I was listening to some AFR the other day and it mentioned that many priests say not to attend DL without their spouse. Usually its the men that want to attend first. And that some need to wait years and years on their spouse before fully converting.
I wonder what do they do in the interim? Obviously read the bible, the fathers etc I also assume morning & evening prayers, fasting, and work on... well growing in Christ.
I ask this because I believe my wife is wanting to go back to Protestant churches (we're attending RC now). So I'm wondering how to live an Orthodox life in the interim until God calls us both to a church home. I've been seeing the RC churches as a compromise in my mind between Protestant churches and EC/EO churches.
How does one meet Sunday obligation?

Dave:

Christ is risen!

Perhaps my situation is a little less challenging than yours, but we are a "split" household, so to speak. I'm a cradle Byzantine Catholic, and my wife was raised as a Methodist (despite her father being Roman Catholic, and her mother originally Russian Orthodox - long stories, both ...).

Given my wife's Russian ethnic background on her mother's side, she connects well socially with our Church and our customs (she can put a very traditional basket together for Easter, and prides herself on her Pascha). Yet, even the other day (unsolicited), she said that she can never see herself converting. Her reasons are often those heard in opposition to the Roman Catholic line of thinking, what she likely hears in the media, and its challenging to try to overcome that bias.

Yet, we attend DL faithfully on Sundays and days of precept, and remain fully committed to raising our children as Byzantine Catholics, as we committed before marriage.

In that regard, we both remain bound to the family's Church, and I know of a few other families (including one where the husband is also a deacon in the Byzantine-Ruthenian Church) that are in similar situations.

What remains is a commitment to the children, and a mutual respect between the husband and wife, bound in marriage through Christ, and with Christ as the center of the marriage and family.

I still struggle to think of how I might be able to convince my wife, but she is strong willed and intelligent. In that regard, there is little difference between her and the many strong willed Eastern European women of my own family and ancestry.

I don't think you can tie your conscience to that of your spouse. I was baptized at the age of 20 a year after my marriage to another unbaptized person. It was 30 years after that before my husband was baptized-and we still worship at different churches. I often attend his (ACNA Anglican) as well as my own and he sometimes attends mine as well as his. It certainly was not good for my children that their father was not a believer,(only the youngest of nine was still living at home when he was baptized) but would it have been better for them if neither parent was? I don't know if you have children or are planning to, but I think agreeing on a way to handle the difference in religious tradition with the children, in a peaceful and respectful way, is the most important thing. I knew a girl in college one of whose parents was RC and the other an "AngloCatholic" and the subject was one of such stress for her that she could not attend either without feeling disloyal to one parent. You need to avoid something like that, and convey a respect for each other's beliefs and religious tradition, and for each other's integrity of conscience.
Susan Peterson