Wow! Thank you so much for all the replies everyone! I’m overwhelmed by the fact that so many of you would come to my aid on this subject.
I have re-read parts of my post and i see how the title as well as some of the things I wrote may create a bit of misunderstanding. What I meant to say in the title was that my wife doesn’t seem to want to understand (or be open to) why I want to be a member of the church and she won’t really accept my explanations for why either.
At the same time she says she accepts and have no problem with me believing she will challenge the existence of God with the argument that “why are so many bad things happening in the world if there is a God” an “why does he take people we love away from us”. There are no scientific arguments at all actually but it comes down to why would I spend time on this when so many bad things happen all around us? The issue here is that while I’m probably not the best person to try to “defend” God or the gospel she is not open to hear my feelings on the subject or the answers and/or explanations that I have to offer. All because I “may try to change her”.
After some initial discussions we agreed that I would attend the church and not bring it home or discuss it with her. This was not a problem and I never initiated any discussions on the subject or bring it home in any way shape or form. However, after doing some research about the church of her own she decided to change her mind as she has taken in a lot of the negative information and very little of the good. This is what created the situation described in my previous post where I had to basically stop any involvement (studying, attending or otherwise). Any attempts to since open the discussion back up has led us nowhere as she is certain that I will change into a Christian fundamentalist and be brainwashed.
As I mentioned in my previous post I have offered to “just” attend church and to hold off with being baptised until is sits comfortably with her, however long that may take. As spamlds mentioned; not being baptised doesn’t prevent me from studying the scriptures, attending church, and living the gospel. I think that me having (already) expressed a desire to be baptised may have made this a problem though as I believe she now thinks that me being involved with the church in any way would result in me getting drawn in deeper and deeper... Even without the baptism.
Melissa569 I believe yo got it exactly right with the paragraph where you said:
“Your wife (and my husband) may be getting angry because she's afraid that your involvement with the church is going to drive you both apart. She probably thinks the deeper you get into it, the more you might be trying to convince her, or bring more church activities to your home. And the less you will have in common.”
I can honestly say though that it’s not about convincing her of anything and I also do not believe that it would result in us having less in common. We still do the things we used to do together, I still have the same interests outside of church and we still talk about the same subjects we always have. In addition I have always believed in God and read the bible (granted not as much as now). As such that part is not really news to her. Now, having said that I think that she may still think that is what is going to happen.
Like many of you have said: it should be a case of I respect you so you should respect me. It feels good that so many others agree with that line of thinking and that will be the base for our next discussion on the subject. I’m just going to take it one step at a time... First step is to be able to attend church without it creating an issue.
Thanks again for all the wonderful answers and great input.
