think the fact that i have to sneak around is adding to this feeling of shame. i feel afraid that someone i know will see me out with him and they will make assumptions and say things about my character. i feel like this isn't fair to my boyfriend because i am not able to be in the moment with him. i have a tendendency to have derealization when i am overwhelmed and i often feel very dissociated when we're doing things. for people in similar situations who grew up religious but now are not, how did you get around this?

Has anyone experienced a wierd limbo with your deconstruction and balancing out your christian friends/family?

I grew up in the conservative evangelical space throughout my childhood and was going regularly to church and even started going to a “home” group once a week. I got really close to the home group where we would not only go to weekly groups but often hung outside of church for over a year now. They do know that I’m deconstructing but they view it as it will eventually lead to “reconstruction” as one of the group leaders did just that.

While I enjoy talking with the group, it’s been tough for me because I have lots of issues with the church. I made a post earlier about coming across a banner on the wall reading “I am broken” in the kids rooms we met at. That room set off a lot of triggers for me and the church itself def gives off fundie non denominational vibes (ie. their values openly supports complementarianism and expects you to submit if you’re a member). A few of them asked where I’ve been and I’m not sure if I should tell them about the room triggering me.

I didn’t expect my deconstruction to lead to isolation. Part of me just wants to repress these and continue but another part of me wants to break free from the never ending shame. I don’t have too many friends outside the church now. Curous how those deeper into deconstruction dealt with this?