It's like the family that prays together stays together. If you are a believer God will always come first.

they say if you follow the church of God, that is where you would meet your lover. A catholic tradition of love. But if its an outsider looking in, I would just say, "go to church." And start from there.

It also matters of the person (where you found your lover) if you found your lover at the bar, you probably wont be living a christian life at home. Same goes with other nasty and filthy and disturbing places. It's a long story................

I'm not Christian and neither is my partner, he's Wiccan and I'm learning about Wicca. Stbxh believes in God but does not believe in organized religion for him.

I see nothing wrong with believers who want to put God first, make God the center. I personally don't feel it's something that's needed in order to have a strong, healthy relationship, to instill kindness to each other or for a win-win relationship. My relationship with H or my relationship with my partner, neither were ever a selfish tug-of-war type relationship but that was due to us, who we are and what we made our relationship to be.

LoL

Hubby and I met at a bar.. We were both Catholic as well.

When we went to meet with our priest before our wedding he asked us a some questions.
# 1... have either of you been married before? We said "No"

#2,,, Are you both Catholic?..
When we said "Yes" he actually said "Oh Thank God"
I thought that was too funny.

I agree with you, Koolman about having some sort of spiritual force. Also I think being able to give in and really asking yourself what would Jesus do in this situation? Even if you don't believe in Jesus... From the stories of Jesus we know he wasn't full of "Pride" and didn't feel he "Deserved" to have things his own way. Which is where I feel most marriages come undone.

& to be clear.. I'm not talking about the cases when a person is married to a true monster who beats you, is drug addicted or cheats.

My experience is this..... I didn't pray or talk to God before my recovery and pending divorce. Once I sobered up and tried to patch up my marriage, I asked God to come into my life. Through the trials and tribulations, I asked God to help keep my marriage together even though I saw signs and even had dreams that I felt he was telling me he had different plans for me. No matter how much you pray and try to against God's plans for you, His will is too strong and He will do what He feels is best for us.

But if you are BOTH willing to reach out to God. I believe he can do great things for relationships. He can help you find clarity, peace, and intensify love.

I think God is simply Love. So yes! It should definitely be the center of any relationship. God is why we got together in the first place.

Replying to the last post by Journalre...

I agree. But my point was what happens when ghe other partner isn't into God? It takes two to make the relationship work and one isn't willing to reach to God. That was my experience and that's what I was referring to as "God's will."

Sometimes people have a very definite image of what God is. I suppose if your partner isn't into God then it's important to figure out a mutual definition of what God is.

For example, you mention God as He. For me, God is not a figure or a person. God is a feeling. God is love. Even though me and my partner might have different definitions of God, I can always get back to basics by translating what is being said into a way that I comprehend.

Having said that, I don't believe that love alone can keep a relationship together. It also requires a whole lot of effort!

I'm an athiest, and my partner believes in some sort of spiritual being, though he isn't sure what. We have been together for going on six years, we have a daughter together, own a home together, the whole shebang.

Yet we aren't married. Because the main reason for marriage is religious...there are legal aspects, but not much more then whats apparent in common law relationships.

God isn't even close to a big part of our relationship. We long ago agreed to disagree. We sometimes have talks about our beliefs, not arguments, discussions. And we both agreed that when our daughter is old enough to start asking about God we would encourage her to figure out her own beliefs. If she chooses to believe, good for her, if she doesn't, good for her.

God is as important in a relationship as you make him, just like most else in a relationship :). Everyone needs something to center their coupling on....if yours is God then good for you, for others it may be something else.

This is a great topic. God as the third person lends a sense of a more powerful relationship...or should.

Even though my x-spouse and I went to church (Catholic) most every Sunday for many years, and she even taught bible study for kids...we divorced.

I still have great faith in God. I just could no longer believe in my partner...and had lost faith in myself...

any thoughts?

Not just ANY church is the church of GOD,, I am roman catholic,, just because there are divorce in relationships doesn't mean that you never had Jesus in your life. Some people can easily say that there catholic and yet they would never devote there time every Sunday to go to church, there is a difference between of how much time you devote yourself in a CATHOLIC church, rather than just making a label.

I thought my husband had some similar feeling about the world. Well that is what he exclaimed at first. Then found out he was just impressing me. So I guess our spirituality became a bad disgusting threesome. People change blah .... I'm not interesting to him anymore of course. :(