Love Letters: My Girlfriend Wants Me to Be More Religious

Happy holidays, playas!

Is it just me or were this year’s Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals as disappointing as a Summer Walker concert? Unless I wanted to buy a 90 inch TV for $37 (and fight 40 people at Walmart for it) I didn’t see too many bargains outchea.

Here’s hoping you didn’t break your bank account on some suspect significant other. You should have checked in with me first! Here’s how.

Send your inquiries to soulinstereoblog@gmail.com, or find me on Twitter @etbowser. Just provide your initials, or a fun nickname. 

Here’s today’s question:

When I started dating my girlfriend, she told me she was Christian and was very into church stuff. I told her I was cool with that as long as she was cool with me not being religious. I’m not anti-religion at all, I’ve just never been exposed to it.

At first, whenever she’d have some church event I’d just let her do her thing. Now she’s pressuring me to go with her. She changed her mind on me like Keyshia Cole. What should I do?

HolyGhost

Whew, I’ve warned y’all before, when it comes to building relationships there are two things you need to clarify before things get too deep – kids n’ religion.

Ignore those issues upfront and you’re doomed to fail.

But the tricky part here is HG did what I’ve constantly begged other readers to do – he actually had a convo with his girl and it seemed like they came to a consensus.

Until they didn’t.

I’m always one to give people the benefit of the doubt, so before you label HG’s girl a DECEITFUL JESUS LOVIN LIAR, let’s look at things from her point of view – when the relationship started, she probably assumed the church thing wouldn’t be a big deal because, well, the relationship wasn’t a big deal. If you’re into something and some dude you’ve known for 5 seconds isn’t, it’s easy to keep those parts of your life separate.

But as the relationship gets stronger, you want to share the things you love with the people you love. And few things are as personal as religion. It’s only natural that she’d want HG to now be part of that world.

That doesn’t mean I’m letting her off the hook, though. You can’t change a playa’s game in the 9th inning (happy birthday, Jay Z). It’s totally unfair switch up on him like that. If there was a slim possibility that the relationship would reach another level and she knew dude might be opposed to your faith, she shouldn’t have let him in in the first place, bottom line.

There’s really only two options at this point.

One – HG said he’s not opposed to religion, only that he’s never experienced it. So, I think you should give it a shot and try attending church with her. What do you have to lose?

Here’s the thing about spirituality, though. Even if she opens the door for you to attend church, connecting with God is a personal decision you make with yourself, not to please somebody else. If you go to church and love it, that’s great. Nothing wrong with being open to new experiences. And as a man of faith myself, I can tell you that spiritually is a good thing. But you can’t be into religion FOR her. It’s gotta be FOR yourself. She can open the door, but you’ve gotta walk that path on your own. She ain’t got a heaven or a hell to put you in.

Of course, that leads us into the second option – if you experience church and you cannot make that spiritual connection with God, there is no way this relationship will work. It’s the concept of being unequally yoked that I’ve talked about before. Long story short, you relationship will be perpetually unbalanced.

What if y’all get married and she wants a church ceremony and you don’t? What will happen if y’all have kids and she wants HG Jr. to be involved in church and you don’t? How will her faith values play into things like politics or her family or other touchy subjects?

Lord I’m getting stressed and I’m not the one dating her.

The relationship still seems young enough that I’m not screaming RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, but it’s important that you don’t continue to overlook an issue that will only get bigger as you (hopefully) grow together.

One more:

Do you believe what’s done in the dark shall come to the light?

DW

I sure do. Wanna know why? Y’all are too addicted to the spotlight to stay in the dark forever.

That shady stuff stays undercover for awhile – but then people get greedy and overstep their bounds, or folks who are supposed to play it cool and keep quiet start talkin’, or playas can’t help but brag to friends about whatever they’re allegedly getting away with, etc. etc. etc.

Nothing stays hidden because that’s not how our world works. Y’all talk too much.