“How to survive being married to a Catholic?”

Today I’d like to write about my spiritual preparation for our marriage and I apologise in advance that this is going to be a wordy entry with fewer pictures. If you are not interested in the survival of a Catholic marriage please feel free to skip this entry.

    Last Thursday Ben and I had our first marriage preparation lesson. It was given by Andrew and Nicola at home, and we were joined by another couple, who are getting married in August. Before the lesson I was quite uneasy; I was worried it might be one of those lessons which scare people with all the difficulties of a married life, but it turned out that my worry was very unnecessary. Although we did talk about the common differences between males and females, and the problems that might rise from them, it was done in a humorous and relaxing way. Andrew and Nicola gave us quite a few interesting questionnaires. For each question we needed to think of answers both for ourselves and for each other in order to see how well we understood each other. The result was encouraging and it helped us to see what aspects we needed to improve on.

the questionnaires

    Nicola bought me a book called How to Survive Being Married to a Catholic and I finished in 3 days. It’s a very good book and it answered a lot of my questions, but at the same time raised quite a few, too. Every time a new question came up I’d go to talk to Ben and it always ended up in a lengthy discussion. I think we both enjoyed this experience and Ben said he’d like to read it as well after all his exams are finished this week.

How to Survive Being Married to a Catholic

    I think it’s important for me to openly state my religious belief at this point. Although Ben and I have discussed and discussed (or rather, argued and argued) about it many times, it is still necessary for me to record it now; so in the future when I (or our children) look back, we can see the wonderful changes that took place in me.

    My father is a Chinese Communist Party member (they must be atheist), and my mother believes in Buddha. My grandmother (my father’s mother) has been a devoted Christian for over 50 years. I was born into such a religiously mixed family background so my views toward religion were quite messed up.

my religious upbringing

    My grandmother used to read me Bible stories when I was little, and she took me to her church once, but I didn’t enjoy it at all. I was only 6 or 7 then. It was a cold and rainy day and the priest kept weeping when preaching; so did the audience. It was like attending a funeral and I found that so scary that I cried out loud too, and refused to go with her ever again. My first church experience was cold, wet, sad and scary.

    She never gives up trying to talk me into Christianity though. But the only impression I get from her is if you pray to God, you can go to heaven instead of hell, so “God” has become a scary, pushy and unreasonable being to me and I rebelled against him. On top of that, all the schools I went to in China taught us Marxism and Maoism and I became an atheist like my dad.

    On the other hand, God and the church have always been part of my life. I went to a Catholic school in England and joined the choir (just to get to know more people and practise my English). And the landlady I stayed with for 3 years is also a Christian and I’d go to church with her on Sundays when I had the time. But I never felt I was part of the community and still kept rejecting God’s existence. At that time I was only thinking that if I went to church I could please my grandmother.

my choir days

receiving a “singing medal” from the school’s chaplain

    If I keep going on like this I can write for another 3 pages. Now I’ll write about my basic understanding of Catholicism at this moment, and my stand point and psychological preparation of marrying Benedict Edmond Paul Carter.

1. Catholics are not “above” us; they are ordinary human beings as well, and they make mistakes just like we do. I think this is absolutely crucial for me to understand. Due to the lack of acknowledgement of that, I used to have unreasonable expectations of Ben (like asking him to change a 10-year-old habit and require it a.s.a.p.) and that caused a lot of arguments. I used to lash out on God whenever Ben failed to do what I asked him to do, even doubting the validity of Christianity. That was very wrong of me. Vice versa, if I failed to do something, I’d be very hurt if my parents got the blame too, as I was blaming God; it’s not fair. If we have let each other down, we shouldn’t blame each other but look for the real reason and what we can do for each other to make things better.
2. Although I have no obligation to become a Catholic after getting married, I should still show my full support and cooperation to Ben and in the upbringing of our children (they need to be brought up as Catholics). The book, however, is very “itchy” about that matter. It says that it’s absolutely the Catholic partner’s responsibility in the children’s religious upbringing and the non-Catholic half needn’t carry the burden. To me that sounds wrong. On agreeing to spend the rest of my life with Ben I’m aware what it means and what it’s asking me for. I don’t think a family can be truly harmoniously happy if the parents have significant disparity in religious beliefs but the children are only required to follow one of them. I think the non-religious partner needs to compromise. I will get as much involved as possible in my future family’s Catholic life and I’ll let our children know that even though I may not be one of them yet, I still highly respect God and think very highly of Catholicism. I hope our children can be loyal to God, like their father, and at the same time be respectful to other people’s religions and beliefs (living in China you can’t get away with that, really).
3. Catholics don’t allow divorce and artificial-contraception, let alone abortion. I used to take the “non-divorce” strategy as a safety net and think it as a wonderful solution to a happy marriage. But if Ben and I don’t work on our marriage hard enough, it can still end up being a bitter one. As for contraception, I shall not discuss it here because it is a highly personal matter, but I strongly support that idea after learning the reason behind it; and abortion is unbearable to me anyway.

    It’s very difficult for me to write my feelings down all at once so I’ll stop here today. Sorry if I’ve bored you tremendously. Meanwhile I’m very looking forward to the next marriage preparation session and it’s time to start packing my bags, we’re going to China soon!

We’re gonna get married here soon!