WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo?: Faith in Relationships

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Greg and Emily discuss the role of faith in relationships. Do you need to share the same faith? Why or why not? This and more in today's episode. 

Batman doesn't do ships, as in me. You complete me. I'm George, George McFly. I'm your density. It is not about the nail. No matter when, no matter who, any man has a chance to sweep anyone off her feet. You're listening to Where For Art Thou, Romeo? The show that discusses how to navigate romantic relationships

and how to achieve a mean between the extremes of hookup culture and over-discerned dating. Here's your host, Emily Shudy. Welcome to Where For Art Thel Romeo, the show where we talk about how to follow your heart without losing your mind. My name is Emily Shuddy and my co-host is licensed to marriage therapist and also my dad, Greg Shuddy. We're all navigating relationships every day, but sometimes the most intimate are also the most challenging. Our goal is to help you get out of your own head when it comes to your or even your friend's relationship questions and concerns. Hi, Greg. How are you doing? I'm doing well. I've had plenty of friends.

coffee so I'm wide awake and ready to roll with things. I do have had my coffee. I feel like this semester has been a coffee semester for me. Yeah. I don't. Yep. I got you. Yeah.

I don't usually drink it for the caffeine because I do just like the taste. But this semester, it's been for the caffeine. Oh, no. I mean, I've never seen a purpose for decaf. If it doesn't have the caffeine, why even drink it? Except for the warmth of. I mean, that's the other thing is I just like to have the warmth of it. Yeah.

Yeah. I do know some people that like it just for the sake of the taste, which in that instance, probably drinking it not for caffeine would be a good thing because, you know, you don't need to, you don't need that like energy boost. Yeah. So. I don't know how these people, you know, some people will tell me, yeah, I'm on my second pot. I'm like, wow.

Second pot? That's a lot. Like, no, pot of coffee. That's a lot. That's a lot of coffee. No, no, no, no, I know that's what you meant. I just, that's a lot of coffee. Yeah, oh, no, I get it. Because I, sometimes, it's a bad day if I have my third cup of coffee and I start shaking because of it. So. Yeah, I've definitely had days where I, I drank too much coffee, like, too concentrated dose of a dose of espresso in the afternoon. And so I was jittery the rest of the day.

And then I stayed up till like one or two, which is not really good for the college life, at least personally for myself. So some people would disagree with me. They stay up till that time anyway. But. Yeah. So before we get into our specific question for the day, I wanted to ask you to share your funniest dating story. Now, okay, before we go into that, okay, I'll come back to that one.

But you caught me off guard last week, and so I told you some of my favorite childhood songs. And a little bird kind of told me that your station manager, Scott, had a comment about my Seasons in the Sun song. And I heard it, he said, quote, is one of the worst songs ever written in a crime against humanity. Oh, no. And I guess the best thing that I can say in response to that is he is dead on right. And you have to remember that when I was a kid, I was melancholy. And I don't know, I was just too much in an emotion. So I agree with him.

But in defense, it is the best song that Terry Jacks ever wrote. Because if you listen to the rest of his songs, they're even worse. I mean, if you just want a good laugh, look up Terry Jackson. But I do want to get back in Scott's good graces. So I'm going to give you five of my other childhood favorite. So you came prepared this time for my. I came prepared this time because I thought about it. I might give it a little bit more.

So real quick, the first one is I always love Yes's song, Leave It. That's a good song. I think it's well written. The harmonies are great. The second one is Rush, Spirit of the Radio. Again, I like a lot of their songs. Another one is James Taylor, and I still want Scott to do a political beats on James Taylor. So this is my shout out, Scott. If you're listening, you know, I'd love to hear one on James Taylor. And by the way, I love political beats.

Great, great podcast. So James Taylor, I would say one of my favorite of his is smiling face. seals and croft and I don't know if he's done one on seals and croft but the song which I think is a perfect perfect song is summer breeze it's just so well written makes me feel fine yeah

and then one more I'll throw out there because from that era is Chicago's Saturday in the park so anyway hopefully you'll hear this and trying to redeem yourself here yes myself with him yep so anyway

sorry so your question was What again? What's your funniest dating story? Or maybe your funniest dating faux pa. Fopaw. Oh, jeez. Let me see. I'd have to think as far as a faux paw on my part.

