When your partner converts to a different religion, and interfaith relationships in gneral
stonespring
Shipmate
in Epiphanies
I'm married to another man who converted to Judaism last year. Since we're two men and I didn't convert with him, Orthodox Rabbis wouldn't have converted him. Most Jews in the US aren't Orthodox, so this wasn't a huge problem. He did his conversion at and has been enthusiastically welcomed by a Reform synagogue (the oldest synagogue in our state and one of the oldest in the country, also a quite big one). He had a bar mitzvah ceremony this year, seeing he hadn't had one yet.
I can go into the detail of how he converted and how I developed my own Roman Catholic identity in later posts, but in this thread I wanted to examine why it is that my identity as a Roman Catholic and a Christian seems so much in doubt now in a way that it never has since I embraced being Roman Catholic as a student at university.
I worry that maybe the main reason I embraced Roman Catholicism was my hope that, by becoming more deeply involved with my family's religion (although my parents were not practicing), I would come to feel, especially once I was married and had a family of my own, that I was part of a religious family with shared traditions and values. I thought in the meantime before getting married I would be able to find some shared Catholic identity with my half-siblings and extended family, but I have come to realize that my family is largely secular. I also worry that my approach to religion (which is affected by my OCD, and perhaps by my autism as well) is so scrupulous, ritualistic, rigid, and hypocritical-seeming that I drive people away from the RCC and Christianity, including my husband. In the time that we have been together as my husband moved from Christianity to atheism to Judaism, I began to realize that a shared practice of Roman Catholicism would probably never happen in my family. Judaism is very much a religion of the home so now the only religious things my husband and I do together (aside from decorating a Christmas tree, since I still celebrate Christmas) are Jewish things, such as celebrating shabbat dinner every week. I still go to church each week, by myself, and I feel no pressure to go to synagogue with him but I do from time to time because I enjoy it. We recently spoke a lot about raising children, and my husband made it clear that he would not want to raise children in the Roman Catholic Church because of what various bishops and popes have said about families like ours. That leaves the option of raising children to be Jewish, which I would be willing to do. I know there is also the option of letting children decide what they want to identify as when they are old enough, but even entertaining the idea of raising children as Jewish has made me think that if I am ever going to be part of a family with a shared religion, I would need to convert to Judaism, too. The truth is, given my husband's age, it's quite likely we will never raise children, but the fact that I feel so able to contemplate converting to Judaism - if it means that my husband and hypothetical children can all have the same religion and share religious rituals, holidays, and values - has me worried that maybe my acceptance of Roman Catholicism was never very sincere to begin with.
The other main reason my Catholic and Christian identity is in doubt is that I have slowly evolved from being uncomfortable with Christians' wishing for the conversion of Jewish people in general to now feeling like I do not want my husband to return to identifying as Christian, and, furthermore, not feeling like I think he is "wrong" in what he believes and practices. By extension, I now don't really feel comfortable wishing for the conversion of anyone from another religion to Christianity, especially from any religion that is small or that has ever experienced persecution by Christians (I know Christians have suffered their fare share of persecution as well). If someone sincerely wants to convert, fine. But if an ancient religion ceases to exist because its last member converts to Christianity, for whatever reason I can't help but feel that that is a bad thing and the world is worse off for it. How can I still call myself a Christian if that is how I feel? Likewise, how can I call myself a Christian if I have a hard time thinking that any religion is wrong for the people who believe it? I go into hermeneutical gymnastics by thinking that my religion is true in the spiritual reference frame I inhabit, and this other person's religion is true in the spiritual reference frame they inhabit, and there is a universal truth external to everyone' spiritual reference frame but, since I am unable to inhabit anyone else's spiritual reference frame, I can only refer to this universal truth as I see it from my own spiritual reference frame. But that rightly sounds like nonsense, and not anything like the beliefs of Christianity.
