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MrW is Catholic, I am United Methodist. While our church practices our different, we share the same core beliefs in Christianity. It was one of the first things we discussed in our dating life.

I think it definitely depends on your religion. Some religions might be harder to intermarry than others.

My first year of college, I dated a Muslim, and I'm a Christian. lol it didn't work out. He was a super nice guy and I REALLY liked him, but I knew I was just kidding myself. My parents didn't know I was dating him and I knew they would have flipped if they'd known.

I was really intentional about marrying a Christian too. My faith is the most important thing in my life, and I of course wanted to raise my kid(s) in that too, I need someone who's on board. In most cases that I've seen, when a Christian marries someone of another or no faith, it hardly ever works out.

Wagon Sr. and I are both Christians and it's the center of our marriage. We're not super crazy evangelical about it or anything, but our faith is a top priority in our lives and we both knew that we'd need that in a spouse in order to be able to connect 100% and live our lives together. I kind of tried pursuing a relationship with a guy who wasn't religious during college, and even though I expressed my concerns with him and he was actually open to attending church with me and exploring the faith, I just couldn't pursue it. For me, it's important for my partner to be stronger in his faith and the spiritual leader of our family. I know it's not that way for all Christians but it's just my personal preference. The fact that we share the same faith and stand on the same belief system makes our lives that much more united, and it makes it that easy to raise our children in the Christian faith. Whether or not they choose to commit to our faith is totally up to them, however. It's just our job to create the family foundation for them in their childhood, and when they're of age, they can explore their faith life on their own.

DH & i were not raised in the same faith. his was raised a strict catholic & i was raised without a religion (but celebrated christian holidays- christmas & easter, in a secular fashion).

now, i'm an atheist & he is a unitarian universalist (his minister married us with a spiritual yet 'godless' ceremony). our current faiths don't clash, so i don't see it being an issue for us. we've talked about him bringing our LOs, when we have them, to church with him sometimes (he goes about 3 out of 4 sundays). that doesn't bother me because his faith doesn't teach about one belief that everyone is expected to subscribe to- just about respecting everyone's beliefs & being a conscious, respectful, positive member of the world.

his family has more of an issue with our lack of catholicism. his mom felt we needed to have our wedding blessed by a priest for it to be official- this didn't happen. when we have a LO, they expect us to have a christening, which we talked about before we were married (soooo important to be on the same page!), and i'm open to having a naming ceremony held in his church so his family has that symbolic occasion to welcome baby in a church, but neither of us believe in original sin and will not agree to raise our children catholic- so a christening isn't possible.

i think some religions would make it more difficult to raise children in an interfaith home, for us it's more of a tension with extended family. i would not have been comfortable having children with someone who wasn't comfortable with my beliefs or would be interested in teaching our children that there was only one correct way to view faith.

@MamaMoose: lol I agree! I have a friend who was a southern Baptist and their family was... wow... out there in terms of belief. For example: When I was 19 I moved out of my parents house, halfway around the country to live in NY by myself and work as a nanny. This friend then said I was living a life of sin and mediocrity because I moved out of my parents house before getting married. Her baptist background made her believe that a woman should never leave their fathers house until she's getting married. I was stunned and shocked.

@Coco Bee: Yeah you're also not allowed to drink or dance... so they probably wouldn't like me too much! When we went to a new member event for our church I was informed "You're not a real Presbyterian until we get a glass of wine in your hand". I decided joining our church was going to work out juuuust fine : )

I'm catholic and DH isn't really religious but it works for us because he supports me in my faith. He attends mass every Sunday, says prayers with LO and even goes up to communion to get a blessing since he can't receive the Eucharist.

I'm not sure if DH will ever be catholic but I don't think our children will have many questions that won't be answered since he participates and is active at my church.