I do remember one of the most awkward one was I had asked out this girl who was the sister of your uncle Jeff's girlfriend at the time. So it was one of those I was just like, I don't remember if I did it as a favor or whatever. was really shy and and all of that. And so I took her to a dance and I was driving her in my first car, which was, it wasn't the best of cars, but it was, you know, I was proud of it. You had a car. You were at least driving, you know, you didn't have to have your parents drive you. That was good. It was a capri. And it was, you know, anyway. So I was driving her and she got so nervous that she asked me to pull over and I pulled over and then she opened the door and threw up out of the door. Oh no.

And I felt so bad. So I was trying to be the most, you know, the best gentleman I could. I think I gave her something to wipe her mouth. And we went to the dance and I just tried to make nothing of it. And I think the hardest part was I found out later that she said some really mean stuff about my car. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh. I was like the nicest guy when she, I don't know. That was one of the hardest ones because I felt bad for her.

I tried to help her out. And then she turned around and, you know, disrespecting. I feel like it's really hard because sometimes when something really embarrassing happens to you, there can be this tendency to like turn around and make it about the mistake of someone else to try to get the focus off of you. which is not good. It's definitely not a healthy way to handle it. It's kind of cruel. But I can see why that would happen.

No, I'm not condoning it. Well, no, no, no. And, you know, now that you say that, being a young teenage boy, who knows, my car probably smelled like garbage. And so she, that could have been the precursor to her actually throwing up. So really, it wasn't because she was nervous. It was because your car smelled like dirty socks or something, you know.

That's right. Or I, who knows. Anyway, that was a very interesting thing. Oh, man. That's so rough. So, anyway, moving right along. So what are we, what are you going to throw my way today here to talk about? I was thinking that we could talk about the topic of faith in relationships.

We have a student question that is, this is their specific question. And it says, how do you decide which points of Christian doctor? are too important to compromise on. So I was thinking... Man, these deep thinkers up at Hillsdale. I should have picked a college that people you're just like, you know, these simple questions like, how do you... I don't know.

I don't know if this... It might not necessarily be a Hillsdale problem, but it could be. Oh, no, I'm just kidding. It's actually a great question. But it is a heavy hitter. It's one of those, you know, very deep, Because we fall in love with people because of who they are, not necessarily because of their faith background, but that does play a, you know, a factor in all of that. So that's a good question. Yeah. Yeah. And so I guess this question is specifically asking about, you know, the element of Christian doctrine. So we can talk a bit about the difference in Christian denominations and how that can impact a relationship. And then possibly even getting into, I guess this would be. a removal from that particular question, but the difference is in faith entirely. So if someone's a

Christian and someone's not a Christian and how that might impact some things. So yeah, let's maybe start with if you have some thoughts on doctrine that you shouldn't compromise on. Well, I don't really want to go that direction. And the reason is because, you know, to different people, different doctrine is more important. And some of it is, how do you? I don't, I don't want to say that. I think I'd be trying to grasp at too many moving parts that for some people would mean something and some people it wouldn't. The one thing I would say is that I know speaking from the Catholic faith, some people, you know, will often say that it's just one more way of walking through Christianity and we can all have our own way of doing it and, you know, we shouldn't fight about or whatever it might be. but ultimately there are some key things between the Catholic faith and other ecumenical denominations that are very critical because we would see like the whole doctrine of the Eucharist and Mary and confession and things like that,

the sacraments, that would be key. And so one of the things that's a true statement is most of the Christian faiths, we have about 90. percent in common, but there are some key things that are very critical from like the Catholic faith to other ecumenical denominations. But that, again, that's something that a person would have to really wrestle with within themselves, because there's a lot of other key things that are, that we should talk about. One is the fact that if there's differences in your faith that are, there are key components to that, you know, I think a lot of, of people look at it as we can overlook this we can work with this i respect your way you respect

mine and that's great but what people don't often think about before they get married is what does what's going to happen when kids come along and i think that's when i see kind of the tension start to play out and so this is one of the things when people are talking about can a catholic and a you know a protestant work have a good marriage yes they could But when kids come along, it's going to test, you know, what are you going to, which direction are you going to go. I've even heard people say, well, we agreed upon before we got married. But then when the kids came along, that wasn't necessarily honored. And so that became a difficulty.

