Can You Be Married to a Non-Student?

The meaning of love is the meaning God gave to it. Give to it any meaning apart from His, and it is impossible to understand it. (T-15.V.10)

Many single students I have studied with ask if my life-partner is a student of the Course, too. When I tell them she is not, they wonder how I can be in such an intimate relationship with a non-student. They think they never could! Yet I suspect more often than not that the spouses of married students are not students themselves.

Actually, Courtney is Christian. She considers my spirituality to be dry and requires a warmer, fuzzier God than she thinks I experience. She disagrees with much in the Course and believes the ego and this world are as real as God. But she sees how the Course affects me and wholeheartedly supports and encourages my study of the Course and my mentoring of other students. Like me, she believes there are many paths to God. We both put our relationship to God first from the beginning of our relationship and twelve years later we are still very happy because we do not look to each other to fulfill needs the other can’t fulfill.

If you require those closest to you to also be students of the Course then you would be missing the central message of the Course: There is only one relationship, and that is with God. Relationships in this world were meant to replace your relationship with God. However, they can be of use in your awakening as holy relationships. The vision of the holy relationship, where you see Oneness in place of bodies and personalities, does not require that others share the experience with you at the same time. Your only responsibility is to accept this vision for yourself. Through this experience you will realize there is only one relationship and you won’t require that others be anything to you but what they are.

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Comments

Anonymous said…
Than you for your insight into this concept. I have been struggling with this most of my life. I have been a student of the course (off and on) for 4 years. I have just moved out into the middle of nowhere to be with someone I love very much and This online sight is just what I needed.
1:14 PM
rslarkin said…
from the last paragraph: Relationships in this world were meant to replace your relationship with God.

A typo/omission in this sentence? Should it read " not meant to replace"?

Thank you for your blog, your website, and the ACIM translation to plain english.

- rl, San Diego CA, March 2010
3:38 PM
ACIM Mentor said…
It was not a typo, RL. From the personal mind's point of view, relationships in the world are meant to replace God. Thus the 'however' that began the next sentence, which pointed out that you can give them another purpose.
8:34 AM
carrie genevachild said…
Aaron, my husband of 50 years, is a Roman Catholic. He goes to mass every Saturday, sings in the church choir, and participates in the Knights of Columbus.

His spiritual path is simply another form of the universal curriculum.
2:09 PM
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