Hi, OP.

I'm late to the party here and this is none of my business anyway really but I'm going to hijack this and ask a question that in a general sense has bugged me for a while. You're under no obligation to answer, obviously, and if you tell me to go screw then fair enough, you'll get no aggro from me.

Anyhoo...

How does your situation even happen? The whole atheist being married to a fundie thing? Obviously you can't help who your parents are and your differences in beliefs have likely caused you a whole mess of problems throughout the years, whether serious ones or casual ones like that referenced in this post. I doubt severely that this is the only time you've been frustrated by your marital circumstances.

That's one thing. How then with that experience behind you do you end up marrying someone with similar beliefs to your parents' knowing the problems that'll cause in later life? How do you get to the point where you have kids? I really do not understand how this happens.

Were you always atheist in a fundie family? Were you raised fundie before having an 'epiphany' at some point? Were you fundie when you married/had kids and then had your belief change later? I'm assuming you're American from a Bible-belty kind of place. Was there some sort of overwhelming social pressure to marry that particular person? Would it not have made more sense to marry someone whose beliefs were more in line with your own? Would your family have cut all ties with you if you had? Did you marry to make them happy rather than yourself?

I'm not wanting this to come across as insulting but as I say I really don't get how you could wind up in this situation. Will you still watch the show on your own? You're obviously familiar with comic books and stuff so I'd suppose that's a possibility. You're not banned outright, are you?

Can you ever envision an eventuality where their beliefs and their effect upon you become so problematic for you that divorce becomes the only legitimate solution? Would that be a possibility? What would happen with your parents if that happened?

I'm atheist (UK, so not such a huge deal as it would be in the US. In fact not any sort of deal at all) and have been since I was about six or seven, essentially my whole life and I'm nearly 40 now. I've never bought into religion even when I was a young child. I'm not militant or confrontational about it (in the UK I don't have to be). I'm more of a live and let live kinda guy. If people keep their spiritual beliefs out of my life I'll not say anything about anyone's beliefs. I'll only respond to intrusive efforts to enlighten me which, being from the UK, don't happen all too often. Generally, shut up about whatever religion you believe and keep things civil and professional and we'll get along fine.

That said I could never imagine how a relationship would work between me and a strongly religious person because there are just too many potential problems to make it worth my while. Either I'd have to adopt their faith or they'd have to leave theirs and their family, and it'd have to be the latter because I'll never follow any religion. I'd also never ask someone to cut ties with their family for my sake.

There could never be a middle ground because every time my partner would 'ban' me or my kids from doing something based on her religious beliefs it would build resentment and erode any sort of affection I'd felt for her in the first place. There'd always be this silent anxiety and potential for argument hovering over our heads. I'd always be wondering what the next point of contention would be to the point where I'd never be able to relax or enjoy my time with that person. And all this is assuming that I could get past the fact that they have their 'silly' beliefs in the first place (sorry, but I do think that anyone who follows religion has an inherent stupidity and immaturity to them that I could never be attracted to or interested in no matter what else they're about).

Knowing all this even if I were attracted to someone before knowing their religious beliefs the moment I found out I'd lose (and have in the past lost) all romantic/sexual interest in them completely. I'd not hate them or wish them any harm in life but that would be an immediate 'nope, moving swiftly on' situation.

I'm not trying to provoke an argument here or anything. I'm just trying to understand a point of view (yours) that's clearly incompatible with my own because when I first read your post my initial emotional reaction was that you're either a troll or a pathetic wimpy sort of man with no self respect or self confidence and rationally speaking I'm sure that neither is the case about you, but then you're in that situation you're in, so...