Someone is bound to ask me if I "believe" in the tenets of Christianity or Roman Catholicism, and I can respond that I have no problem saying the creed at mass, and that if I can say the creed without the intent to deceive anyone who is hearing me say it, that's all I can say as to whether I "believe" or have "faith" or not. There is a warm fuzzy feeling inside me that never goes away, and that might have something to do with faith, but I am not sure if it is faith in Christianity. If I think of myself talking to Jesus or listening to what he might say to me, all I want to do is scream at Him in rage "WHY DO YOU HAVE A PENIS??????" so that isn't very helpful. I really like the idea that the Eucharist lets us have our cake and eat it too when it comes to having human sacrifice and cannibalism and worshiping God on Earth in what looks like food and drink while being able to say that human sacrifice is wrong, we aren't cannibals, and idols are bad. I love that sense of paradox, and I like that it resembles all the pagan things that Christians are supposed to not like. Judaism doesn't have as much of that, aside from the more mystical parts of it (although people are very reverential towards the Torah scrolls, but no one thinks the scrolls are God). But if I allowed myself to inhabit a Jewish frame of reference for long enough, I might be able to be comfortable there. I do think the idea of a radically transcendent God with no incarnation or Sacramental Real Presence for us to grab onto is intriguing. I don't know if I would like it, and it's more than a little bit scary, but my mind would be happy to explore it for a while.
So all of this leaves me feeling like my religion is just a game that I play with myself, and I'm worried it may not be one that I even sincerely believe in. I try to make friends my age at church (which isn't easy, since not many Roman Catholics under 40 even attend church), but I don't feel any spiritual fellowship with them. I am much more drawn to rituals and words than I am to people in the Church - and what I want is to be able to have those rituals and words at home with me echoed from the mouths of other people so that my religion doesn't feel like a selfish hobby or obsession. If that is my attitude to being RC and Christian, I'm not sure what the point is of remaining so, and I worry that I am giving RCs and Christians a bad name by allowing myself to label myself as such.
I'm curious to hear what other people's thoughts and experiences are on having a spouse that converts to another religion and on interfaith couples. You could also share your thoughts and experiences on interfaith families more generally - especially interfaith families where everyone takes not giving up on or watering down their religion seriously and "believes" in their respective religion (although some religions like Judaism aren't really about pinning down the specifics of what you believe and are more about what you do - as long as you don't believe Jesus was God or the Messiah! - so that complicates things).
I can go into the detail of how he converted and how I developed my own Roman Catholic identity in later posts, but in this thread I wanted to examine why it is that my identity as a Roman Catholic and a Christian seems so much in doubt now in a way that it never has since I embraced being Roman Catholic as a student at university.
I worry that maybe the main reason I embraced Roman Catholicism was my hope that, by becoming more deeply involved with my family's religion (although my parents were not practicing), I would come to feel, especially once I was married and had a family of my own, that I was part of a religious family with shared traditions and values. I thought in the meantime before getting married I would be able to find some shared Catholic identity with my half-siblings and extended family, but I have come to realize that my family is largely secular. I also worry that my approach to religion (which is affected by my OCD, and perhaps by my autism as well) is so scrupulous, ritualistic, rigid, and hypocritical-seeming that I drive people away from the RCC and Christianity, including my husband. In the time that we have been together as my husband moved from Christianity to atheism to Judaism, I began to realize that a shared practice of Roman Catholicism would probably never happen in my family. Judaism is very much a religion of the home so now the only religious things my husband and I do together (aside from decorating a Christmas tree, since I still celebrate Christmas) are Jewish things, such as celebrating shabbat dinner every week. I still go to church each week, by myself, and I feel no pressure to go to synagogue with him but I do from time to time because I enjoy it. We recently spoke a lot about raising children, and my husband made it clear that he would not want to raise children in the Roman Catholic Church because of what various bishops and popes have said about families like ours. That leaves the option of raising children to be Jewish, which I would be willing to do. I know there is also the option of letting children decide what they want to identify as when they are old enough, but even entertaining the idea of raising children as Jewish has made me think that if I am ever going to be part of a family with a shared religion, I would need to convert to Judaism, too. The truth is, given my husband's age, it's quite likely we will never raise children, but the fact that I feel so able to contemplate converting to Judaism - if it means that my husband and hypothetical children can all have the same religion and share religious rituals, holidays, and values - has me worried that maybe my acceptance of Roman Catholicism was never very sincere to begin with.
