(June 7, 2014 at 9:08 am)matthewcornell Wrote: Hi Folks. This is my first post (from the US) and I hope this is the right place to write. I'd like your advice about my fundamentalist Christian inlaws in this country's bible belt. I'm 51, I realized I'm an atheist in my 20s, I've been married for 28 years, and I'm endured by them. I think they know my non-beliefs, but it's never talked about. (They used to think I'm a Catholic, which is how I was raised - the bastards - and /that/ was considered bad enough when I was dating. [1])
To the point, I'm sick and tired of enduring the heartfelt, earnest, and serious short prayers my wife's family does at meals when we visit them. (We visit them only 1-2x/year, thankfully.) I find them deeply offensive and repellant. For almost three decades I've been silent during these prayers, just sitting with my eyes open and passively waiting for it to end, but I'm ready to push back, and I'd love your advice on how to do this.
I like the idea of "I respect your right to have beliefs, but not necessarily the beliefs themselves'" (love the sinner, hate the sin? :-), and I don't want my wife to be to discomfited or my inlaws to feel personally attacked.
Maybe I could stand or leave the room during them (explaining why), or (at the other extreme) disrupt during the prayers, but that seems extreme, given that I'm not technically family.
Any thoughts would be helpful, thanks!
[1] My to-be mother in law told my wife that "I'd almost rather you marry a black man than a Catholic." Sweet.
maybe you can grow the fucl up and not worry about it. You married the dude, you should have known.
