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yoking issues
Dear Alpha,
I've spent some time trying to believe in Christianity, long enough to know that there's a popular and Biblically-based doctrine against being "unevenly hitched". So, when I meet fun, attractive Christians of a certain level of commitment, they may as well be lesbians or cousins or something... I can let myself love them to bits as friends, but for the most part I keep any thought of the romantic stuff out of the way. This has worked to keep things from getting messy for me and the occasional cute, committed Christian that wanders by. Essentially I've kept that doctrine by acknowledging it, even as I left a bunch of stuff I couldn't deal with behind.
I'm a 23-year old student, just to situate all this, and she's a bit older (25 or so) but also studying at the same university. We've grabbed food together, run around town with friends, done stuff in groups, kept each other honest while studying, all the rest, and she's sweet, articulate, cultured, cute, open-minded and considerate... and a committed Christian to boot. Fine, I think to myself... she's fun to be around and my (open) agnosticism doesn't seem to bother her (although we do debate the Big Issues in conversational tones), she definitely makes me feel good to share a species with her. So we hang out from time to time, chat, all that. Er, man, was I dense.
So now I have this three page e-mail printed out and read a few times, and it turns out my density has kept me from picking up on the fact that she's been thinking of me as relationship material since, well, something like July.
Fine, you might say, can't lump all Christians together, and *Rebecca doesn't seem to be in the yoke-sensitive camp. Well, you can get a lot of details into 23k of e-mail and she is in the yoke-sensitive camp and it's been eating away at her. Her Christian buddies are understandibly leery of the whole idea, and for me it kinda reorganizes everything... but she's thinking differently. I'd gotten pretty good at applying my yoking filter but she's sort of making it irrelevant... but I'd feel a little weird helping her dismantle a practice she still obviously respects to some extent. At the same time, she really is wonderful and this whole yoking thing sometimes feels like a medieval tradition whose time has come. Yarg, new and exciting dilemma... of the sort that's more fun to contemplate when it's hypothetical.
I can't honestly convert as it stands, and I won't dishonestly convert. She's not asking me to, which is to her credit.
So, I can freak out and run in circles, I can say she's wonderful but this is crazy, I can say I had no idea and ... yes!, or I can hop on the next plane to the French Foreign Legion recruiting centre and pretend this all never happened. Or I can do something more subtle I haven't thought of... you get the idea.
Advice, relevant questions or a good slap upside the head... I await your reply.
Yours spazzing out,
Dense Heathen
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Dear Dense Heathen,
Forgive me for being a little dense myself here: when you say "yoking," are you referring to marriage or some less formal type of, um, attachment? Because yes, I guess I can see how marriage between a devout Christian and a confirmed agnostic could have its share of complications, but let's get back to that in a second...
You say she's thinking of you of relationship material, but she's not asking you to convert. In that 23k of email, did she make any suggestions about how *she* thought this might work? Do you think she would be open to starting a relationship, but taking it kind of slowly for a while and seeing how things go?
Here's the thing: people get into relationships not because they've already worked out all the difficulties, but because they like each other enough to see if the difficulties are worth working out. My take is that you both obviously want to be together, and you have no way of knowing yet whether religion is ultimately going to be a deal-breaker or not. So is it worth the risk to you guys?
If you and Rebecca decide that you'd like to try it out, I think the fact that you're able to debate the Big Issues without artillery fire is definitely going to work in your favor. You say she's open-minded, which also bodes well. Your task, then, is to respect her beliefs even while you disagree with them. There's no reason that you should have to accept a belief system that doesn't work for you, but you have to keep in mind that many people do get quite a lot out of it, and that they are not necessarily less thoughtful or sophisticated thereby. :) If Rebecca can be convinced that being with you does not threaten her commitment to God -- that, in fact, she can have both! -- and if you're cool with that too, then terrific.
I'm not trying to dismiss the fact that she might have real concerns. I mean, obviously, if her life revolves primarily around church and church activities, then there's probably not a place for you. But that doesn't sound like the case here. And I don't know her friends, or how open-minded they are... but, you know, dealing with disapproving friends can be a hassle even for couples with no religious issues whatsoever. She might be looking much further down the road and thinking "yeah, and what would we do if we had kids?" Which is a fair question, and a serious one, but there are people who've figured out ways to deal with it. And hopefully, you would have plenty of time before you had to address it.
So don't join the French Foreign Legion, okay? At least talk to her and tell her how fantastic you think she is (she really does sound lovely). If you guys give it a try, you'll just have to work hard to figure things out as you go. But that's pretty much what everyone has to do.
cheers,
alpha
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