Scarleteen

Hi Scarleteen,

So over the past few weeks, I've been thinking about this young woman who I find attractive and really nice. When figuring out her religious and spiritual beliefs, it seems that she was raised Jewish but is currently involved in New Age spirituality. She seems to be interested in finding meaning in life and acquiring answers through psychic readings. I am intrigued by her level of interest in her spirituality. I am glad that she finds solace in her spiritual faith, however I do not share her spiritual beliefs. I am Christian and even though I was raised in that faith, I would not consider myself very religious. I do pray before or during meals often and sometimes I read my Bible. More recently, I've been thinking about strengthening my faith and using it to cope with my life struggles.

However, my concern is that if I decide to pursue a relationship with this woman, then we may experience a conflict over our different spiritual beliefs. I have read an article online about the importance of respecting the spiritual/religious beliefs of others but that article applies to general relationships and not romantic relationships. Now I think I have an idea on how to approach this potential conflict, but I am not sure if it is the right answer. I was never taught how to date someone with different spiritual/religious beliefs from any of my high school or college classes. I was thinking on following this approach...

1. Introduce yourself to your potential partner by starting a conversation and asking them out on a date.

2. For the first couple or few dates, refrain from discussing spirituality or religion.

3. If the relationship lasts to the point when it becomes committed or long-term, then you may discuss your spiritual/religious beliefs to each other.

4. When you or your partner have differing spiritual/religious beliefs, it is important to respect their right to believe their religion or spirituality and not to pressure them to change their beliefs.

I think my idea is a good framework to start on, but I wonder how do couples deal with having a partner who doesn't share their religious or spiritual beliefs? I know that love is a powerful emotion but when I was much younger, I was told by a youth pastor to avoid dating non-Christians. I understand where they are coming from, but I want to be an open-minded and evolved person when it comes to dating. I don't want to limit myself to only women who share my religious beliefs. If only someone can show me how its done, then that would really be appreciated.

This is something where I feel like I could probably help you best by talking about it more from a personal standpoint than a more objective, professional one. Would that be okay with you (it would mean me talking a bit about my own spiritual beliefs and practices and my personal life)?

Hi Heather,

For sure. I am fine if you share your personal spiritual beliefs.

Okay, just always want to make sure with something like that, especially since we are a secular site and service.

So, by and large, I'm Zen Buddhist, and that's been the core of my spiritual belief system and my spiritual practices for about 25 years now. I don't really separate relationships into romantic/sexual relationships and then everything else: for me, I tend to think about relationships as differing more by their level of intimacy, commitment and how much time I spend in my life in them.

When I think back on my intimate relationships, of all types, including some dating relationships that went beyond a few dates, I can only think of two of them where the other person was also Zen Buddhist. Otherwise, I wouldn't exactly say it's been all over the map -- particularly as a queer and strongly feminist person, I've never dated someone strongly and "traditionally" evangelical for reasons which are probably obvious -- but it's been pretty diverse, and it's included people who are atheist and have no spiritual practice or community to people who are not and have those to people who have religious beliefs or adhere to an organized religion but don't really practice it in an active, daily way or have any real spiritual community.

For me, what I've needed for these differences to work -- and sometimes even be a real gift and asset, not just something that's tolerable -- are a few basic things, from everyone involved, including myself:
• Feeling that what we each believe and practice (or don't) are accepted and that our feelings about our beliefs and practices are and can be honored, even if they're not the same,
• Being allowed and afforded the time, space and respect I/we need to engage in my/our practice(s),
• Not having difference that is outright conflict, to the point that myself or someone else feel we cannot be together and honor our beliefs or engage in our practices,
• Some basic mutual understanding of our beliefs/practices, and
• At least a little common ground, so we have some places where we can connect and not feel super radically different.

Per the last bit, for instance, Zen Buddhism is an atheist belief system and practice, so I do tend to do fine with general atheists, so long as they've been understanding and respectful about the fact that my kind of atheism still has a dogma and practices that go with it. I've done okay with plenty of people who are Jewish or Christian, and that's generally been helped, I think, by parts of our beliefs we have in common, like kindness, tolerance, self-reflection or service.

I think where things get difficult to impossible is when one person's religion/belief system invalidates the other person in some way, or can't mesh with that other person's history, life, ethics or beliefs. For instance, I'm not going to feel safe in an intimate relationship with someone who believes that something is wrong with me because I'm queer, or which suggests as someone assigned feminine sex that I should be subservient or that I must reproduce. Same goes though, for being with someone who does things or wants things that are just completely counter to my beliefs, like people who want to be verbally mean to others or push me to eat in ways that are counter to my practices.

I don't actually think that holding off a long time with discussions about all this is the best way to go, personally, especially if it's a big part of your life. I think if this is a big part of your life, you probably want to bring it up with people you're thinking about getting very close to sooner rather than later, but that's just my opinion.

How does all of that sound to you?