And that's why I often say if you are thinking about getting married and you are from two different faith backgrounds, you really need to talk about and explore that because that's the bigger issue is, can you? you truly respect, can you truly be okay with your kids growing up with one or the other, or is there a way that you can combine them both and still feel okay about that? Does that make sense? Yeah, that does make sense. I mean, just from watching my own family, watching you and mom and like how you guys had to really be on the same page about a lot of things just so that, you know, you had seven kids and you had to make sure that you weren't going to be overrun because you were outnumbered. And so you had to have like this understanding of if one parent said,

you know, just a very basic example. If one parent said, no, you can't have a cookie. And the child ran to the other parent and asked them the same question. And that parent said, oh, yeah, sure, you can have a cookie. Then like, you're not on the same page about what the kids can do and can have. And so there's like this power grab that kind of like goes back and forth. Because as kids, you're just kind of trying to get what you want. And so you're going to figure out how to do that by whatever means necessary. And so from what I observed, you guys had to really come together in all sorts of ways in order to educate us and train us up as productive members of society. And so I guess in the same way for me.

me watching you guys be you really united on faith was really impactful to maintaining my own faith. And so I think if there had been less unity there, it would have been harder for me as the child of that to watch you both and decide, well, what do I believe and what do I want to do about that? Right. And then it kind of puts the child sometimes, not all the time, but it sometimes puts the child in the position of who's right, mom or dad. because there are some things that are going to contradict. So just for example, if you're Catholic, you would see communion as a receiving of God's body, blood, soul, and divinity. Whereas another denomination, when they do communion, they would say, no, it's not. It's a symbol of. Now, that's a huge difference.

Okay. Or like confession. Whereas in the Catholic faith, you would say, you know, you have to. go to a priest in order for there to be that reconciliation, whereas in other faiths, it might be no, as long as you go to God and confess. And again, I think that the danger here is, you know, if you've got two people that are very strong in their particular faith, it starts to create some division, especially when kids come along. It's easier when you're just, you know, we're married, we don't have kids. I respect yours. You respect mine. I go to my church.

you go to yours or you join me at mine or whatever. But when kids come along, then it starts to, it starts to be, well, what is the right one mom? What is the right one, dad? And then how do you walk through that? I've seen, and that's the biggest thing that I tell people, you need to go into the possibility of marriage knowing that it's going to be hard. Now, with that said, I've known people that do a little bit better because one is really strong in their faith and the other. one's just more laxed. We've had family members like that where the one was, you know, one denomination and their spouse was like, yeah, I'll just go to years. That's fine because I was never

really deep into mind. And it worked, but that also can create some difficulty for the parent who's very on fire for their faith. And the other one that's like, no, I'm just going to stay home. Because then the kids see that. And it's just like, well, we're going to stay home too. And and that can create that difficulty. So, you know, that's the biggest thing. And I've counseled people on this. And they'll be like, so are you saying that it can't work? And I'm saying, no, it's not.

But you have to really think about these things and not just two things. You can't go into it thinking, I'll change him or I'll change her. That's not okay. That's not what you get into marriage for is to change them. You hope that they want to become better. They want to change. They want to grow in their faith and grow in other parts of their life, but you cannot go into marriage with the idea of our love will fix it.

I will change them because it's not. It's actually going to get, it could get a lot more frustrating. This is where for Arthel Romeo, where we are discussing the question of where to draw the line on matters of faith. I'm your host, Emily Shodi, and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist Greg Shuddy here on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Let me follow up what I just talked about with an actual example. You know, I had a couple that he was, and this goes even outside of Christian faith,

where this gentleman was, he was more agnostic. I can't remember if it was that or he was, I don't think he was atheistic, but either way, he was not real big into it. And she was really big into her Catholic faith. And when they came to me, there was this frustration because she said, he agreed to let me raise the kids in the faith and he was going to have no problem and respect that. But as they started to get this division in their relationship, just the normal division from poor communication and all that, religion started to become a point of contention where he started to undermine the things that she was trying to teach the kids in front of the kids behind her back.

and little by little, this just eroded things so bad. And even when I tried to help them find a middle ground, that was one that eventually they stopped coming because it got so bad and it even got abusive in some ways. And again, not to say they all get that way, but I think it's one of those things where she went into the marriage thinking, he respects it, we're okay. And then all of a sudden, it just wasn't.