The other main reason my Catholic and Christian identity is in doubt is that I have slowly evolved from being uncomfortable with Christians' wishing for the conversion of Jewish people in general to now feeling like I do not want my husband to return to identifying as Christian, and, furthermore, not feeling like I think he is "wrong" in what he believes and practices. By extension, I now don't really feel comfortable wishing for the conversion of anyone from another religion to Christianity, especially from any religion that is small or that has ever experienced persecution by Christians (I know Christians have suffered their fare share of persecution as well). If someone sincerely wants to convert, fine. But if an ancient religion ceases to exist because its last member converts to Christianity, for whatever reason I can't help but feel that that is a bad thing and the world is worse off for it. How can I still call myself a Christian if that is how I feel? Likewise, how can I call myself a Christian if I have a hard time thinking that any religion is wrong for the people who believe it? I go into hermeneutical gymnastics by thinking that my religion is true in the spiritual reference frame I inhabit, and this other person's religion is true in the spiritual reference frame they inhabit, and there is a universal truth external to everyone' spiritual reference frame but, since I am unable to inhabit anyone else's spiritual reference frame, I can only refer to this universal truth as I see it from my own spiritual reference frame. But that rightly sounds like nonsense, and not anything like the beliefs of Christianity.
Someone is bound to ask me if I "believe" in the tenets of Christianity or Roman Catholicism, and I can respond that I have no problem saying the creed at mass, and that if I can say the creed without the intent to deceive anyone who is hearing me say it, that's all I can say as to whether I "believe" or have "faith" or not. There is a warm fuzzy feeling inside me that never goes away, and that might have something to do with faith, but I am not sure if it is faith in Christianity. If I think of myself talking to Jesus or listening to what he might say to me, all I want to do is scream at Him in rage "WHY DO YOU HAVE A PENIS??????" so that isn't very helpful. I really like the idea that the Eucharist lets us have our cake and eat it too when it comes to having human sacrifice and cannibalism and worshiping God on Earth in what looks like food and drink while being able to say that human sacrifice is wrong, we aren't cannibals, and idols are bad. I love that sense of paradox, and I like that it resembles all the pagan things that Christians are supposed to not like. Judaism doesn't have as much of that, aside from the more mystical parts of it (although people are very reverential towards the Torah scrolls, but no one thinks the scrolls are God). But if I allowed myself to inhabit a Jewish frame of reference for long enough, I might be able to be comfortable there. I do think the idea of a radically transcendent God with no incarnation or Sacramental Real Presence for us to grab onto is intriguing. I don't know if I would like it, and it's more than a little bit scary, but my mind would be happy to explore it for a while.
So all of this leaves me feeling like my religion is just a game that I play with myself, and I'm worried it may not be one that I even sincerely believe in. I try to make friends my age at church (which isn't easy, since not many Roman Catholics under 40 even attend church), but I don't feel any spiritual fellowship with them. I am much more drawn to rituals and words than I am to people in the Church - and what I want is to be able to have those rituals and words at home with me echoed from the mouths of other people so that my religion doesn't feel like a selfish hobby or obsession. If that is my attitude to being RC and Christian, I'm not sure what the point is of remaining so, and I worry that I am giving RCs and Christians a bad name by allowing myself to label myself as such.
I'm curious to hear what other people's thoughts and experiences are on having a spouse that converts to another religion and on interfaith couples. You could also share your thoughts and experiences on interfaith families more generally - especially interfaith families where everyone takes not giving up on or watering down their religion seriously and "believes" in their respective religion (although some religions like Judaism aren't really about pinning down the specifics of what you believe and are more about what you do - as long as you don't believe Jesus was God or the Messiah! - so that complicates things).
