“I’m Not That Religious.” — But Your Family Is. And That Changes Everything

I get this fairly often. A man comes to me — Muslim, Jewish, sometimes from a Christian background — and somewhere in the first conversation he mentions, almost casually, that he is open to any religion. He is not deeply practicing. He considers himself modern, flexible, broad-minded. And in many ways, he is.

But then I ask a few more questions. And the picture gets more complicated.

Because it turns out his mother still observes. His father has expectations. His extended family will have opinions about the woman he brings home, about the wedding, and most of all about the children. And suddenly “I’m open to any religion” is not quite the whole story.

This is not a criticism. It is one of the most human situations I encounter in this work. The man himself has genuinely evolved beyond the strict boundaries of his upbringing. But the family has not, or not entirely. And when you marry someone, you are not just marrying them — you are marrying into a set of relationships, expectations, and traditions that do not disappear simply because you personally feel relaxed about them.

What the research actually shows

Interfaith marriage is becoming more common globally. According to Pew Research Center data, while 81% of marriages before 1960 were between spouses of the same religious denomination, that figure dropped to 61% for marriages between 2010 and 2014 — a significant shift in a relatively short period.

But frequency does not mean simplicity. Research consistently finds that interfaith couples experience higher divorce rates compared to same-faith marriages, with studies suggesting they are significantly more likely to separate than those who share a religious background. The reasons are rarely the faith itself — they are usually the unresolved practical questions that the couple never properly discussed before committing.

The questions I ask every man in this situation

Before I begin any search for someone navigating an interfaith situation, I ask a series of questions that may feel uncomfortable but are essential. I would rather have this conversation at the beginning than watch a promising introduction fall apart six months in because nobody asked.

The first question is simply: how deep is your faith, really? Not the faith you practice, but the faith you feel. There is a difference between someone who has genuinely moved beyond religious identity and someone who has simply stopped attending services. One is truly open. The other may find, under family pressure or in a moment of personal difficulty, that the roots go deeper than he thought.

The second question is about family. How practicing are the people closest to you? What do they expect — not what have they said explicitly, but what do you know, in your heart, that they hope for? A Jewish mother who has never said a word against interfaith marriage can still make a non-Jewish daughter-in-law feel quietly unwelcome for years. These dynamics are real and they matter.

The third — and often the most important — question is about children. Research consistently identifies raising children as one of the most common and difficult challenges interfaith couples face, affecting decisions about religious education, spiritual practices in the home, and even which schools children attend. Whose tradition will they be raised in? Will they be baptised, or have a Bar Mitzvah, or neither? What happens when both sets of grandparents want to welcome the grandchild into their own tradition? Who holds the line — and are you genuinely strong enough to hold it together, as a couple, against the pressure that will come from both sides?

Where Buddhist backgrounds tend to differ

In my experience, men from Buddhist backgrounds generally bring a different quality of flexibility to this conversation. Buddhism, particularly in its more cultural than doctrinal expressions across East and Southeast Asia, tends to be more accommodating of other belief systems. It is not uncommon for someone from a Buddhist family to be genuinely open to a Christian partner, provided the faith is practiced with sincerity rather than rigidity. The issue arises less around doctrine and more around cultural practice — festivals, family rituals, the rhythm of the household. These are worth discussing, but they are usually workable.

The more challenging interfaith conversations, in my experience, tend to involve families where religious identity is closely tied to cultural identity — where being Jewish or Muslim is not just a faith but an inheritance, a community, a sense of who you are and where you belong. In those situations, the individual man’s flexibility is only one part of the equation.

It can absolutely work — with the right foundation

I want to be clear: I have worked with interfaith couples who are genuinely thriving. The faith difference did not break them. In several cases it enriched them — giving their children a broader, more curious relationship with spirituality than either parent would have had alone.

What those couples have in common is not that they ignored the religious question. It is that they faced it directly, early, and honestly. They decided together — not assumed. They communicated with their families — not avoided. And when the pressure came, as it always does, they stood on the same side of it.

I work with specialist matchmakers around the world who focus specifically on faith-based introductions. For clients where faith alignment is genuinely important — either for themselves or for their families — I can connect you with the right specialist as part of the process. There is no point in introducing two people whose core values incompatible at the fundamental level on something this significant.

But if you are someone who is genuinely open — and whose family, after honest reflection, is more open than you initially assumed — then the conversation is worth having. The right person may not share your religion. She may, however, share everything that actually matters.

That is a conversation I am very glad to have with you.