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THE LOVE THING
By Eric Orji
E-mail: ayoadehat@yahoo.co.uk |
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Can interfaith marriages be successful?
Dear LoveThing,
My boyfriend and I have been going out a year now and are starting to get serious. The only problem is that he's a Jehovah's Witness and I'm Catholic. He's not supposed to date anyone outside his faith so we keep our relationship a secret from his church. To complicate things, his mom has been against our relationship from the start, and still pushes him to dump me. I think she's being hypocritical, considering she married a Catholic. While I'm willing to give up certain things because I'm not the most devout person, I'm not sure my boyfriend would, since he's never gone against his religion, except to date me. Is there a way that we could both keep our religions and still be happy together?
---AG
**There are many happily married couples who don't share the same faith. But religion can become a big issue, especially when one or both people are very observant and their faith is as much a way of life as it is a way of worship. It sounds like your boyfriend's religion comes with many expectations, most of which he wants to fulfill. But by seeing you on the sly he is violating his own beliefs. That's got to wear on him. Add his mother's antagonism, she could be even more hostile because of possible conflicts with her Catholic husband, and you've got a situation that makes it difficult for even a great relationship to succeed. Reality check: Interfaith marriages do have a higher divorce rate than same-faith unions. That doesn't mean that most of them break up. But it does mean there is an increased risk, especially if these matters haven't been worked out early on.
Now is the time to see if you can do just that. First off, it does help that you are flexible about your own religious beliefs; somebody has to be if this relationship is going to last. But you need to think about whether you would feel comfortable modifying your church attendance or religious affiliation in the long run. It would be hard for most people not to resent rejection from their partner's family and religious community.
And nothing reinforces one's own religious beliefs as well as someone else's prejudice against them! The only way you can make this situation work is if you and your boyfriend can agree to respect your religious backgrounds and protect each other from criticism. If his mother doesn't like Catholicism or an interfaith marriage, he has to tell her that he understands her feelings, but that he wants her to keep those opinions to herself. He has to ask for that same tolerance from his friends and church too, and if they refuse to accept you as a couple, then he has to seek out another affiliation or a more welcoming community of Jehovah's Witness. You can't just keep sneaking around, not letting anyone know that the two of you are together! If you are aiming for a lifelong commitment, you must agree on an arrangement that enables both of you to pursue your faiths, but not at the emotional expense or dignity of the one you love.
I hate Kissing
Dear Lovething,
My boyfriend and I have come to a halt in our relationship because I don't like kissing. It has nothing to do with him, because he's a great guy. It's the act, the exchange of saliva and tongues shoving down each other's throats, that makes me nauseated. What's wrong with me?
---DEB
** This is a serious problem, not just because your boyfriend might leave you, but because it could come between you and almost any man. It is highly unusual to dislike kissing. Although from how you've described your boyfriend's kisses, it strikes me that the way you are being kissed might have something to do with your disgust.
Kissing doesn't have to be openmouthed with a tongue ramming into your vocal cords. It also doesn't have to be an exchange of drool. Yecch! Kisses can be sweet, closed-mouthed, delicate or firm, without anything that resembles spit. Even an openmouthed kiss can feel slippery but not soggy: just two tongues delicately searching out the inside of the other mouth. One immediate thing you might do is to tell your partner that you would enjoy kissing more if you experimented with different ways to do it, starting with sweet and light closed-mouthed kissing.
Still, there might be something else going on here. Your strong feelings might be part of a larger problem with physical contact.
Let me ask: Do you generally dislike the idea of the exchange of fluids or, for that matter, the idea of intercourse or oral sex? If that description isn't relevant, then just go back to paragraph one and forget what I'm about to say. But if all of sex sounds messy and awful, you have some deeper issues that you should explore. Some people have a rejection, even a horror, of anything to do with body functions. If what I'm saying here resonates with the way you feel about sex and body contact, then you need to talk to a psychologist.
Otherwise these feelings will get in the way of any intimate relationship. An aversion to physical intimacy can be overcome, but not just by wishing it away. You'll need the intervention of a skilled therapist: Changing the way you experience sexuality requires you to trace the source of your feelings, understand them and, finally, work to replace feelings of nausea to feelings of pleasure and comfort.
So figure out what you've got here: a bad kisser who needs to work on his technique or a deeper issue you need to solve. Whatever the answer, try to deal with it right away.
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Email: ayoadehat@yahoo.co.uk
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