Comments
This bit jumped out at me: Does anyone convert to religion "sincerely" without secondary or even tertiary motives?
I ask because I doubt anyone does.
I don't know enough to comment.
Doublethink, Admin
I can see that where a shared faith is a fundamental element of the relationship, a change of faith by one party could be an existential threat to it.
While our relationship with our life partner is of fundamental importance in our life,there will rarely be total agreement on all and every aspect of life and it is something which we have to live with.
Whether or not we have individually converted to some other faith ,there will often be differences of understanding, even if we outwardly share exactly the same faith group.
St Paul mentions something about seeing through a glass darkly and we have to accept that others may see some things in a different way from us.
Mind, I do know one couple who divorced because one partner suddenly decided they weren't Jewish anymore. There had been a lot of issues with this one's mental health, and the other partner had been carrying a lot for them, but in the end the reversion to Catholicism was the final straw of "you're not the person I married, please issue me a license to divorce you."
I have a friend from high school who talked about how her parents worked out, dad being Congregationalist and mom being Catholic. They each attended their own churches, but the kids were raised in the Catholic Church. Said friend later married another friend who's Methodist, and I think they all attend the Catholic Church. And far as I can see it there are no bad feelings anywhere about this.
Meanwhile, my college girlfriend was the product of a Jewish-Episcopalian union, and (when I knew them) they were culturally Jewish (having affection for the ceremony and history of the religion) and self-IDing neo-pagan. I don't know where they are now.
This matches something I heard in seminary about differences between families. In the end, the family that's stricter about tradition will usually win a conflict over whose holidays take precedence. It's also funny because I had to look back at an edit and realize I hadn't capitalized "Congregationalist." When your religious tradition is grounded in the rejection of traditional authority, your kids might feel that it's ok for them to reject your traditional authority as well.
At some point, you find out where your fundamentals are and act accordingly. If denominational identity isn't that big of a deal (which it isn't to me, personally,) especially relative to your affection for your partner, then it might just drop by the wayside.
I don’t honestly see why your partner having a different type of faith should necessarily be a major problem. It could be a difference that it is fascinating to explore, and one that deepens your understanding of your respective faiths and the strength of your relationship. Unless, of course, either of you believes that there is only one true faith and anyone who doesn’t adhere to it is damned.
My extended family includes most Christian denominations (everything from Plymouth Brethren to Roman Catholic); one of my closest friends is an agnostic from a Jewish background and I must admit I would be shocked, and not entirely happy, if she ever decided to become a Christian of any description.
Re conversion: I converted from Baptist to Anglican at the age of 20 for two main reasons. One, because I enjoyed the style of worship and found I liked a certain amount of liturgy. Two, it was in the middle, a historical compromise between Protestant and Catholic with room for exploration.
Now back in my native UK, I am sort-of-C-of-E, but increasingly wishy-washy (tho I know there's a scripture "because though art lukewarm, I will spit thee out of my mouth!) and more and more inclined to think no one denomination, or indeed religion, has all the truth. Each one has a glimmer of it, each one sees it from a different angle. All different ways of approaching the Divinity. So then, one can choose the way that feels right. For some, it feels right to stay in, eg, Christianity, because God put them there. At any rate I love the history of the Christian tradition and it's my cultural heritage. I have at times felt, or seemed to feel, "something" in liturgy (and outside it too.) Also I do feel the figure of, and story of, Jesus is deeply compelling and a link with/way to/connection to/ the ultimate Divinity....
But in practice, this evolution has meant I have become lazy about going to any church service at all. The discipline/routine seems to have fallen away. If I have any faith it is (as I may have said ages ago on these forums, I'm returning after a bit of time away from the Ship, as happens every so often) a feeble little flame.
