This is the fourth in a series of guest posts on the topic of mixed faith marriages (MFM) from a variety of mental health professionals, coaches, podcasters, counselors and regular readers offering advice from their own experiences. Keep your eyes on the blog over the next few weeks for more great content, and feel free to submit your own essay to this series by emailing [email protected]. (Thanks! -Abby Maxwell Hansen)

Guest Post: Emmaly Renshaw is a mom of four and partner. She is an agricultural nonprofit director and lover of fields, woods, and everything that grows within.

Your faith shifted, and our world shattered. It happened three years ago, sleeting rain pelting our winter gear. We needed to turn home but continued to walk, shivering and drenched, desperately needing the silence the woods provided to let the raw emotions process before returning to our busy home.

As your concerns tumbled out that night, I quickly recognized this wasn’t just a few doubts to wrestle back into the shadowed corners of the mind. I watched your stalwart, orthodox faith shatter as you spoke the three simple words of “I don’t believe.” As you lay bare your closely guarded anguish and unbelief, fear washed over me, and I silently asked myself, is this the end of us?

Upon returning home from our walk, I headed directly to the resource I was always told to reference. I went on the church website and typed in “mixed faith marriage.” The results returned one two-paragraph article from a dated BYU magazine. I frantically searched for “faith crisis” and “faith transition,” anything that would lend a church-supported framework of how we were to move forward. Defeated, I understand the church would not lend organizational support to a mixed-faith couple like us. This would be a journey we would walk on our own.

There were so many emotions during the initial phase, an uncertainty we had never felt during the 18 years of our temple marriage. We had done everything right; the promised blessing that our righteous endeavors would ensure strong faith broke. It felt as though God walked away from the covenant. That first rainy night, we committed to seeing this through together. However, we were unaware of the reality of this new journey and wholly ignorant of how many difficult, tear-filled nights we would experience as the foundation crumbled beneath our feet. 

As a wife committed to staying active in the faith, there was so much to navigate as we rewrote our narrative. I watched hesitantly over the coming months as you trialed new parameters, relieving yourself of the rigidity of orthodoxy. I smiled a little as you found joy in the non-orthodox Sabbath I once enjoyed with my convert parents as a child. I watched you painfully deconstruct the idea of eternity, only to see you respond by spending more quality time with those dearest to you as the uncertainty of life became your new reality. 

I was devastated the day when garments were no more. Anger flowed in my veins when it came time for our son to attend the temple, and I was left to carry the burden alone while I grappled with my own temple experience shifting. Attending church without you felt empty; once it was a family affair, Sunday mornings felt incomplete.

I defended you in the pews and over the pulpit as people whispered their concerns and condolences about your faith transition in hushed tones. Once a Bishop, they called you fallen, misguided, and the deceived elect. Without an “honorable” priesthood leader in our home, your faith shift labeled me dangerous and unworthy. As a woman, what little power and privilege I had in the church was extinguished without you by my side.

I waited for you to change, for the light within you to dim, for you to leave our companionship or become a person I no longer felt compatible with. When this was to all fall apart, the caution that the promised blessings of a covenant marriage would be mired with darkness and confusion if one of us stepped away, I saw the opposite happen. Your acknowledgment and deconstruction of patriarchy led to support in my endeavors and more balance in household duties and child-rearing. Your break in orthodoxy permitted new connections in us. Your shift shattered our world, allowing us to rebuild in a way I could not fathom. It has propelled us to grow, move beyond fear, and see through more empathic lenses. 

There is no guidebook on how to navigate this gracefully without hurt, but together we can build one. We experienced countless nights of tears and inadequate words because we didn’t have the vocabulary to express what we were trying to convey. This, coupled with strong egos seeking validation of our now opposing views, hindered healing. We are at odds with one another as we navigate ordinations, baptisms, and raising teens. We are trying to figure this out for them, as we were trying to sort it out for us. 

We’re three years into the mixed faith, and for those commencing on this journey, breathe deeply; there is hope. While every journey is different, ours has gained despite the difficulties of this new journey. This is what I wish I had known from the start.

Acknowledge there is pain and shifting on both sides; neither partner is static in a mixed-faith marriage. Validation will come with time; placing your relationship first creates space for expression and conversation. Understand how to support your partner in a way you may not be fully comfortable with, yet know when to express, “I can’t take this step, not yet; please wait for me to figure out how to move forward.” Mixed faith is a journey of trust and empathy. Learning to disagree views while trusting your partner wholeheartedly is the balm needed to heal and rebuild again. 

This journey is dynamic, and our community is not experienced in navigating a life without the sureties we once held central. As a couple, we have learned to sit with uncertainty, allow the cycles of grief to heal what is broken, and respect that we now have different experiences. By doing so, we have found awe, laughter, and rekindled love in this new journey. He has shifted, and I have shifted. We have gone from knowing everything to knowing nothing, to simply being in the present and allowing ourselves time and space to figure out the next steps together.

___________________

This post is part of a series about navigating Mixed Faith Marriages. Find more from this series here.