How Having Different Levels of Faith Can Affect Your Relationship

In any relationship, there are different attributes that go into co-creating something as one, together! Whether it’s your upbringing, your belief system, your family, your friends, your career, or even your faith, there are so many different things that go into impacting how you treat each other, interact with one another, behave around one another, and create with one another. One of the biggest impacts of this can be your faith. Since our focus at My-Therapist is creating lasting, loving relationships, we know that faith is something that can impact your relationship tremendously. 

How can different levels of faith impact your relationship?

Faith comes in all different sizes and in a romantic relationship. You’ll always find that your beliefs and upbringings are different from that of your significant other. How you grew up and what you believe will always impact your level of faith and how you interact with others. Making sure your beliefs, from whatever belief system and upbringing they stem from, are aligned with one another can help keep your relationship steady.

As with anything, faith and religion are deeply rooted in culture and that is always something we need to consider.

For example, Christianity has a culture that is deeply focused on Church and prayer. On the other hand, Spirituality focuses on being with oneself through journaling, meditation, and being with oneself. 

When it comes to having different levels of faith, it is often that couples will balance one another out using their knowledge, beliefs, and upbringings. This is often done by spending time with one another and sharing lifestyle rituals and routines, which will definitely impact how you raise your family. 

As one uses their faith throughout their day-to-day lives, you will find their values will help set the tone in their relationship through their different needs and desires. One of those might be that you value using the Church for your upcoming wedding or that you desire to have your newborn baptized. 

How do you conquer or communicate these differences with one another in your relationship?

Even couples of the same faith can struggle because faith is something that is created by our experiences, family history, and culture as well as our own individual needs and beliefs. This is something we don’t always acknowledge, but something that we sometimes need to address to make sure we successfully understand one another. 

The Gottman Method is a therapy method we use in all forms of our therapy to help couples and families alike, especially those in an interfaith relationship. The Gottman Institute gives one tool that helps people, who are in tough situations such as these, fight smarter. This technique is the softened startup technique. This can help in all issues regarding faith, especially when it comes to unbalances in your relationship including lifestyles, values, and more. Essentially, softening the start-ups of your arguments will help you both in resolving your overall issues as a team.

Gottman has given some great tips to help set up an interfaith relationship for success that we wanted to share with you in this blog.

Tip #1:

It’s important that you acknowledge the differences in faith and in your relationship and how they will impact you. Faith can impact you and your significant other in all different forms and acknowledging how it will do that together as a couple will help you in that! 

Tip #2:

Don’t be scared to explore your relationship with your faith. Knowing your faith and exploring it for yourself and your identity will help you to properly incorporate it with your partner in your relationship, such as your unique beliefs. When you are sharing your faith with someone else, you want to make sure you are confident in your beliefs before incorporating them with someone else! Everyone has a different belief system and lifestyle. So, ensuring you have explored what you want yours to be is always important. 

Tip #3:

Share stories about your faith with one another. You don’t have to force something on someone, but you can share it with them. As with number two, understanding and knowing your faith is one of the most important things so you can properly share it with those you love. Rather than forcing your faith onto someone, you can share your faith with them through stories, beliefs, conversations, and experiences. 

Tip #4:

You can participate in what your partner is doing before negotiating on changing your lifestyle and show your partner you are embracing them and your relationship. For example, if you love going to church, you can bring your partner along to embrace them in your faith and lifestyle. 

Tip #5:

Adding elements to help mediate conversation about your faith and incorporating it into your relationship is always good. Faith is always a tough topic and there is always help available. One great example is to attend couples therapy to help address any issues you have regarding faith in your relationship. We offer many different therapy options at My Therapist, which might be useful if this is a step you and your significant other would be interested in. You can find more information here.

All in all, there are so many things that can impact your relationship from your values, beliefs, and upbringing. But, one thing that helps craft all three of those is your faith!

Your faith crafts so many things in your life and it is so important to acknowledge that it can impact your relationship in many different ways. The Gottman Method has some great tools to help you with this, including the softened start-up method that can help you both throughout your relationship as you explore and get to know one another.  

Do you and your significant other have an interfaith relationship? Comment on the blog below. 

Begin Working with a Christian therapist in Wake Forest, NC

Navigating the role of faith in your relationship isn’t something you need to do on your own. Our team of caring therapists would be honored to support you as you navigate an interfaith relationship. We are happy to offer support from our Wake Forest, NC-based therapy practice and across the state. To start your therapy journey, please follow these simple steps:

1. Book your initial therapy session.

2. Meet with a caring therapist.

3. Start strengthening your relationship!

Other Services Offered at My Therapist

Our team understands you are a complex person that may need support with a variety of mental health concerns. This is why My Therapist is happy to offer a variety of services in addition to Christian counseling. Other mental health services offered include couples intensive therapy, AAMFT & LMHC approved supervision, foundations of lasting love, couples workshops and retreats, individual therapy for relationship issues, and family therapy. We also offer divorce counseling, affair recovery, co-parent counseling, infertility counseling, child loss therapy, and prenatal therapy. For more information, feel free to read our blog to learn more!

Source: https://www.gottman.com/blog/communication-tips-for-interfaith-couples/