Warning Signs That Your Interfaith Engagement Is In Trouble
(based on conversations Rabbi Sandberg has had with intermarried couples)

1. Hesitation, vacillation, or equivocation about important wedding-related decisions. This most often shows itself in the form of procrastination about setting up appointments, or repeatedly missing or canceling appointments with the rabbi, priest, minister or JP. Suddenly, your fiancé becomes very critical, demanding or resistant about making a commitment with a specific officiant. Why is this area a key indicator? In our society, the officiant is a central player in a wedding. Everything else, the wedding trousseau, the reception, the photographer, the DJ, etc. is peripheral. Without an officiant to witness and seal the agreement, there is no recognized marriage. The officiant is the official civil witness to the mutually binding agreement between a man and a woman that we call marriage. Making a commitment to an officiant to perform a wedding ceremony is tantamount to actually getting married for most couples. If there are nagging, but unspoken doubts partners have about the relationship, this is where they often show themselves. Although Rabbi Sandberg does not require pre-marital counseling for all interfaith couples, in situations presenting like this the Rabbi feels pre-marital counseling is mandatory.



2. You do your religion and I'll do mine. Interfaith couples certainly don't have to do everything pertaining to religion the same way - one of the ideals of intermarriage is not to pray alike, but to pray together. Intermarriage is a partnership of religious approaches. A recent study done at Creighton University showed that the couples who were better able to blend together their religious observances stood a much better chance of having a successful marriage than those who could not. If you cannot think offhand of any religious observance that you enjoy doing together (i.e. in the same room) so that religion for the two of you means that each partner does their own thing to the exclusion of the other, serious trouble is looming on the horizon of your marriage.



3. You keep your friends and I'll keep mine (…away from you). Interfaith couples often have friends that are less than accepting of their interfaith relationship. It's all right if your fiancé spends some time alone with these friends. But if your fiancé excludes you by not wanting to introduce you to them or even tell you who they are, this bodes poorly for the success of your marriage.



4. Family Opposition. Regardless of how much interfaith couples try to convince people that everything is fine and that their families are behind them 100% in their interfaith relationship, most people have some in-law troubles. Most often, interfaith couples try to gloss over or avoid these issues on their race to the chuppah or altar, but if your family despises your fiancé and treats him/her without respect or his/her family loathes you, things can become very difficult once you are married. Yes, your fiancé has vowed allegiance to you, but he/she is still part of their respective families. Constant negative feedback from families is difficult to counteract in the long run and can spell disaster for an intermarriage.



5. How are we going to _(fill in the blank)_ the kids? This is where most interfaith relationships founder: when parents differ in their ideas of how they are going to raise their children. It is the most neglected area of interfaith relationships, one in which one partner can most undermine the other, and the area that causes the most grief when the opportunity for decision-making arrives. If you neglect this area now, be assured that a huge fight regarding this is inevitable, and that your in-laws and kids will be dragged into it.



6. Silence IS NOT golden. If your relationship feels like it's on autopilot, that your partner is not listening to you anymore or is avoiding the issues you two are going through, that you have resorted to those passive-aggressive silences that last for days - you are in trouble. Silence leads to resentment. Once resentment gets a foothold in a relationship, it's difficult to eradicate, it feeds on itself.