So Stonespring's concern about whether the RC faith he feels is genuine, and how he can call himself a Christian if he thinks other religions are not wrong for people in their own spiritual frame of reference, resonates with me. I remember a wonderful woman Episcopalian priest I know explaining how one could as a Christian today accept the saying that the only way to God is through Jesus, and *also* that a devout Jew/Muslim/Hindu etc is on an equally valid path, and it satisfied me then; but I forget the wording of it now. Nonetheless I think more and more that it's all a mystery. I abhor dogmatic statements and any claim to have the only truth. I think it's absolutely true, as mentioned above, that now we see through a glass darkly. But I think a faith community is important and prayer made in communion with others is important, and the sacraments also feel important to me in some profound way. So I "should" buck up and get back to church!
Short answer, Stonespring, I think you can still call yourself a Christian without this meaning that everyone else ought to be as well.
It takes place in Jerusalem at the time of the Third Crusade. The characters are perhaps little more than representatives of the three Abrahamic religions. Nathan the Jew, his foster daughter Recha who is a Christian and Saladin the leader of the Muslims.
Saladin asks Nathan about the 'true religion' If it is Judaism, why does he let his foster daughter be brought up as a Christian ?
Nathan replies that he has been brought up as a Jew by his parents who loved him and wished for him the best in life. The love of his parents and the trust he had in them tells him to remain true to Judaism. As for his foster daughter Recha, she had received from he now dead parents the same love and transmission of the Christian stories. How could he,a Jew, interfere with this love and make her change her religion to his ?
Nathan goes further and relates to Saladin the 'famous' ? parable of the Three Rings.
A father once bequeathed to his favourite son a splendid ring. The son was told to bequeath it in turn to his favourite son. And so it went on until one day the father with the ring had three sons,each one of which he loved dearly. He could not decide which son to bequeath the ring to. In the end he had two perfect copies of the ring made and at the time of his death he bequeathed the ring to all three of his sons,indicating to each that he was indeed the favourite son.
So it is now for each of us, the ring which we receive, we see and honour as a gift of love from our eternal father, a gift which should spur us on to do good things and to be able to bequeath that ring to generations following us.
One difficulty of mine has been processing seeing Christianity from the outside. Lots of Christians married to Jews feel their faith is enriched by learning about the religion of Jesus’ “roots”. They say it helps them understand the Hebrew Scriptures that Christians share better, as well as the Jewish thought and practice referred to in the New Testament. I don’t feel that way at all. Rabbinic Judaism today, Orthodox or Progressive, is not some religion that has been frozen in time for two thousand years. In many ways, it, Christianity, and Islam developed in response to each other. When we pray prayers or quote scripture that we have in common or that sound similar, we are believing radically different and mutually exclusive things about those words.
And for Judaism, this is even more pronounced than it is for other Christian denominations or for Islam because Jewish people do not necessarily want other people to convert to Judaism. Rabbis have written for centuries about how precious and laudable a sincere and devout convert is, but the understanding is that they are, and perhaps should be, rare. Judaism is supposed to be a religion full of difficult ethical burdens, deep moral quandaries, a questioning and struggling understanding of and relationship with God, and a neverending effort to prevent Jewishness from being subsumed into or destroyed by gentile civilizations. Judaism is not supposed to look appealing from the outside. Jews don’t remain Jewish because of a promised blissful afterlife or even an assurance of inner peace in this life.
So when I feel inspired by participating in a Jewish religious service, as long as I still identify as Christian, I feel like I am stealing and perverting a religion that just wants to be left alone. I can’t share in my husband’s religious practice in any way, really, other than as a respectful observer and supporter - unless we have children and I agree to raise them Jewish.
An added complication is my fear that, not only did I perhaps drive my husband away from Christianity with my rigid ritualistic and legalistic attitude towards it, but maybe I also nudged him towards Judaism because I thought it was a way to get him back “into” religion and because I was curious about Judaism - as I am about every religion - and wanted an inside ticket to let me learn about it (part of me wants to become polygamous and marry a Muslim, a Hindu, or a Buddhist for similar reasons).
