Yin Meets Yang
So, a Spiritual Intuitive Healer marries an Atheist Skeptic... sounds like a beginning of a joke, right? Haha. It is no joke. It is my life! How does this happen one might wonder? Well, when we first met our views were each less extreme. I always knew I believed in magic, miracles and energy. He wasn’t so sure, but he was less against that way of thinking. As we got older and our life experiences impacted us, we each sought out information to support what we believed was happening. I turned to spiritual understandings of my experiences and he turned to science, logic and reason for explanations.
This was something I knew about him and it wasn’t something we ever felt that different about. During my spiritual awakening I was excited to share my own personal stories of miraculous healings with him. He wasn’t impressed, he shut me down and denied my stories. I figured sure- I knew he didn’t believe in boardwalk psychics—but this message was coming from ME! His wife! It didn’t matter.
His skepticism had him dig his heels in hard and he dove deeper into his understanding of how religions have been historically destructive (which I agree with), but he got more immersed in the thoughts and approaches to spiritual understandings from a logic, science and skeptical perspective. He repeatedly called my beliefs “nonsense” and was (is) convinced that I was (am) delusional. He was always trying to find ways to prove me wrong. It was exhausting. Smh.
At the beginning of this stage in our marriage my sister counseled me and said “this will be topic you cannot discuss” and I said “but how?! It’s who I am!” She cautioned “You just can’t”. This was a VERY big pill for me to swallow. After that first rejection of me and my experiences I had stormed off and slammed our bedroom door saying we’d need a divorce then. Never in our 6 years of marriage (at that point) had I ever fantasized or wished for a divorce. How could I be with a man who can’t support me in this way? And knowing what I know about creating our life plan and all that—how could I have chosen a man like this for my husband!?!
I started joining Spiritual meetup groups to connect with like-minds because it was obvious that need would never be met at home. My favorite group was 45 minutes away and I met some great women who helped guide me on my path. Within a year I began my own meetup for Spiritual Discussion because I wanted something closer to home. Interestingly enough, around this time my husband created his own group which he led for Skeptics and Atheists. Lol.
At this time, my youngest son was about 3 and was talking about seeing ghosts my husband tried to shut him down. This was when our personal differences took on a different level. I wanted to assure that our children’s connection to Spirit stayed open. I fought HARD for that. It was the ugliest part of our marriage. Things were absolutely not easy. I knew how sensitive and connected kids are and didn’t want my husband telling them that the things they were seeing were not real. I never imagined the level of fights we had in trying to convince the other that MY belief was the right one and YOURS is wrong. It’s insanity and a fight that no one wins.
Somehow over time we learned to more peacefully coexist. He’s learned to adjust that this spiritual thing of mine isn’t a phase that will go away, and we both have learned to avoid specific topics and to hold our tongues. We aren’t always successful with holding our tongues, however, and when we don’t, we battle! Luckily, we quickly forgive and move on. Holding grudges isn’t a thing in our marriage. We’d rather focus on our similarities, our children and our love. My mentors who are intuitive assured me he and I would be fine, that one day we’d joke about our differences (and we have come to that point finally!). No one has ever said that he’d come around, just that he’d tolerate it better. I have learned to stand on my own feet and lean on the support of my family and good friends as well as the communities that I’ve created. My belief in myself isn’t dependent on my husband’s belief in me or my beliefs. The differences in my marriage highlight how acceptance, respect and love rule despite worldviews not being eye to eye.