DATING:

• We have been dating for months and feel we have a serious relationship.  However, we have been reluctant to tell our parents that we have fallen in love with someone of a different faith.
  
  
• We have begun to talk about trying to discover more about each other’s traditions, even going to church/synagogue together.  How do I get over the discomfort I feel in his church?
  
  
• We would like to meet and talk to other couples in our predicament.  We need to find a professional to talk to or a program where we can meet others.
  
  

INDIVIDUAL  IDENTITY  DISCOVERY:

• We need to understand more about our own traditions, and later each other’s. 
  How do we do this?  Where do we start?  We try to talk but get really upset and make little progress.  Are there programs for us led by an expert?
  
  
• I am a secular Jew. In dating a Catholic woman I have been compelled to wonder what “being Jewish” means to me?  This is a new question for me and evolved from our relationship.
  
  
• My girlfriend is very clear about her identity.  She is Catholic and attends church weekly.
  
  
• How can I learn more about my own tradition but also that of the person I love?
  
  

WEDDING/MARRIAGE:

• What kind of wedding ceremony can we create?
  
  
• Where will we get married—not in a church or synagogue as we have dreamed of all of our lives? 
  
  
• Who will officiate at our wedding?  What traditions can we include?
  
  
• Can an interfaith couple sign a Katuba or light Unity Candles as part of their wedding ceremony?
  
  

COMMUNITY AND CHILDREN: 

• My parents were very involved in our church when I was a child and adolescent.  Will there be a community for our family with our interfaith children?
  
  
• Rita and I are fine being interfaith.  She does her thing on the major Jewish holidays and I go to church some Sundays.  The question is, what happens when the kids are born?
  
  
• We’re pregnant!!  Immediately, mixed in with all the joy and wonder is apprehension.  What birthing ceremonies will we want?  How will we surmount the obstacles of wanting different ones?  What will our families be comfortable with?
  
  
• He’s Jewish and I am Protestant, so what are our children—both, one of the above, neither?
  
  
• When it was just the two of us, we had no problems with our diverse traditions and backgrounds.  Now, as a parent I want my children to participate in my French/Catholic traditions.  We are interfaith, interethnic, international! We have the potential to weave a rich tapestry, but it is a lot of work and we need some guidance and support.
  
  
• Where can we find organizations or communities to help us sort out raising our children in a very new kind of family paradigm? All the old and assumed rules no longer apply.
  
  
• We keep hearing that we have to choose one religion for the sake of our children.  We are not so sure and want to know about all the options.  Has this been studied?  Can we find children to talk to who have interfaith parents and have grown up in these environments?