I would like to start my post by saying that I wish more people would register before posting. Although submitting posts as Guest provides some degree of anonimity, I check the forum often and would like to have some background for the person with whom I am holding a dialogue.
With that said...getting back to the issue of an inter-faith marriage. I, a Hindu have been in a relationship with a Muslim boy for several years now. This relationship became serious earlier this year and the parents on either side were made aware that this will eventually lead to marriage. They have asked us to seriously think about this decision and so he and I have been doing extensive research...trying to find couples like ourselves on the internet to investigate what issues may potentially arise in the future. In my research, I've noticed certain trends, and I think that most people will agree with our findings.
1st) the couple has to be totally <font color="red">accepting and respectful of eachother </font color> despite their personal and religious differences. This means participating in each others functions (religious, social, family, whatever) for the comfort of your spouse, even if it holds no significance to you. It should be important to you for the sole reason that it is significant enough to your spouse to want you to attend.
2nd) Avoid as much outside social pressure as possible. This includes family, friends, neighbors, etc. You can't let outside people influence your decisions. You'll never be able to please everyone, so just work on keeping YOU and your spouse happy.
3rd) As long as you and your spouse are happy /images/graemlins/laugh.gif, the kids will follow suit. You can't worry about what or how you will teach them to have faith in God because kids are smart and they'll pick up on the subtleties of how each parent practices before any major issues arise.
In the relationships which are not so successful which unfortunately, is more often the case than not, one (usually the Muslim spouse) may force the other to convert whether it is for themselves or they are asking on behalf of someone else..ie. asking your partner to convert because it will make your parent's lives easier, not necessarily because it's important to you that you share the same faith. Other times, it's because one succumbs to the negative influence from externally. ie...asking your spouse to dress/act/behave a certain way so you don't have to hear sh*t for it.
Keep in mind, any relationship, interfaith or not requires cooperation and some degree of compromising. Just becuase your relatiosnhip may require a little bit more doesn't mean it's not worth all the hard work or that it's ultimately headed towards failure. Besides, isn't the path less traveled more exciting?
So, in the end, our families have come around and put our happiness before their own hdifferences and doubts. In my own experience, the last several years have been great and there's no legitimate reason for me to think the future will hold anything different than that for the two of us. If God had not wanteded for us to be together as husband and wife, we never would have come to this point. I wish I had realized earlier, that there was nothing to fear and that all my worrying /images/graemlins/confused.gif was just a waste of time.
