Can a devout religious person have a successful relationship with one who has no religious beliefs?
No matter how tolerant or open a partner is willing to be, whether they are extremely devout or totally without, can two people live successfully as partners if there is such a fundamental disconnect as a belief in god?
No. The imbalance will create conflicts that will destroy the things that make a relationship what it should be. The moral compasses and values, world views and views on the importance of how personal commitment in a relationship needs to work out will clash in subtle ways that become not-so-subtle over time.
At best, a deep and abiding sadness will set in for the one who believes that God exists. At worst, well, it's too sad to detail here.
The definitions of important concepts and issues will become larger than such a pair can imagine when they are in the throes of the emotion-filled happy, heady early days of a young relationship.
You should share the same views on children, family, faith and finances if you want a successful long term relationship.
For example, you can't have a good marriage/partnership if one wants to spend all the money and another is a saver. One who wants to work minimally and live in artistic poverty will drive one who wants to live a middle class life away. If one wants children and the other is against it, you risk divorce if she has a baby he doesn't want. If you hate his family, they will make your relationship miserable, and the man often eventually sides with his family over his wife. And that's not counting the horror when his relatives turn the children against you.
Suppose the only issue is religious differences. Right now, you compromise on holidays. How do you raise children? Will you have them baptized or bar mitzvahed? What happens when a relative brings religion into discussion with the child?
If your faith is important to you, it must be important to a long term partner or you are creating conflict likely to destroy the marriage. If it doesn't matter to you, convert or change to the other person's belief system so you're in alignment.
It really comes down to the individual's "must have" list!
I grew up around a lot of households where women and children went to church each Sunday while men stayed home and watched football or did other things. It wasn't the end of the world!
Looking back I guess it was as if one person had a hobby or interest in something while their mate didn't and both accepted it.
Too often there's an "assumption" if someone is an atheist they have no morals or go around taking advantage of others While at the same time others believe Christians talk about God 24/7 and go around judging people all day long who are not in agreement.
Neither one of those have to be true.
I think it's possible for couples to get along where one is religious and the other isn't as long as neither attempts to "change" the other.
Two good people who get together who love and respect one another can make a relationship work. This explains why it's possible for interracial couples, intercultural couples, couples of different age ranges, and those with different faiths can have successful marriages.
Having said that it all comes down to each people's "must have" list when it comes choosing a mate for themselves. We're all entitled to have our own "mate selection process". Some people focus on education, income, career, religion, race, height, weight, and health habits....etc
If having the same faith and amount of devotion to it is a "must have" {for you} then being with someone who doesn't share your beliefs and same amount of devotion is a bad choice for (you).
People who are different from one another fall in love all the time.
What matters is whether they accept each other's differences and beliefs. I have a friend who married a Mormon woman and a few years later (he) decided to convert on his own without any prodding.
It's not unheard of for some secular people to convert to a religion.
by maheshpatwal 13 years ago
What are the things required for a successful or good relationship?
by EinsFloW 14 years ago
What are the main "ingredients" of a successful relationship?
by rikabothra 13 years ago
What is the most important thing for a successful relationship except love?
by Kimmr63 7 years ago
What one word best describes a successful relationship or marriage?
by Nathan K 13 years ago
What's the biggest building block needed for a successful relationship?
by elvanGalaxy 15 years ago
what is a perfect relationship?I think it's pretty simple to think about having a perfect relationship, but the truth to the matter is there's nothing like perfect relationship cos what seems perfect in your own judgement could not be so to some others.
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |