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It was after knowing each other for about 8 months, the lady I later married & I went out for the 1st time, in the morning I was greeted by the smell of bacon cooking - without me asking she'd made a breakfast for me. This was after she & I had been drinking alcohol the night before.
Before I met her, she'd been a drinker for many years. She would also eat non-halal foods without any concern.
As her family are Muslim, we had issues with them not accepting our relationship. We were visited in work by the CID as they had received a tip-off that one of her family had paid someone to "sort me".
Her family disowned her and we had to have a police monitored alarm at our home.
When we got married (in secret from her family), the service and reception were policed.
To appease her family, I agreed to go through "convertion" to Islam, with the hope that her family would accept us. This was only done for their benefit and we had discussed that we would be the good Muslims in front of her family, but we wouldn't change our ways in normal life. On the day that we had our Muslim ceremony and our legal ceremony we both drank alcohol.
After a few months of marriage, some of her family accepted us, about 50% of them. As long as they thought that we were Muslim.
After 2 years of marriage, our son was concieved. My wife stopped drinking alcohol.
We'd agreed, before our son was born, that he would know about Islam and she wouldn't feed him non-halal foods, but I could, as long as we didn't tell her family.
We also agreed that until he's old enough to make the decision to be a Muslim or whatever he wanted to be, that he wouldn't be forced into it. Especially since the issues we experienced from her family.
I agreed (reluctantly) to have him circumcised so her family would think he was a true Muslim.
Then she changed. After his birth, my wife started to spend more & more time with her family, up to 2 weeks per month. Whilst I was in hospital after my 2nd stroke (2 months after our son was born), she invited the sibling (that made most of the issues) around to our home.
4 months after he was born, my wife stopped eating non-Halal meats. Shortly after that she insisted that I stopped alcohol & non-halal meats in front of her & our son.
Now, she's changed her tune fully. "He's a Muslim and there's nothing you can do about it". Shortly after that, she moved out to be with her family including the sibling that made threats against us as our son needs a good Muslim environment.
I don't want our son being brought up in a way that will restrict his knowledge of other views.
I'm not against him learning about Islam, I just want him to be able to make his own mind up when he's old & wise enough to.
Will the courts say that my opinion is as valid as hers? Since she doesn't respect my views as my belief has no God.
Will I have to follow her newly renewed rules?
Both of us made mistakes, I believe that she thought that I would change my beliefs if I was given long enough.
I thought that she wouldn't change the way she had been for the last 10 years.
It's difficult to knwo what a court would say in these circumstances - it's possible that if and when you get unsupervised contact, you could teach him about your religion, but the court would also be mindful that your ex is the parent with care, and the practicalities of your son living with her would limit what they can reasonably impose.
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