A
female
age
36-40,
*onfuzzled_in_cville
writes:Soooooo my boyfriend are not seeing eye to eye on a few things. For example, he doesn't like me watching 'Long Island Medium' because it goes against his religious beliefs. I'm agnostic, and I am open about reconverting back to christianity but I'm in no rush. I don't know a lot about the religion to nit pick things but I feel like we don't live very christianly lives, so abstaining from a show about a medium or even thinking about it is very backwards. It's like ignoring everything eles we've done in our lives thats not cool is okay, but this one thing will doom us. This then led to the fact that I do over analyze things and there are things that I want to have a 2nd and 3rd opinion. He's mad that I don't just accept everything he says, but I've been trained by my mother and my humanities major to always check sources and get a professional opinion. I respect and love my boyfriend but I like to truly know and not be compromised. So is it wrong to pick and choose what I want to research if it disagrees with him? I feel like an asshole for not eating everything he says up but I don't do that for everyone either. Is it him, me, or us? I know I have my issues and am seeing a therapist for a number of things, but having arguments like this I feel, it sets me back emotionally. I want him to see someone for his own issues, I feel he can be very defensive and emotional about certain things and If I'm fixing me, so should he. Opinions please :O
View related questions:
christian Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, dcgirl15 +, writes (8 July 2013):
You were saying a lot in these few paragraphs so I'm going to try to sort through a lot of the topics as best I can.Re: the religion issue: Religion can be a really big deal for some people. I would tell him that you know you two feel different things about religion and it might not be something you two can share. Tell him that if he respects your religion, you'll respect his. However, that means not criticizing the other for their practices, such as going to church or watching television shows. If you decide to keep watching "Long Island Medium" do it respectfully. I.E. don't watch while he's in the same room, try to keep it off shared DVRS, etc. Don't antagonize him. You shouldn't "nit pick" him but he shouldn't spew arguments at you. Tell him if he wants you to truly convert, it has to be on your own time and for the right reasons. If you want to explore and research on your own, tell him you'll come to him if you have things you want but that this needs to be a mostly personal journey and can't be on his time table. Re: the therapist: Conversion is a big deal. If you're willing to try to get to know and believe his religion, tell him you need compromise to be healthy. Tell him you're trying to better yourself and you'd appreciate him trying to do the same. Suggest certain "emotional issues" you want him to address and tell him he can pick how he wants to do it and suggest one way you know that works: a therapist. tell him he can do it however he wants but that you know it's personally helped you a lot. If you name specific issues that you think would be helpful to your relationship specifically, then he might understand why you want him to work on it. Make sure you're saying "I love you and I want to help us build the healthiest life possible. Here are a few of my ideas on how." Try to be open to a conversation and don't make outright demands but be clear on what problems you see. Make sure you say "and" and not "but" so it's clear that you love him without negating it because of problems. Those are two very different sentiments. Don't make it "I'm getting better so you need to as well." Make it more into "I want to have the best possible relationship and I think we can both work on getting to that place."Just my two cents! Good luck and congratulations on trying to better yourself with a therapist. That's a hard step for anyone and I think it's awesome that you took it.
|
