So, I adore my boyfriend. Love him more than anything. We’re moving into our first apartment together and we’re so excited and happy.
There’s only one thing that’s an issue, and he hasn’t even realized it’s an issue…
He doesn’t seem to respect my spiritual path at all. He will interrupt me in the middle of spiritual practice (to the point that I don’t even practice when he’s around) as if what I’m doing is insignificant. He will put random stuff on my altar, like his cell phone or the screws he’s using to fix something, as if it’s just a regular side table as opposed to a sacred space. There was one incident when we were in Maui, I was walking a seaside labyrinth in meditation and song, thinking he wouldn’t bug me since he was off taking pictures of the ocean, but when I got to the middle of the labyrinth and sat down to give my offerings, he just waltzed right through the labyrinth, stepping over the lines, to come bug me and ask me when I was going to be ready to leave.
I’ve tried talking to him about this, but he gets massively irritated and can’t seem to understand why I feel his actions are so insensitive and disrespectful.
I don’t want to have to put my spirituality on hold all the time when he’s home (he’s a fisherman, so he goes away a lot), but I don’t want to get into an argument with him every time I want to do a ritual or spell or a meditation.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
My partner’s strictly Atheist, so I know a bit about what you go through. Here’s personally what I’ve done to get through it.
- Opt for areas that aren’t regularly used, in areas of the house that aren’t regularly visited. Before I moved all of my Shrines into the Shrine room, I had them sitting on an end table next to the door. Bad idea, he stuck stuff on it all the time and I’d have to negotiate to get it back because… Well, Death happens to like offerings of random things. Keys especially. Money especially. After that I moved the Shrine to an end table in the corner of the room that didn’t get used a whole lot. He never set anything there. When I moved them all into the Studio and set up my Shrine room, I stuck most of mine in small nooks and crannies that weren’t otherwise being used. Bookshelf, lamp bases, the top of the filing cabinet, a table in the corner, on top of my Partner’s audio speakers, etc.
- Use Shrines, not Altars. The smaller the space, I’ve noticed the least likely my Partner is to put his shit on my tables. The reason I say Shrines over Altars is because Shrines can be as small or as large as you want them to be, but are generally meant to be smaller, so you can fit them into smaller spaces that will make him less likely to stick his stuff on them because there’s not a whole lot of room to begin with.
- No witchcraft when he’s around unless it can be done silently and fast. Yep. I don’t do offerings, I don’t do rituals, I don’t renew the wards, nothing. Do I like the fact that my stuff is on hold? No, not really. But it helps that my partner works all day and I don’t currently have a job so there’s plenty of time each week to get the stuff done that I need to, and I think it’s a fair trade off to not being interrupted in the middle of something important and him botching everything all to hell. Especially when he wouldn’t understand what I was doing or why I was angry.
Sometimes it’s better to just take a deep break, and make it harder for them to upset you by taking measures to prevent the things that they do that bother you.
And if that doesn’t work… Well then. You can always sit down and have a nice chit-chat and you can tell him ALL ABOUT how what he’s doing pisses you off, regardless of whether or not he doesn’t believe in it.