@MamaMoose: that's so funny! considering we drink beer and play poker with our head pastor, I love that

I would have been fine with marrying someone of another religion, so long as they also respected my beliefs. As it is, I ended up converting to Catholicism in college (DH is also Catholic) after coming from a background of nondenominational/evangelical Christianity. I think, I also would have been ok with converting to Judaism, if I had ended up with a Jewish guy. If my husband practiced any other religion/spirtuality/philosophy besides Catholicism or Judaism, though, I probably wouldn't have converted, just expected that we would each be respectful and supportive of each other's individual beliefs.

I'm with those in the no religion camp. I intentionally did not date men who were religious because I think religion and non-religion are fundamental to people's core values and I want to share/have in common, those core values with my mate. There is someone in my life who is also not religious and who married someone who is religious. He has made a lot of compromises, with concern to their wedding and kids, which I would not be willing to make.

I've got to say, both this and the gay marriage thread have been so cool to follow!

My husband is Jewish, but stopped going to temple after his bar mitzvah. I was raised Catholic, but it didn't really run that deep in my family, and I only really went through the motions of first communion, confirmation, etc. because I didn't feel like taking a stand against it and causing a big thing. But as far back as I can remember, I have always known I didn't believe in or identify with Catholocism, and as soon as I was on my own, I stopped going. And I stopped taking communion when I would go to church with my family during school breaks.

When DH and I first started dating, we were similarly not religious. But as we got more serious and started talking about having children, he said he wanted to raise his kids as Jews. I was open to learning about it, so we took a class on Judaism together. It was a good refresher for him and helped him to get a better understanding of Jewish traditions that he was maybe too young to appreciate when he was younger. It has been really interesting and thought provoking for me and helped me to realize that there is a religion out there that resonates with me. Up to this point, I felt like religion wasn't for me. I haven't officially converted yet, but I plan to.

Luckily, at each phase of our relationship, my husband and I have been on the same page about our core beliefs and the significance we want religion to play in our lives (or not). For me, that's the most important thing.

Hubs was raised Catholic (an alter boy, went to CCD, etc). I was raised attending a Lutheran church whenever we felt like it (usually just Christmas and Easter). Hubs stopped going to church the second he left home and was no longer "forced" by his parents. He is very disenfranchised with the Catholic Church. We would like to find a church to get involved with and raise our children as members of a congregation. I am willing to consider and explore any denomination or faith to find one that works for us, with a few exceptions. It's something we've talked about off and on for years, and now that I'm actually pregnant, I think we'll get a bit more serious about it.

DH and I are thankfully the same religion. As it is we disagree on how often to attend church, so I wouldn't want to know what it would be like of we were talking about different religions.

Dh and I are both Jewish, but much more culturally so than religiously. We've never been bar/bat mitzvah'd and neither of us has ever attended temple with family. He's much more anti-religion than I am though. He is pretty against becoming involved with a synagogue/temple or making religion a part of our lives, whereas I'm kind of indifferent to it. If our kids showed an interest, I would try to find a temple that I could take them to. We're going to raise our kids as knowing they are Jewish, and celebrating Jewish holidays in a more secular way (as DH and I did growing up--so no temple on high holidays, but family dinners/gatherings, maybe lighting a menorah, etc). I'm sure this will become an issue with our families, mainly my dad. I'm NOT looking forward to that!

I'm catholic and DH is lutheran. He wants our kids to be raised lutheran. I'm okay with that as long as he starts practicing it when we have a LO. He currently does not and hasn't in a long time. He told me he would once I get pregnant. He also knows that if he doesn't go, than I'll take the LO to my catholic church. So if he wants our kids raised Lutheran, he will have to do the work.

I would prefer that my children be catholic but Lutheran is fine, too. We both want a christian background for our children. I just want my DH to practice his religion because I don't want to answer question from my children asking why daddy doesn't have to go.

I'm, also, fine with raising our kids with both religions. I know there are differences and I would hope we would explain those differences to our LO. When our kids get older, I'm fine with them making their own decision on which religion they will follow.