Are differing religious preferences ever enough to keep a couple apart?

I've heard it said that a couple needs to be religiously, financially, socially, and sexually compatible for a marriage to truly work. I know interfaith couples who make it work, but it all depends on the individual. Some are less accepting than others.

I was raised in an interfaith family for the first twelve years of my life. I was taken to Baptist and Episcopal churches. When the last child (me) was finally confirmed in the Episcopal church, my father joined the church as well.

Up until then, we had the right to choose which we wanted. He never stood in our way, although he still attended the Baptist church at times, as I did when I grew older. I'm comfortable in either.

Some faiths are very rigid about interfaith marriage. My own niece had to convert to Judaism to marry her fiance, because his family would have literally disowned him, and been supported by Jewish law for doing so if she had not. Then again, some Jewish families don't adhere so strictly to that, and think that faith is not as important as that their family members marry someone they love and can be happy with.

When I was young, if you married someone outside the Episcopal church, you had to get dispensation from the church to be married by an Episcopal priest. I haven't been an Episcopalian for years, but I do believe you still have to have dispensation from the Bishop to marry someone who has been divorced. The Catholic church is even more strict about this.

On the other side of the spectrum, I've seen marriages break up when one member joined the Evangelical faith, or some non-traditional faith, like Latter-Day Saints or Scientology. It's more likely, in my opinion, for faith to cause problems when one partner embraces a faith that shuns the other partner, or that encourages the member partner to leave their spouse if they won't convert.

In my experience the biggest factor that needs to be considered for an interfaith couple to decide to marry is if they are planning on having children. Most couples can deal with a difference in religion when they are the only people in the relationship. Once you add children to the equation it can lead to a lot of problems.

Both of the parents will want the children to be "their" religion which causes friction in the relationship. It also puts the child in the center of the disagreement, which isn't healthy or fair for the child.

It would depend on the particular couple. Everyone's different, after all, and everyone goes by a different set of criteria, conscious and subconscious, when entering into relationships and, if it comes to it, deciding when to leave relationships. For instance, even though a lot of religions have specific tenets against marrying outside the faith, a person might not be that strict in his or her religion.

And in my experience, those kinds of tenets are often the first ones to get dropped. The power of love, you could say. In my case, I wouldn't end a relationship over religious differences unless my partner was truly uncomfortable.

I think it depends on the type of religion, how strongly the person is following it and the priority of religion over your relationship. For example, my husband and I have different religious beliefs. This, however, is not an issue as we respect each other's beliefs and do not try to convert on another.

Another example is a couple I knew, who are no longer together. Their different beliefs turned out to be stronger than desire to stay together, where family contributed a lot to the break up. In my opinion, before you start a romantic relationship with someone you need to get to know them.

If your religious beliefs differ, decide how you can work around it (if you can). Some religions are not so much about your belief as they are about set rules in your daily routine, culture, family hierarchy and so on. So if rules that come with a particular religion are strong and the person is keen to follow them, it will be extremely difficult to make it as a couple if you do not wish to share his/her beliefs.

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