I also worry that I’m pushing my husband to be more of a traditional Jew than he wants to be. My husband doesn’t really believe in an interventionist God or an afterlife. He is interested in religious practices that are more traditional than what most Reform Jews do, but only in a “take what works and leave the rest” way, and even the via media of Conservative Judaism may make him uncomfortable with its interpretation of the Commandments if he try to were to take it seriously (most Conservative Jews don’t follow all of even their relatively relaxed rules, at least outside of a Synagogue, but they tend to do more than Reform Jews do).
I worry that I might be using subtle means to nudge my husband in a more traditional direction, and I worry much more than he does that he isn’t a “real” or “authentic” Jew. I go out of my way to make sure we celebrate Shabbat dinner, although I let him lead the prayers, but I prompt him when he doesn’t remember the Hebrew, or the melodies, or what part of the Shabbat prayers come next. I have tried to make sure we lots of the Judaica in the house, including many things my husband wanted but other things like a Yad for keeping one’s place in reading from a Torah scroll or a large spiraling Shofar horn, that might be a little silly for us to have around the house. I try to nudge him away from shellfish and cheeseburgers, or at least prevent us from being in situations where shellfish or cheeseburgers might be appealing to him. I’m very nervous that we don’t have enough Jewish friends and that we don’t do enough Jewish community activities. I worry that if we both were Jewish, I would drive him away from Judaism with my scrupulosity.
So my current situation is, I felt like a fake Chrsitian and a fake Catholic before he converted, I feel even more like a fake now, but now I also worry he is a fake Jew, although he doesn’t, and if I converted, which would probably only happen if we had kids, I would be constantly afraid that I (and the kids) were not Jewish enough.
BUT, for as long as I am Christian - which is probably what I’ll always be, I feel like I either should want everyone to be a Christian, or else there’s not much point in being a Christian, while at the same time feeling like an antisemitic, cultural-appropriating, terrible person for involving myself in Judaism in any way other than as an observer and supporter.
I think, for me, religion is mostly a present thing. Sure, there's a metric ton of history, and that history informs the present, but I didn't join a church because Jesus died and was resurrected 2000 years ago. I joined a church because of their present action.
So, the 2000 years of history are only important insofar as they inform the present. Increasingly, I don't care to be reminded of the past. The Old Testament and the Tanakh and the New Testament, as religious texts, are useful for the present. And as time continues moving forward, the less it matters where it all came from. My present relationships with various Jewish friends are driven by present realities. If the past is relevant to them or to me, that's because they are presently relevant to me (and perhaps I am to them.) Getting hung up on injuries and tragedies that occurred centuries ago seems silly, as it would be silly for me to hold the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre against my Catholic friends.
Reading on, if it's your sense that you're manipulating your husband into being Jewish to satisfy your own curiosity...every marriage is its own thing and every one has its quirks, reflecting the quirks of its members. Maybe talk very openly with your partner about your worries and see how they're reflected in open comparison. And maybe it's ok, maybe it's something you both enjoy? Or if it's making you uncomfortable, talk to your partner about that and realign your lives accordingly.
Lord said that Sabbath was made for humankind, not the other way around. As a protestant, I don't really get making yourself suffer for religious practices that are supposed to be good for the soul, unless it's one of those things where suffering is good for the soul.
The fact that you're exercising enough sensitivity to be considerate of people's feelings seems to me to indicate that you're not an objectively terrible person.
You mention you are OCD and, perhaps, on the autism spectrum. Are you in contact with a therapist? Maybe this should be something that should be discussed with him/her. I can tell this is an intrusive thought for you, and it is likely very hard to break through. Please contact a therapist to learn some strategies to at least reduce its impact on you. I would hope eventually you will be able to enrich your relationship together.
Thanks @Gramps49 for your concern.
I've had therapy for decades. I can't think of any aspect of my life that I haven't rambled on about in therapy.
