Mixed-Faith Marriages | Q&A with Dr. Jennifer

Conversations with Dr. Jennifer

Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife

Sexuality, Education, Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Self-improvement

4.7 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2026

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When a spouse's faith shifts, the anxiety that follows is real. Most of us want to find a way around it, so we seek reinforcement from friends, try to pressure them back into their old position, or just avoid the conversation altogether. But avoiding a difficult reality doesn't make the anxiety go away. In fact, it increases it. In this Q&A episode, Dr. Finlayson-Fife takes questions from those navigating mixed-faith marriages, including how to share where you are without demanding your spouse follow, how to stay collaborative when your worldviews have diverged, and how to raise children when you no longer share the same spiritual framework. Because it is in going toward the hard conversations, not around them, that we grow, and that our marriages can too. _________ Last call for our 2026 Sex Worth Wanting Retreat! SAVE 20% on Cozy Earth Products (including their buttery-soft sheets!) HERE with code JFF20

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you allow yourself to be knowable without trying to change the other person, you open up the
0:05.3	possibility of really increasing the intelligence in the couple, being more able to see what you don't
0:12.8	see, being more able to see the wisdom that the other person has, as well as having your own
0:18.6	wisdom be in that conversation. Collaborative couples are able to bring
0:22.3	the best in themselves and the best in their perspectives to solve things, to create solutions.
0:32.6	Welcome to Conversations with Dr. Jennifer, a collection of interviews on the topics of relationships, sexuality, spirituality, and more.
0:46.7	All featuring Dr. Finlayson-Fife.
1:02.9	I'm going to be talking about mixed faith marriages and the challenges that are a part of this.
1:07.7	First thing I would say is that this is not easy stuff.
1:13.2	So much of our comfort is being around people, this is kind of tribalism and kind of how we instinctively function, is we like to be around people who think like we do. We like the comfort
1:21.1	of it, the reinforcement of it, the sense of security that comes from it. I remember watching a 60
1:27.0	minutes interview where there was research
1:30.8	done on babies as young as four months, looking at this basic tendency we have to prefer people
1:39.6	who think like us and to reject people who don't. And even in these cute little babies, they were
1:46.8	little bigots. Okay, so when the teddy bear would actually help another teddy bear in trouble,
1:56.1	the baby liked that teddy bear more. Okay, so they like the teddy bear who was helpful. So we have
2:01.7	our pro-social tendencies. But if the child preferred fruit loops, if the teddy bear like
2:08.4	Cheerios and like something different than the child, the child was more rejecting of the teddy bear
2:15.5	and was okay even with a teddy bear being harmed by another teddy bear okay so you see our sadism even
2:22.6	we like to find people that agree with us all of us do and that's why it's easy to watch news channels
2:29.4	that reinforce what we already think and to have scorn towards people who think differently. And it's crazy
2:36.3	we live in a world where you can turn on the news to get the view you like. That's part of our deep
	...

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