First love

[Serwal]

Hello, I hope I'm able to explain my situation well enough. Also, I apologize for any grammatical or spelling errors.

Short : I love my girlfriend and want to be with her, but she doesn't because of religious differences.

Long : So, my name is Dylan, my girlfriend, Denise. We met on her birthday, October 31st of 2009. We've been together off and on since December 20th 2009. She is the only girl who has ever made me feel what I believe love is. Before I met her, confidence wasn't a word I knew too often. I don't know, she just makes me feel like a hero.

Anyway, here is my frustration. I am neither Atheist, Agnostic, or Gnostic. I am completely indifferent to religion and non-religion and feel that it is the person and their actions which matters, not their creed or lack of such. Denise, she is a JeHovah's Witness, baptized too. Essentially, if she is caught "being" with me, she can and most likely will be shunned by her family, church, and even herself. This is only due to her being baptized.

I really dislike the idea of her going against her beliefs to be with me, it actually makes me feel terrible. She admits to feel terrible as well, but then admits that she loves the way I make her feel. I say I love her, she has not returned that word, but I feel that is because she is afraid and doesn't want to get too attached. The reason she doesn't want to get attached is because she can't be with me, because her aspirations are of having a significant other who has the same beliefs as her and to be able to love someone who loves JeHovah just like herself. She also proclaims that she really wants to be with me, but just can't.

I tried to attend her church to better understand her beliefs. My conceptions of God and philosophical views are accepting of JeHovah's Witness beliefs, but not compatible, to her. I would become a Witness, but I realized I would only be doing so so that I could be with her, which isn't the right and sincere reason to be a Witness. I would also be lying to myself and her.

I love her and am willing to be with her, but she doesn't want to be with someone who doesn't believe in JeHovah. We have "split" up twice because of this. Not speaking for a few months to try and forget about eachother so it doesn't hurt, but we just end up back together because we realize we can't stand being away from each other.

My friends say "Try your best", I do, but I feel it isn't good enough. It is as if I'm the knight trying to save his princess, but there is no dragon to fight or tower to climb.

Any feedback is highly appreciated.

[VincenzoG91]

I feel your pain. I'm an agnostic, practically an atheist, and I once fell hard for a Muslim woman. I was never able to bridge the gap. She was adamant about her faith, so I tried reading the Qur'an to see if I could convert, but I just didn't agree with what I read. I finally gave up and moved on, and I don't have any regrets. My current girlfriend is Christian, but she doesn't force her beliefs on me, though she would be happier if I became one. If we have children, she wants to raise them as Christians, and I'm okay with that. It's really hard to change someone's mind about religion, because people are generally introduced to their religious tenets at an early age.

[SomeAlexDude]

I've been in a relationship similar to this. When religion or lack of religion plays a big part of a problem with your relationship with a person, it is arguably one of the most frustrating things a human can experience - I know it was for me. My guess is that this is because it's not a tangible sense of something actually wrong with you or your partner - it's not something that can be seen or explained very well but provides a strain on the both of you. If she were to say "I don't think we are meant for eachother" or "We fight too much" or something similar to that with substance, you could reason with it, perhaps shrug your shoulders and move on from it. But with something like this, it's very hard to put into words and therefore really difficult to have a reasonable and productive conversation about.

I don't want to make my response purely religous-related, as I want to see what I can offer for your relationship issue, but I completely understand where you are coming from. I have very similar beliefs to your own, and my ex-girlfriend that I dated for 2 years and I had always had problems about religion. She was brought up to be very baptist and her family, values, and activities were often religous-oriented. She and her family quickly realized that I had very little knowledge about christ and the bible and that I didn't go to church very often and this concerned them very much. She wasn't allowed to talk to me, and obviously and additionally she wasn't allowed to date me. But we liked eachother too much to simply call it quits, and so despite my beliefs, or lack of beliefs, I attended her church and at least tried to soak in some of all of it - very similar to what you did when you attened Denise's church.

