The question becomes what new agreements you and your wife are able to negotiate, if any.

Agreed, and sounds reasonable.

To insist that you're still obligated to do X makes sense in the case of a broken promise, but not in the case of a repudiated one. It sounds like people think you've just broken certain promises you made going into the relationship, when the reality is you're repudiating them.

That's a helpful clarification. Seems slightly semantic to me and/or that it's not going to be possible to convince those who think I've broken it that I've really repudiated it... but it at least makes sense to me. I guess I didn't know there was a specific word for my explanation: "see as false the entire premise the promise was based on."

CharlesR talked about the way your wife feels; you replied by talking about whether your behavior was valid and what your current obligations are. These are both important questions, but they are different questions.

Another great point, and you're correct that targeting her feelings by responding about my obligations probably will be a mismatch of a conversation.

One thing I'd like to add, though, is that I think a significant amount of her emotional reaction very well might be based on how she sees my actions. Thus, even though you're correct to a degree that engaging her feelings by talking about my obligations might not be helpful... what do you think about the fact that she might literally be emotional distraught over the fact that she really does think I'm obligated to do X, whereas I'm saying that I'm not, any longer, obligated to do X.

In other words, the cause of some portion of her negative feelings is, perhaps, that she thinks I should still be obligated to raise my children as Catholics.

Now, imagine that some portion of negative emotions is due to pain, fear, etc. about the possible outcome of not doing that.

But at least some might be purely about our disagreement. Therefore, if I could address the factual discussion of whether or not I really am obligated, some of those negative emotions would seem to have lost their source.

One last way... imagine a loved one dying and also thinking they were involved in a large financial scandal. Some negativity is going to come from both the loss and the tainted view.

Now imagine that someone clears their name. You've still lost someone close, but at least it's not tainted by something that wasn't true. Hence, she still might mourn the future she once envisioned, but it might not be tainted by thinking I'm not of my word or whatever else is going on.