There is a way our brains process and categorize people and events in our lives that I call the ‘us versus them mentality’. Our brains are efficient and love to put people, events, and circumstances in categories. For example, good or bad, rich or poor, old or young, right or wrong, member or nonmember, active or inactive and on and on.
When our own spouse in now in the ‘other’ category, our brain can struggle with how to reconcile the seeming differences. Sometimes at this point we tell ourselves, “This is too big of a difference” or “We are not not the same page” or “we cannot bridge this gap”. In reality it is just our brain being efficient ( read lazy).
When our brain tell us that there is no solution here, it is just saying up till this point it has not needed to find a solution here (when you were both attending church there was not need to figure out how to manage one partner staying home).
In reality there are solutions to many mixed faith marriage issues. We need to not let our brains off the hook and keep looking for solutions. The brain is totally capable of doing this. It just prefers to use its default neural pathways first (us v. them mindset). If we refuse to believe that the gap is too big to bridge we put our brain to work to find solutions. When we refuse to believe that this can’t work if we are not on the same page with church and we have to create new neural pathways that show us that it can work.
This takes time and discipline, but it is how some of the most amazing things in our world have come to be – when people refuse to buy into the current set of limitations their brain is telling them.
Yes, a mixed faith marriage can be wonderful. Yes, there are solutions to the problems you face within your mixed faith marriage.
Are you ready to retrain your brain and find some of those solutions for your mixed faith marriage? Let’s talk.
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