Expert: Sirine Malas - 5/20/2011

Question
I'm a Hispanic-Christian Catholic woman (27) dating, for over 2 years, a Jordanian Muslim man (28). He met my parents, we went to Mexico together to visit my family; I met his family, 2 brothers and 2 sisters here in the States. We were very enthusiastic about our relationship, used to spend the night over with him, we had vacations together with his cousins and wives, he invited me to two Arab weddings, we had special dinner during Ramadan, etc.  Many things a normal relationship will do. He started talking about being more formal and did not wanted to continued dating forever, in other words, he started talking about marriage and children. He always said he was hoping the best in our relationship. I accepted not to marry throughout the Church and not baptizing our children if any. But I stated that we were going to keep our families together celebrating Christmas, Easter and other holidays. We stopped talking for two weeks. Then, we talked back and said, he was having too much pressured and that he had a long conversation with this father, who is overseas. He also said that he loved me with no doubt but, I was more religious in my Christianity faith than what he is with the Islamic one and by consequence our children will be more influenced by me. He wants our children to be Muslim only, I suggested him to let them choose and/or to let me teach my prayers. I always said our children will be very bless and knowledgeable growing in a mix cultural family learning three languages and more.

Please advice, I love him. He is confuse, what should I do? Is his culture/religion/society stronger than his love for me? His dad told him love is not all.
I missed him.

Gracias/Thank you in advance and congratulations for a great website.

Answer
Hi Aida,

I really do not think that this is my field of expertise, I would go to a relationships expert to get a good answer on this if I were you, I think this is more about anthropology.
But if you feel this is about his culture/relegion then I guess (from what you wrote) he was open enough to tell you bluntly that he does not wish his children to be anything but Muslim and this is why he is not ready to commit to a relationship with you being a practising Catholic. I think this is it. If his mind is set on that I don't think anything you will tell him will change his mind, like let them chose and they can have two faiths. Especially that Catholic & Mulsim beleifs do not exactly compliment each other. There are huge gaps between the two faiths to the point of complete contradiction.

U see the thing about religion is that every person thinks their religion is the real thing, the truth and the rest is just a fabricated , put together set of beliefs. Respecting the other person's religion and freedom to believe in what they want does not necessarily imply that you approve of what they believe in, I hope you can see where I m coming from.  At least I can see you two are strongly affiliated with your own religions in a way that wouldn't allow any real compromise.

So if you really want this man to be your partner you two need to sit together and have a tranparent talk about your beliefs and what you want and/or don't want to pass on to your children (which I can see is his biggest worry). I also think there is a mistrust factor going on here in my own opinion.
I don't think he is confused at all , he is just trying to be rational and logical about this marriage rather then just emotional, he does not want to regret it one day. Love is not enough obviously as you said.

I hope this helps, and I m glad you like www.allexperts.com

if you need any further help about this Aida please do not hesitate to write again.

All the Best,
Sirine