I understand completely, because you are sort of at an awkward stand-still where you realize your beliefs should not originate from your desire to date your girlfriend but instead should stem from the purely religous meaning and matter. But you must realize that this is against your very nature, and a sudden transformation to this new lifestyle will have to happen very gradually if it ever is to happen. I'm not saying it's impossible for you or I to become religous, but we both know in our hearts that we cannont simply accept something presented to us and embrace it - it's going to have to take some time if it is indeed going to happen.

So ultimately that's what I think that's where you stand. Nothing is going to happen or change overnight with you and Denise. Honesty is the absolute best policy in most relationship issues - just lay everything out on the table. In summary, tell her that you like her or love her very, very much but you realize that it is hard for her to accept that you not a member of her religion. Emphasize again that you like her very much, and go on to say something suggesting that you can't complete a religous transformation of yourself overnight, and that if you do indeed try and change your that part of yourself it's going to be a slow and gradual process and you might need her help from her on your way. Also greatly emphasize the fact that if you try and become a Witness, that you are doing it for yourself and not the relationship or her - make sure your intentions are well understood.

That last part is where I ran into my problem. I loved this girl very much, but I simply could not change myself to become a baptist to date her. I wish she would have loved me for who I am and was, as I would love her if she were buddhist, hindu, atheist or anything at all. When someone likes another pesron enough, they make sacrifices for them. The extent of these sacrifices can greatly vary depending on how much they care for and love you. In other words, if Denise really, truly, and fully loves or likes you and appreciates you as a human being, she'd be willing to make at least some sacrifices for you or at least give you some time and help you undergo this religous change. She'd be understanding and patient - investing in you because she really likes you.

Try and at least take religion out of the equation for a small tid-bit of the conversation and try and reflect on how much you guys actually like each other and want to be together. Try and make that your goal. Take the sort of approach: "You know, I don't know exactly step-by-step how we can handle all of this yet. But I do know what I want, and that's for us to be together."

You can follow that up with something like: "Hey, the both of us really like eachother, so let's just try and work things out between eachother. The worst thing we both could do here is rush things and make a decision that we both regret later. Let's take our time through this and be patient and try and understand eachother a little more through all of this."

Going back to my personal situation, what ended up happening was that my girlfriend was not satisfied with my beliefs in that I couldn't change them to exactly how she wanted them. So, we broke up, and I consider that a sad day because you have two people who love eachother and who are good for each other who are seperated by something so trivial, inexact, and unecessary. Ultimately and despite my efforts, I wasn't able to change myself into the way she wanted me - a devout baptist.

I'm not going to give you any religous advice because I'd have no idea what to tell you. I can tell you that it's important to stay true to yourself, and like you mentioned, not lie to yourself or her. Changing that part of yourself is possible, but not easy.

And that's when you have to realize what is actually happening. Denise wants you to change because she is not satisfied with what you currently are made up of. Run your mind through that a couple of times. No matter how much she likes or loves you, and she may love you a whole, whole bunch, she is not satisfied with what you currently are. And as everyone knows, if you are going to be with someone and have a good relationship, you have to love every part of someone - the good and the bad. You can't simply pick and choose the things you like and dislike about your partner.

[SapphireBerry]

Frankly, I HATE religion it is the cause of war and disagreement. It ruins people, all that Jewish crap in the World war and all of this 'it matters that you believe in Jabuda, god of love and beauty'
Honestly it's ridiculous I wish religion hadn't been invented of course we evolved from 'science'. If she really wants to risk being shunned aswell which is also ridiculous make sure she's old enough
and has money to support herself also you'd need to support her if she got shunned, anyway her parents created her they shouldn't just shun her cuz of some stupid religon. You need to see what she
would prefer following her religion or being with you, what is more important to her? If I was her I'd probably kill myself to be baptized, its all rubbish in my opinion, and no I'm not starting a forum debate
regarding religion.