Sunday, September 27, 2015

How I Lost My Faith, Part 3

I've been thinking about how best to describe how I lost my faith.  Those that know be best will be aware of the doubts I've struggled with over the years, but how exactly did I come to finally give up my faith?  I thought I would start by posting a few entries from my journal around the time when all this happened.

October 15, 2014

P and I had a really good talk on Saturday.  I was able to tell her pretty much exactly what's been going on in my mind, and get here perspective too.

She is much more even-headed about all this than I expected.  I think she understands me pretty well.  She told me that she struggles with some of the intellectual issues with Christianity, but feels like she would never leave it because she feels a relationship with God.  So (like she said) that seems to be the big difference:  She has intellectual issues but has a relationship, and me with similar intellectual issues but my primary problem is a lack of relationship.

I asked her why she wasn't more angry about me not being that "good christian husband" that every church family expects the father to be, and she surprised me... She said that when she married me, that's not the expectation she had of me, and that my rejection of my faith was not something she saw as a rejection of our marriage.

Anyway, I feel much better now because I got a lot of this off my chest.  It's amazing how much better it makes me feel to have spoken with P and for her to know.  I told her that if she stays a Christian, then the worst I will ever be is a doubting Christian, and that my priority and defining role is as her husband.  No matter what, I'm committed to focusing on being her husband and friend.

I don't know what I'd do without her.

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