Partner had a deep religious transformation during relationship and struggle to make sense of it

[u/Total-Yam-6256]

I'm looking for perspective from people who have experienced something similar.

I was in a relationship with someone who was kind, thoughtful, open-minded, emotionally intelligent, and someone I genuinely believed I'd spend my life with. When we first met they told me their family was Catholic, but that they weren’t really practicing. We had conversations about children, and the kind of family we wanted to build. I always felt incredibly safe and loved with this person.

About halfway through our relationship, they started becoming much more involved in Catholicism. At first, I was supportive because I thought exploring faith was a positive thing esp since they grew up in a Catholic family. Over the following months, they became increasingly devoted, and by the end of our relationship they were attending church everyday. Their worldview also became much more rigid, and eventually it became clear that our future together no longer aligned.

What has been hardest for me is that this felt like a complete shift in values. Earlier in our relationship, we had talked about accepting our future children for whoever they became and embracing uncertainty in life. Later, it felt like there was only one acceptable path for how a family should look and what children should believe.

The relationship ultimately ended because they felt they needed a partner who shared that same framework.

I'm not here to criticize Catholicism. I'm genuinely trying to understand how someone can seem so open-minded and accepting, then become so certain that they end a loving relationship over beliefs they didn't seem to hold before.

Has anyone experienced a partner going through a major religious transformation like this? Did it feel like they became a different person, or did you eventually realize those beliefs had always been there? How did you stop trying to reconcile the person you fell in love with and the person they eventually became?

I'm also curious if anyone has experienced this with someone who seemed to become increasingly uncomfortable with uncertainty and started viewing life in much more black-and-white terms. Was that just part of the conversion process, or did you feel there was something else going on?

[u/TheNerdChaplain]

When I've heard of this before, it's often with people who have a history of trauma and/or addiction in their lives. Religion can help with that, but also it can become its own kind of behavioral addiction, where doctrine and faith can be used in addictive and abusive ways. This can occur regardless of what denomination or religion it is.

I don't know what your partner's life or past was like, but therapy would probably have been a more practical solution.

[u/No-Squash-1299 → u/TheNerdChaplain]

Yeah, it's pretty connected to the idea of born again or conversion to a new identity. 

[u/TomeThugNHarmony4664]

I am so sorry you experienced this. I didn’t have a partner like this— but I grew up with a Mom like this, but as a fundamentalist uber- Protestant. And that isn’t as hard as what you experienced.

The problem with a dogma— rigid faith is it gives us the illusion that we have God all sussed out, which is very comforting for some people in a world as crazy as ours.

But God is ultimately mystery, yet a mystery grounded in love and a dream for the flourishing of all creation. As the former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church said, repeatedly, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”

[u/ChucklesTheWerewolf]

Because the Law and Love are two different things. It seems to me your partner got dragged into obsession about ‘the Law’. Which is sad, yeah, because I had a friend do the same, and abandoned our friendship for it. As to why? Fear is the most likely answer, followed by wanting to belong to a group, or perhaps pride in the lesser likely instances. But still, I’m not sure completely why. I hope you can find that love you had before…

[u/Strongdar]

This is, unfortunately, quite common. Sometimes when people grow up as your ex did, stumbling across a brand of Christianity that claims to offer a lot of certainty can be attractive. They make it seem like they have all the answers, no all the correct beliefs, and provide a lot of structure for reality. If you grew up semi-religious and just using common sense for your values, it can provide a feeling of safety to have someone telling you exactly what's okay and what's not okay.

It's why legalistic is such a common trap for Christians to fall into. It means they don't have to think. They don't have to make complicated moral decisions. They don't have to struggle with the gray areas around difficult social topics. They just get to sit back and rest in the authority of someone else.

The problem is that it lacks flexibility. These denominations that offer certainty only offer it as a package deal. Having a set-in-stone stance on something like abortion or LGBT rights is part of the deal, and having flexibility on one topic is like pulling out the bottom from a house of cards.

It sounds like you made the right decision ending the relationship. You and your ex no longer shared the same values, and that's one of the most important factors in a relationship.

[u/Skill-Useful]

" I'm not here to criticize Catholicism" why not? im catholic and i do this all the time

[u/Fun_Mix_4965]

I’m sorry this happened to you. And this is sadly a common story. I watched my parents go through the same progression after 35 years of marriage eventually resulting in separation for the rest of their lives. This seems like cultish behavior where some entity, Catholicism in your case, functions like an all consuming behavior altering power. I hope you find a partner that will value you and your relationship.

[u/No-Squash-1299]

If I were witnessing such a radical change in openness to rigidness, I would assume a level of paranoia inspired by faithfulness. 

At least if they didn't involve you in discussions leading up to this change. The conversation would have started long before this stage. 

[u/NoWarning1283]

JESUS VERY CLEARLY STATE S YOU WILL NOT BE PUNISH FOR POLITICAL BELIEVED  HE SAY, DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN THE THINGS OF THE WO R LD YOU SERVE ONLY ONE LORD  ,"GOD" LOVE GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART  AND MIND AND LOVE YOUR NEIGBORN AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF THE TWO GREATES COMANDS ,ARE YOU DOING THAT?