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anonymous
writes: I've have lived with the person of my dreams for nearly 8 years. Lately, it seems we have a problem brewing in the relationship. It's not cheating or anything like that. Instead, I believe my mate spends too much time with our church. I love our church and attend it regularly. However, I believe my mate not only spends more time at church than with me, but also chooses it over me. For example, I just got out of a gruling semester in college. My mate said he would take me out for keeping my 4.0 GPA. I thought that was a kind gesture. This was on a Saturday. But, before we went out to spend the day together, he had to run some errands for the church. Then, on Sunday, we go together to the morning service. However, he goes right back after eating lunch and is always in a hurry and rushes me to eat during that same time. He is then in church all afternoon. After that, when he gets out of that afternoon service, he again comes home for about an hour, then returns to church for the night service. With our work schedules, we only have two days together. Every Saturday morning, he's out with the church (without me) and he's then all day Sunday, except for a few hours. I'm not questioning his dedication, as it is a good thing that he's involved in church. At the same time, I believe God did not put us on Earth to spend all our free time at church. He also wants us to live and enjoy life with a person that we are close to and are in love with. I too could do good things, with groups such as United Way, the Helping Hand, other churches, etc....all good causes, but they would also take away time I have to spend with him. What advice do you have on how I should tackle this or solve this problem. It has really pulled us apart and we are not as close as we once used to be. I told him that the less we are 'together' away from work that the farther apart we will grow. Again, I am involved in my Church and go nearly every Sunday and some Wednesdays. It's not that I'm trying to get him to stop going, just choose me or at least give me one full day each weekend. I feel like I have no one around, even though I'm in a relationship. Any help that you can give would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much. Reply to this Question
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female
reader, Bev Conolly  +, writes (17 January 2005):
 Hi there,It sounds like you and your partner are in a 3-way relationship: you, him and Church. It's no surprise that you feel torn. You go to services with him often (certainly more often than most), but he seems almost to live for them, and spends what appears to me at least to be an excessive amount of time in church.I don't know if I can offer you much advice about this situation except to say, "You can't win someone back from another relationship. They have to choose you." In this case, though, you're not being dumped (I'm sorry to be so blunt) for another person as much as an institution. Your partner, for whatever reason, has a deeply-felt need to devote all of his time to your church. Something is troubling him that he doesn't understand or doesn't feel he can discuss, and he's desperately "making it up to God". Or perhaps some aspect of religious life touches your partner is ways that he needs and can't get any other way. Perhaps he's considering a religious life and "trying out" the role.You can talk to him about his choice, as long as you make it a fact-finding exercise and not a diatribe about why you two never see each other any more. Make it conversational, eg: "They must really depend on you at church. You work so hard over there. Is there anyone else helping out this week?" You might gain some insights into your partner's character and what drives him, but I really don't think you can get him to ease up on the worship. That's going to always be his choice and appears to be a profound part of his personality that you will need to learn to live with. Or not.If you don't fancy the same level of involvement with your church, you'll have to make your own decision about whether you can continue as things are now. But I think he's already shown that he regards you as second in importance.
A reader, Steph, writes (15 January 2005): Hi. You should probably make a clear day do spend quality time together and schedule a day that you can talk and figure out what to do about him going there to much. Anytime, Steph
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