A
female
age
26-29,
anonymous
writes:So I dated this guy in 2013-2015We got very serious very fast.He came from an overly religious background but when we met he was more or less totally normal and although he was against having sex before marriage. We did it multiple times and I knew he would feel bad about it afterwards... About a year into the relationship I noticed him start pulling away. He stopped kissing me stopped holding me etc. Every date night he would invite his best friend and best friends girl along on a double date so we rarely spent any alone time together when I questioned him about it he said it's not right for us to be alone because it can lead to temptation...we still spoke on and off up till 2018. *note that I'm agnostic but I never tried to change him or his beliefs* in 2017 I moved in with a guy I was seeing at the time and was engaged to. And he came to me and begged me not to go ahead with the marriage and to give him another chance and i told him if hes going to continue forcing me to be more religious and practice things I dont believe in then I cant. So that ended there. One day in 2018 ( after my fiance and I called it off a few weeks before) I heard he was getting married (AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE WTF) I literally drove that same night to his house and begged him not to and to give us another chance. To which he refused because I wasnt willing to do religious practices with him. Up to today. He has not gotten married, neither have I..but he has never reached out to me again. I have tried subtle things like adding him on Facebook or following him on IG but he doesnt respond...I'm still madly inlove with him and would do anything to get him back. Should I move on or give it one last try.?
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female
reader, Dionee' +, writes (7 January 2020):
 You are both free to chose whom and what you want to believe in. Being religious and dating/marrying someone who is not means that the religious party will have to accept a lot that s/he does not necessarily agree with. You will bring certain things into his space that he does not want within his space and he has every right to choose that. He has compromised his beliefs before (for you) and he obviously is unwilling to that again because his relationship with God means more to him than a sexual relationship with you wherein he will always be choosing between making you happy and doing what is religiously required of him to do. Whether you'd like to admit it or not, you have previously influenced him regardless of how you think that you haven't. He probably just wants to move on with his life how he wants to without being in a tug of war feeling the need to choose between his you and his religion.
He previously compromised his religious beliefs for you and suffered a great deal of guilt and pain as a result. Being with you would mean that he'd be in a state of constant guilt and shame because it would mean shirking his belief system. Religion is not just this thing that we do, for most of us, it shapes us as people. It provides us with our moral compass. It's guides us and directs us through life. You seem to believe that it's this small thing that can be sorted through when in reality, to us religious people, it's everything. It's the foundation upon which we live and love. It's the reason that we are who we are. If you force to be with this man, you will require him to deny a huge part of who he is in order to be with you. That, my dear, isn't fair.
If you love him, let him go.
It won't work. I know people in reality who have divorced years after refusing to accept that a difference this great, is a dealbreaker. Anyone who takes their faith extremely seriously would not be willing to compromise it for a relationship that probably won't work in the long run.
To ask each other to give up certain parts of yourselves just to be together and probably unhappy after some time, would be selfish of you both and a major waste of time.
Even if you were to get married and have kids, would your kids he religious or not? You seem like you'd want to give them the opportunity to choose for themselves, he seems like the type that would want his offspring to follow his religion. What then? Arguments, that once again involve religion. There's no way to escape it OP. You're uncomfortable with it and it's everything to him. Let him find a partner that shares in his beliefs. That will raise children according to them and make decisions with God in mind. You also deserve to find someone who shares in your beliefs, who will raise children according to them and make decisions holding what you do, in high regard as well.
To ignore this advice would cause even more pain down the road. I hope you make the best decision for you both.
Good luck.
A
female
reader, Youcannotbeserious  +, writes (7 January 2020):
 Would you read the same book and expect a different ending? Of course not. Nothing has changed here so why would you revisit and expect a different outcome? Stop willingly lining yourself up for heartache.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie  +, writes (7 January 2020):
 I think you are being silly, OP
You might care for him but you don't have the same values or religious beliefs, so where does that lead you? What if you got married? You couldn't get married in a church as an agnostic and HE probably wouldn't want to get married outside of a church setting. And then kids... How would you raise them? Because you two wouldn't agree on MANY basic and simple issues.
You two are NOT a good fit.
You are just too stubborn to admit it and you WANT him to change to SUIT you. He wanted you to change to suit him. It's NOT going to happen OP
You are WASTING your time on a man that would be a BAD husband for you, and you a BAD wife for him.
Why on Earth should he give up on his religious beliefs?
Why on Earth should YOU give up on your non-believing beliefs?
Leave him alone to find HIS happiness and a GOOD partner in life, and move on so YOU can find one that is good TO you and FOR you.
LOVE in not wanting to CHANGE someone. Love is NOT wanting someone to GIVE up their faith or lack thereof.
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A
female
reader, EmmyApple +, writes (7 January 2020):
Leave him. You love each other, but it takes more than love to make a marriage work. It also takes agreement on important issues like faith, values, lifestyle, and how to raise children. It may be nice to think that two people with very different beliefs, values, and worldviews can simply ignore those glaring differences and not let them cause conflict in the relationship. Nice thought, but that’s incredibly naïve. Genuine religious faith is not something a person can just set aside. It’s a foundational aspect of a person’s identity and it affects every aspect of their lifestyle. I’m a religious person and I would never marry someone who didn’t share my faith - not because I don’t love them or don’t accept them for who they are, but because I know that differences in such a fundamental thing will inevitably cause conflict. How will you raise children together? Will they have a religious upbringing or will they be taught to question and be skeptical of religion? Have you had these kind of conversations with him? If you try to do things one way because of your agnostic perspective, and he is trying to do things a different way because of his religious beliefs, your relationship is going to have a lot of conflict - especially when kids enter the picture. If you haven’t thought about that and had these kind of difficult conversations with him so you’re on the same page, you’re nowhere near ready to get married. You might think that your difference in beliefs doesn’t matter because you love and accept him for who he is. But honestly, I don’t think you really do. You already pressured him into having sex with you, against his beliefs. You wouldn’t have done that if you truly respected his beliefs. Now he feels awful about himself because he violated his conscience. As long as he is with you, he is going to continue to feel pressure to compromise his beliefs and do things against his faith, in order to please you. Plus, you will feel more and more pressure to adopt his religious practices out of fear that he won’t be fully satisfied with you if you don’t. Trust me, things may seem okay at first, but this pressure on both of you will continue to build the longer you are together, until it’s overwhelming for both of you. The only thing that’s gonna make this work is your full, genuine conversion to his religion OR his full, genuine departure from his religion. If neither of those things are going to happen, leave him immediately. You will save yourselves a lot of pain.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (7 January 2020): You don't believe in what he believes in. You said you're not going to try and change him, or his beliefs. He's devoted to his beliefs, and you don't share them. You have to change him, by forcing him to go against his beliefs; in order to get him to do what you want him to do.
Why not just find somebody whom you consider "normal?"
To describe someone as "overly-religious" is a matter of opinion; just because they don't think, or believe as you do. If he's like you, that makes him "normal?"
Move on. Go find yourself a another agnostic, or an atheist; and live happily in sin together. Let him do what's right for a religious-person. Sometimes God comes first for some of us. It's spiritual, and a belief in the supernatural. That's crazy to an unbeliever.
Perhaps you're right, that it's not normal by today's standards and morals.
I pray that the Lord will give him strength to fight temptation; and that he finds himself a good-wife, who shares his beliefs.
Pardon my...overly-religious response! God bless you, my dear!
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