Regardless of whatever parts of it I obsess about, it is an objective fact that after my husband had both a. said he was an atheist and b. found out that he has some distant Jewish ancestry, I encouraged him to find out more about Judaism (along with a Jewish friend of his that he didn't see very often, so I was the one encouraging him more often). After he went to a couple of synagogue services, I encouraged him to think about converting. I encouraged him to start celebrating Shabbat at home. After he had started a conversion class, I encouraged him to go through with his conversion multiple times when he wasn't sure if he wanted or needed to. Later, I encouraged him to go ahead with his adult Bar Mitzvah and Hebrew classes when he felt like his Hebrew or his Torah cantillation were not good enough or that he didn't want or need to do it. I still subtly nudge him towards avoiding pork, even if he isn't willing to keep kosher in most other ways, and I try to remind him to attend synagogue services at home or away, although he doesn't always listen to me! He seems very happy being Jewish though, in his own way. It just pains me that aside from Reform or other kind of "progressive" Judaism, most Jewish people do not think he is really Jewish. I don't think he cares.
I have yet to get to know any interfaith couples with children where at least one partner doesn't make a decision that it really doesn't matter if their children are the same faith as they are, which is usually accompanied by a an overall choice to believe in religious pluralism, a relativistic view of religious truth, or a nominally-religious agnosticism. In Christian-Jewish interfaith relationships in particular, either neither partner cares much about religion and the kids are raised to be largely secular, with some religious holidays especially when grandparents are around, or one partner cares about having kids raised Christian or Jewish and the other partner doesn't feel the same way about their own religion. I've never observed a couple where both partners believe that their religion is the only true religion, their partner's religion is wrong, and everyone in their religion has a duty to raise their children in the same faith. Which means that I've never observed a couple where both partners have been orthodox (not referring to any specific Catholic or Jewish denomination) in their respective faiths, even when, in Christianity at least, interfaith marriage is allowed if not encouraged.
This means to me that, in order for our marriage to function if we were to have children, either I would have to decide that raising children to be Christian isn't that important for their salvation or my husband would have to decide that continuing the survival of Jewish civilization through your descendants (which is one thing every Jewish denomination agrees on, regardless of anyone's interior beliefs about faith, which is not something Judaism is particularly interested in regulating, and regardless of how many US Jewish people may act in practice) isn't that important either.
The only other option is to raise children in neither faith but with exposure to both, and to let them decide what to identify as when they are older, but my observation of other families leads me to believe that this usually leads to adult children who decide to not be religious other than maybe being "culturally" Jewish, Christian, or some mix of the two.
Have any of you observed any interfaith couples where this hasn't been the case?
Regarding your encouragement of your husbands journey into Judaism, it was still his choice to go through with it. Personally, I would be pleased had I had an agnostic/atheist spouse who developed a spiritual mindset with my encouragement, even if it were not like mine. Check out the discussion on univeralsim if you have not already.
Regarding the spritual upbringing of the children, I would say expose them to both. Kids these days are doing their own thing anyway. There will likely be times when they will be facing their own existential questions. Both faiths can help them get through the times.
Of course kids in interfaith families will be exposed to both religions. But if kids are exposed to both without being formally initiated into either, even if they are told they can choose which religion to be initiated into when they grow up, they are likely to grow up thinking that it’s best not to formally belong to any organized religion and/or that they can be both religiously Christian and religiously Jewish at the same time (they can’t, and most Jewish people who care about the survival of Judaism find this belief offensive).
And even if all the kids decide when they are old enough that they want to fully join one religion or the other, they are likely to have quite a few conversations with their parents about “what do you, Mom or Dad, believe?” beforehand. And every religious act done by either parent before the children’s decision will be seen as modeling and potentially encouraging or their children to pursue that faith. Even if both parents agree to not push the children either way, if both parents identify with their faith strongly enough to want to pass it on to their children (a belief which, I have said, is central to almost all organized forms of Judaism) then a competitive dynamic is inevitable to develop, even subconsciously, that could be damaging to the spirituality of either parent, to the nascent spirituality of the children, and to the marriage itself.