Religion and relationships

[devifemme]

I just wrote a piece on how religion had messed up my relationship with my longtime SigOther, Joanne, and it struck me you lovely readers might understand a bit more about me if I gave it broader distribution

Comments

[eqfe]

I feel really badly for your mom, especially since in my experience, born and raise Catholic, the only plus in Catholocism is that you can remain relatively anonymous. My mother converted to marry my father, who never went to church again except for weddings and funerals.
OTOH, my wife seems to feel guilty about almost everything.

[devifemme]

Yes, the guilt thing is really something -- as I explained my reaction to my dad's death from cancer.

We didn't attend church back then (my mom didn't feel welcome, as I said). But somehow the guilt got rooted in me, presumably inculcated in all the little stuff that one's parents communicate both consciously and otherwise.

Perhaps they (mostly my mom) were doing more, overcompensating for NOT raising me in the Church, or if they guessed what my cousin Lori and I were doing sexually -- and "taught" me it was "bad." But, hell, I'll never know for sure. Something about Lori may be repressed, deeper than therapists and I can go -- or else there're other reasons why I remember nothing much about my first decade.

Hugz,
Justine

[izuko]

To be clear, are you a practicing catholic, or is Joanne?

[devifemme]

I guess I wasn't clear -- she is the churchy one. Even were I to find whatever it is that "faith" signifies, the all-too-fallible popes and their self-protective minions represent an earthly hierarchy I could never respect.

And my mom's issue made me a skeptic long before the child-rapes and the sprawling cover-ups blew up. I still attend Easter/Christmas just because it's important to J.

[elvenforever]

*I* think your mom was sainted and did the right thing. I left the Church not long ago for, among other reasons, that my conscience simply wouldn't allow me to stay in an organization as full of shit and corruption as it currently is, and the laity are doing their level best to IGNORE. That and I am amazed that a seemingly staunch Catholic like Joanne EVER entered into a lesbian relationship in the first place. I wonder how she lives with herself. Because you can't have both; the Church is quite clear. The other major mistake she made was assuming you'd change and that would make everything okay. Nope, people don't just change their fundamental beliefs and attitudes about life just 'cause you'd like them to. A distinction the door-to-door salespeople of religion just DON'T GET

[devifemme]

Thanks, Meow -- I now GET a lot more about where YOU are coming from. And, clearly, "thee and me" are sorta similar in our experience of the Church. Albeit getting to where we are now by very different routes

[elvenforever]

I will. :) I figured there were good reasons you two stayed together despite the problems. Some things are good enough they're well worth keeping in spite of differences that just won't go away.

And you can rant about the Catholic Church any time. :)