My Atheist Husband Talks 'God' More than Me

How John sometimes views my opinions: dead and sorta fishy.

Last night, I sorta-kinda-totally flew off into a seething fit of rage against my husband and his incessant need to confine my personal thoughts and feelings into a tiny, misshapen box labelled "Force-Fed Ideologies of Christianity: Brainwash Edition."

I fully admit that I lost all semblance of sanity in the brief war of words (which wasn't a war so much as a massacre), but even whilst waging verbal warheads at his lackluster logic, I was able to cling to the truth of my Faith, and I think he'll reflect a little longer before attributing my personal opinions to the dusty religious textbooks of my childhood.

How did this all start?

Well, a quick refresher:  John is an independent filmmaker who has sold two films and is working on two others.  One of these latter projects we watched together for the purpose of draft-correction.  

This is a period in post-production where you watch a film thirty billion times to check for any sort of lighting errors, sound issues, continuity problems, music arrangement, etc.

Seriously.  It's like drafting and redrafting your novel to make the best possible product. However, since you can't use a red pen on DVDs, you sit in front of the TV with a notebook and take notes until your hands fall off.  Then you use your feet.

John is in the early stages of that, and he asked for my opinions.  We watched the draft together a few nights ago, and I offered various comments on the different characters, story lines and technical issues I saw.  He seemed to take them all in stride, and by the end of the movie, we were both ready for bed.  It's an exhausting process.

Last night he had a meeting with the director to go over his (and my) notes from the draft screening.  The director is a good friend of my husband's and we both adore taking him and his wife out to dinner.  They're good people whom I like and respect.

When I asked John how the meeting went, he said it was fine.  He explained how he presented our notes to the director, and the conversation sorta blew up from there.

You see, I felt that there were too many "main characters" in the movie.  I only ended up caring about two - three characters (instead of the 6 - 7 that were vying for attention).  I said, "I wish the movie was only about Tom and Steve.  I don't really care about anyone else."

John took that to mean, "Gina only likes the 'wholesome' characters and doesn't like the ones with immoral lifestyle choices because she's Catholic."

He accuses me of stuff like this all the time.  I think last night was the last straw because he imparted this to the director and his wife which, in my mind, made me look like some sort of brainwashed space cadet who has no capacity to reason for herself.

That drives me up a wall.

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I hate when my religion is blamed for things he doesn't agree with me on.  

She doesn't believe in divorce? Oh... must be all that Catholic guilt. Couldn't possibly be due to the fact that my wife loves me and believes that love can endure even the most difficult of burdens.

She wants a big family. OBVIOUSLY that's because her Church tells her she can't use birth control and should shoot out all the babies she can possibly make.  There's no WAY it could be an intense, natural longing that she's harbored and documented since she was a child.

She doesn't believe in homosexual marriage?  Pfft - her archaic old Church is homophobic so she must step in line or face excommunication.  If she could, just for a second, think for herself (poor girl) she'd realize that children don't have the natural right to a mother and father.  All those studies that have proven children of homosexual couples face higher rates of suicide, depression, social integration issues and gender confusion couldn't have had anything to do with that, right?  Right?!

She doesn't like characters in my movie.  There's no way the characters are just poorly shaded out or make themselves sound pathetic or egotistical, especially in an early draft. No way!  Can't possibly be anything wrong with how we've chosen to tell the story.  Obviously her brainwashed Christian values are to blame, because Lord knows she can't formulate her own opinion.

GAH.

I hate being made out to be some brainless moron.  My husband of all people should know better than that.  So I flipped out.  Majorly.  And to my surprise, he did an about-face within minutes.  He gave me a sincere apology and admitted he deserved the verbal backlash I'd unleashed.

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*Sigh*

He doesn't understand why I accept Catholic teaching because it doesn't make sense to him.  However, I don't understand how he thinks football is entertaining but I don't hold that as prime reason for him hating HGTV.  

Anyway, when I reiterated my reasoning WHY I didn't like (or was bored by) certain characters, he admitted his mistake and apologized for instantly blaming my dislike for them on some pointless connection to Christianity.  

It's just frustrating sometimes when he auto-jumps into thinking I consult with a Bible before I make every decision.  

• Wearing a purple dress?  Must be Lent!  

        (Actually, I forgot to do the laundry and pajama pants aren't acceptable work attire.)

• She wanted a salad instead of a hamburger?  She must be fasting for something!  

        (No, I just really like the oriental crispy things that come with the salad.)

• Won't wear a skirt?  Guess the Bible says it's too short.  

        (No, it's just been REALLY cold and I'm too lazy to shave.)

Thankfully things haven't gotten to that point yet, but sometimes it feels like he really does think I'm a mindless moron.  He KNOWS I'm intelligent and he prides himself on marrying a woman with smarts, but when it comes to my conservative slant, he can't help himself when thinking it's based solely on my religion (because apparently conservatives can't be anything but Christian).  

Ah well.  I felt better after he'd sincerely apologized, because I know he realized his mistake.  But it just drives me up a wall that he could've painted a picture of me to friends as some sort of bumbling idiot with no opinion outside of a Catholic coloring book.

Why is it that folks can't just accept that we are Catholic because we've looked at the world and wanted better?  Expected better?  Loved better?

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