And again, there's no guarantee that even if you're on the same, pages faith that bad things can't happen to your marriage. So hopefully not painting a white swath here. It seems then from what you're saying that like having that same like very closely united mindsets about faith can be really important. I mean, not necessarily an insurmountable issue, but it can definitely be a very serious point of conversation in a in a relationship where maybe you're not on the same page because, yeah, it just seems to me like what you're saying is if you're not on the same page over the years, things can change. You can change. Your relationship can change. And when things get hard, when you get kind of past that initial honeymoon phase,

sometimes you're not always going to love the person in the same way that you did before. and so it can be harder to maintain like that what you said at the beginning of the relationship. Is that, I don't know, is that accurate? Yeah, somewhat. Yeah, I think that's, it's just one of those things where when you go into marriage with a lot of differences, especially in key areas of your life, they have the opportunity to create more division unless you are working together. and growing together and really trying to, you know, find that way to build that unity. Because this is the key is, let's even put it this way.

No matter what you go into marriage with as far as, you know, some differences, you've got to find ways to work through those together and you've got to become better. But you also have to realize what are those parts in your life that are non-negotiables? And it's not meant to be a judgment of others. it's just meant to say this is something that's really key that I'm not willing to grow or grow apart from or change. Whereas other things, okay, I can grow in. Sports, I'm not big into sports, but I could join you for that. And that's not a big deal.

But it's, you know, if we're talking faith, and we say, no, my faith in this particular religion is hugely important. And it's not for the other person. you've got to understand that that's, and that's non-negotiable, that could create difficulty going into a blind. So I guess. Or thinking that they're going to change. Yeah. So then like having, I guess to answer the question of the student's question, in many

ways, we can't necessarily decide for you what those points of Christian teaching are, are something to continue or end a relationship over because ultimately, You have to decide what is the non-negotiable elements of my faith? So if you, because if you believe something really strongly and you know that you cannot compromise on that, but the person that you want to be in a relationship with and potentially marry someday does not hold that to be dear and does not have any intention of ever holding that in the same way as you do, that would probably be a reason to end that relationship. So that's ultimately we can't necessarily tell you this is a doctrine you should end your relationship over.

It has to be something that you decide this is a non-negotiable. Yeah, definitely. And I think that it seems a little noncommittal, but the bigger message that I'm trying to paint here is go into the relationship with your eyes wide open. Don't think that our love will get through this or we will easily make a compromise later on. No, you should be working through these things before marriage. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Wherefore Art Thel Romeo with more on the topic of faith in relationships. I'm your host, Emily Shuddy, and my co-host is licensed to marriage therapist Greg Schutty here on Radio Freehillsdale 101.7 FM.

And we're back with Wherefore Art Thel Romeo with the topic of faith in relationships. Greg, would you continue telling us more about going into the relationship with your eyes wide open? Sometimes, you know, as you're dating someone, they might start having that conversion towards your faith. but you can't go into it being, I'm going to convert. And what can you live with? And I, you know, the couple that, one of the couples that they just counseled not long ago, where they were of different faiths. One was Catholic.

One was Protestant. I don't remember what denomination. I just said, what's the plan when you have kids? And what are you both okay with? Because if you can't talk about that now and agree and you say, well, we'll deal with that later, you're fooling yourself. So we have to have those hard conversations. if we are thinking this might be someone that I want to marry.

