Can an atheist and a Christian have a successful relationship?
Religion is not a very important factor in most relationships. It can be over ridden by many other factors like MONEY, EGO, and Drugs.
It will depend on how religious the significant other will be. I have known a lot of practical Christians that would be easy to live with and do not care that much, but also the very religious, fanatic or fundamentalist that will baptize your children against your will, go to church every week and will make decisions in your lives according to what the priest and church tells them.
My experience with my second wife, recently divorced, was a mixture of all of the prior comments. She was definitely a believer in belief... I started out agnostic, but modified my position with learning to that of agnostic atheist a few years back... her overriding fear of her being in heaven, while I'm in hell was a real issue for her.
I will have to have a non-believer for a partner going forward... it's just too much of a struggle otherwise.
I think the major problem is that the Christian probably believes that the non-Christian will be going to hell, so they will not be "together for all eternity". That is unacceptable to many Christians, who place a higher value on their concept of "life after death" than life itself.
You are right, but it's funny though, they don't realize that in the supposed heaven, there is no family, spouses, earthly bonds and nothing from earth. There is also the"till death do us part!"
They can... but it isn't easy... I don't think I personally could because I think believing in any man made deity is akin to me believing that Spider Man is real and since I'm a firm believer in logic, evidence and intellectual honesty, I know at some point it would cause friction at best, massive strife at worst, and therefore I don't think I could do it... That being said... Often people classify themselves as religious because it's comfortable and it's the way they were raised and what they've always done... but when you dig a little deeper you find that it's more of a desire to want to assume there's something more than an honest belief that a supreme being who controls all actually exists...
The point is... Honest communication is key... LOL
I married a Mormon, that was dumb. Lasted four years, I even wore the magic underwear to appease my wife. By the way, planet Kolob is flat.
What flavor of Christianity is the critical question here. Episcopalian? Sure. Baptist? Hell no.
My wife is the youth director at her church. She knows exactly what I (don't) believe. She is a Presbyterian, which is a liberal protestant sect. So, she is pro-choice and pro-LGBT, which is crucial to me. Her uncle died a couple months ago. He had the first completely secular funeral I've ever been to. Absolutely no mention of god or an afterlife. We have a great relationship.
You are two lucky people...