I knew someone that, you know, one of your siblings went to school with, that she converted to the Catholic faith, but her fiancé didn't. And it was one of those, you know, I guess when they started to date, that was not something she was looking to do, but she did convert. And he was unwilling to do that. And that was a hard thing for them to decide what to do with them. that and they they did end up breaking off that engagement because they knew that it you know he was dead set against where she was going and she could not go back to where he was going and that's

there's some integrity in that but there's a lot of heartbreak in that too because you may love the person but the I love the way this this is the way I've heard someone say it look for the person that you're willing to suffer through life with and it's not suffering them but suffer through the difficulties. You can't walk through all the stuff that the world's throwing at you if you're fighting. So yeah, some of these things are key issues. And, you know, when we're talking the difference between even like the Catholic faith and the other ecumenical Protestant faith, there's, there might be a five percent difference, but that five percent are some very key issues that you, you've got to look at and go, am I willing to give that up? Or the other person

saying, am I willing to accept that? Because if not, when you have kids, it will definitely create a difficulty. And I've just seen it so many times in therapy. But I also want to put the caveat, it doesn't mean it's impossible. But you've got to decide, am I willing to take that risk, that chance? And that's all I would say. So that makes sense. This is where for Arthel Romeo, where we are discussing the question of where to draw the line

on matters of faith. I'm your host, Emily Shuddy, and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist Greg Shuddy here on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Yeah, I actually, I really, I liked what you said there about the infighting. Like, if you, there's already so much in the world that's against you, especially pertaining to this question of for Christians, there's already so much that we have to combat as Christians. And so as soon as you introduce that element of, of contention inside the family, then suddenly that unit that's supposed to be your foundation where you're rooted and are able to find consolation and support, as soon as that becomes a place where you can't find consolation and support, there's just this crumbling that's bound to happen.

And so, like you said, it's not insurmountable, it's not impossible, but it's definitely something to be very aware of. Okay, so let me touch on one more caveat with that or one more condition that people need to take into consideration. So you might be going into a relationship with someone who's of the same denomination. So you're both, you know, Lutheran or you're both Catholic or you're both, you know, whatever it might be. The other thing that you've got to keep in mind is the one who is very lukewarm in their faith and the other one who's very fervent. And this is something else that can create. a difficulty and I see this again in marriage. And again, I don't want to paint this picture of if that's the case now, then call it off. No, but keep in mind, I've seen that where in a marriage, one person's on fire for the faith and the other one's just like, you know, whatever. I'll go to church, but that's it. I'm not going to get involved in any other things.

And they're kind of very laxed in it. Could work because they might just go along with the one who's very first. And go to different things, church things, and they just, you know, don't grow. But it's also very hard when you're unequally yoked. And you've got that one that's just kind of starts to have resentment that you just make everything about faith. And the other one resenting the fact that you are so lazy in your faith that it creates that divide between each other. So again, those are the things to talk about. I think it's neat when people in the dating phase actually learn how to,

pray together and join each other in faith together. And if you can't do it while you're dating, don't think it's going to, you know, change in marriage. Because if someone once said this and it's, I find it to be true, the good things, let's put it this way, yeah, the good things before you get married may or may not continue on into marriage because we put our best foot forward and sometimes then we slack off. But the bad things usually mostly go into marriage and, And they get bigger. So if you're not dealing with it before marriage, marriage is not going to fix it. Saying I do will not fix it.

It's got to be two people deciding that, no, we want to work on this out of love for one another. So again, that unequally yoked thing is something to really think about too, just because you're in the same denomination. Yeah, I actually had an experience of that a couple years ago, a family that I, I was working for. And I definitely noticed that in the couple that there was a, I think that the one side had had this conversion of sorts, like within her fate, they were both the same denomination, but she had just kind of had this change of heart and become particularly traditional in a way that her husband had not quite. gotten on board with. And so I saw this disconnect between them and it impacted the way that they

dealt with the kids. It impacted the way that they related with each other and spoke with each other and gave time to each other. And so there was fundamentally, suddenly this different way that they lived their faith and raised their kids. And so I noticed that it was a frustration for the father because suddenly he wasn't really getting his wife's time in the way that he needed. And she, I think, was trying to provide, I don't know, things for her kids at the expense of her relationship with her husband. I don't know that she recognized that. And maybe this was just like an observation that I had that wasn't entirely accurate, which is quite possible, you know. But it's just kind of the way that it appeared to me. So I think it was very interesting

to witness that, like you're saying, that very real example of that how you are yoked. And honestly, you know, it's not something that I think is insurmountable for this couple because I think that they, you know, are still continuing to grow in their relationship. Because sometimes, you know, when you have several kids, it's harder to figure out that balance of time together and how you're like growing in relationship. And so learning how to how to pull your spouse into the faith life. of the family without making it feel really like obnoxious. Because I get that. As someone whose faith is really important to me,

I do think there is a level at which the way that people, I don't know, try to bring their faith life into everything. Like I know it's supposed to be in everything, but when it's so obvious that it's what you're talking about, it can become really, like feel very falsely pious. Well, and again, we have to work with each other. It makes me think of the story of Jonnet Bankovich who talks on EWTN where she used to. And I think she's got a new last name because she got remarried.

But she because her husband passed away. I want to be clear about that. But anyway, she tells this story about how her, with her last husband, they were both kind of just lukewarm in their faith. But all of a sudden she had this resurgence of her faith and got on fire for it. went to Bible studies and tried to pull her husband into it. And he just kept kind of like, no, no, no, I'm not there. I'm not there. And I'm just, this is kind of a quick summation of it.

But basically what happened was he started to become disillusioned with how this marriage was going and said to her one day, he's like, I think we're going to need to get a divorce because, you know, this is going. We're really divided on this. And one of the things that he said, I thought was pretty interesting. He said, I can't compete with Jesus. And it woke up, Jeanette, to go, hold on, that's not what I'm trying to do. And so she had to really learn, how do I go back to really loving my husband where he is and inspire versus dragging and pushing and pulling?

And it was through her just serving her husband and having that love that he eventually came to that point. So again, yeah, it's a process. Yeah. And I feel like it's just a process that we as human beings have to figure out with all aspects of life, even aside from faith. We have to figure out how to live in community with each other and actually communicate with each other in a way that we can be receptive of and other people can be receptive of because they're, I don't know, no matter what you talk about, it can be really easy to totally turn people off to what you're saying. So, yeah, I mean, sometimes the best way to draw people in instead of dragging them in is just living it and not and loving it, like living and loving your faith. Well, that's what happened with me and your mom because ultimately, you know, I admit it. I can be very lazy in my faith. But your mom just sticking with her faith and praying and doing that on a regular basis really inspired me to step, step things up.

you know, that's what you want, inspired versus, you know, pushing, pulling, dragging, forcing kind of thing. And again, that's the way you've got to go into a marriage, especially if you are unequally yoked or from different perspectives. This is Where For Arthel Romeo, where we are discussing where to draw the line on matters of faith. I'm your host, Emily Shuddy, and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist Greg Shuddy here on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Before we get back into the conversation on faith in relationships, let's take a moment to ask, how long has it been since you've attempted to romance someone? I have here with me, my somehow successfully married Big Brother Joshua for this segment of Pitchin' Woo.

Pick up lines for all your romantic endeavors. Excuse me, do you have a Band-Aid? I scrape my knee pretty bad falling for you. Have you seen those movies Star Wars because Yoda only one for me? Hey, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Mr. Wright. Someone mentioned you were looking for me. Gosh, I'm so confused, because I thought happiness started with an age.

But honestly, I'm starting to think mine starts with you. Aw. You know something? Life without you? Totally pointless. Kind of like a broken pencil. Excuse me, do you have a map? I believe I've been lost looking into your eyes.

Are you a camera? Because every time I look at you, I have to smile. Aww. I don't really consider myself a hoarder, but if I'm being honest, I would love to keep you forever. I'm really glad I have a good job with good life insurance because honestly when I saw you, my heart stopped. If I had to rate you from 1 to 10, I feel like I'd only rate you at a 9 because I think I'm the one that you're missing. Do you work at a bank because you've got my interest? Oh, shoot, I think you got something in your eye.

Oh, never mind. That's just a sparkle. we've talked primarily about the different Christian denominations and how to figure that out, or even just like interdenomination and sometimes just like some people being more on fire for their faith and some people being less. What are your thoughts on marriage between different faiths entirely? Like if you have someone who's Christian that marries someone who's not Christian. Like you gave an example earlier of someone who's agnostic. But what about if it's someone that is faithful. I don't know, maybe someone who's Christian that marries a faithful Jew. How do you,

how do you handle that? Again, the, I don't want to say formula. The problems are still the same. You have to go into an understanding that we have to talk about how this is going to play out in life. For some people, they'd be like, it's no big deal where you don't plan on having kids and blah, blah, blah, and they make it work. I just know when kids, come along and you have to make some of those big decisions of how we are going to play this out, it's going to play a bigger role because now we don't even have certain things in common. If I'm a Christian and I marry someone who's a Jew, well, there's a common in the Old Testament, you know, God that we believe in. But Jesus, who's like, you know, at the center of this new,

of the Christian faith. I mean, Christ is in that name. there's a huge amount that's missing. And so the other thing that that messes with is traditions. How do we celebrate Christmas? That's a huge question. Do we celebrate Easter? Do we celebrate, you know, all of these things now become even more so. So if you're talking about two different Christian denominations, well, we could still celebrate Christmas. We still have certain things that are in common versus with other denominations. now we don't even have that, which is huge. And I think my concern with all of that, again, is for me and your mom, one of the most important things about family life was unity. And I am now a firm believer in how important that is in building a strong, healthy family.

So many families today have so much disunity. And if you think about that, disunity creates separation, creates division. And when you have division, it wears on relationships. And so you have to understand that. Again, I'm not saying that it can never work. I'm just saying you want things that draw you into unity. And when you have kids, you want things that draw them into unity of family versus things that create division.

Well, moms got the better. And I saw that with the one couple where he was atheist or agnostic, is the kids all gravitated to her. And she was, you know, kind of pulling him in to guard them from his lack of theology or his worldliness. Well, guess what? It played out in the way they looked at him, how they treated him, how he treated the kids, which created the division between her and him. And it just was an ugly mass. So, again, kind of work? I'm sure there are opportunities for that.

but it can be a struggle. It can be a definite struggle, especially, you know, when there's so much of a divide. What are your thoughts on having faith in your relationship at all? You know, I guess it might be a little hard to be objective about this because as Christians, we believe that it's really like an essential part of your relationship. But why do you think that and, I mean, why in the long run is faith and actually living, some form of faith important to a relationship? That's a great question.

And I think what I've seen, I've heard people say this, and I agree. I think you're trying to work from a one-down position when you don't have that faith to ground yourself. Because if you don't have faith in, you know, a God and the goodness of God and God's grace and mercy and forgiveness and all of that, then what you're left with is trying to figure out life according to the world's standards. And when you do that, the world will say, hey, if you're not happy, just get out of the marriage. And I know as a marriage therapist, there's more healing that can be found if you work through the hardship and you become a better person versus just

throwing it to the wind. And so I think the Christian faith brings about a good understanding of forgiveness, a good understanding of suffering, which is what happened. you know it can give you hope in the midst of times when you're hopeless you know in the catholic faith you've got in a world where it's broken and you fall you find yourself falling into things like pornography and or sin or whatever there's there's those graces that we can run to like confession and and you know the sacraments so that's what i have found is that people when they have that faith or some form of faith i think find it easier to to move into the hard things like forgiveness and apologizing and mercy and you know stuff like that again not 100 percent and i never want to paint this this broad

uh swath i don't even think that's the right word paint a swath you got hopefully you get what i'm saying but that's that's just what i've experienced is that faith has really can give you something to ground your life and ground your marriage on. Well, there you have it. Those are our thoughts on faith in relationships and where you should, like how you should make some decisions based off of that. So this is just my reminder to you all that relationships are a process. They take time and effort.

And we just want to help you balance your head and your heart. This is your friendly reminder to not be discouraged. Because if you haven't found you Romeo or Juliet, learn to mix cocktails. else. If you have questions that you would like us to address? Oh, sure. You're promoting drinking? I mean, you know, it could help. Okay, never mind. Sorry. I did not approve of that. We'll let it.

Sorry. Go ahead. If you have questions that you would like us to address, please email them to E-S-Hood-T-E at Hill Hillsdale.edu, and we will discuss them in future shows. If you would like to listen to already released shows, you can find them wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for Whereforeart thou Romeo. I'm Emily Shuddy. And I'm Greg Shuddy. On Radio Freehillsdale 101.7F.