Dear Fuck Up: I Fell in Love With Someone Religious

Like, extremely religious

Dear Fuck Up,

I recently started dating again on the apps, after coming through a very tumultuous time in my life. I have been very selective with who I match with, and met "The One" in the truest sense. Like, I never believed in love at first sight until I met her. She is perfect in every way: kind, thoughtful, present, lively, funny, pretty, and smart. I told her about my rocky past, and she doesn't care. When I look into her eyes, I'm the happiest I've ever been.

The only problem is she's very religious, and has unshakeable beliefs about things like the age of the earth and whether or not Adam and Eve are real.

I told her I would be willing to come to an agreement on maybe 85-95 percent of her beliefs, but I don't think I'd ever go to 100 percent. She said this might be a dealbreaker. 

Also, it sounds like there's a weird family-only "church" ceremony that happens for two hours on weekends. I just want to stress that I am NOT in America and the chances of this being a cult are pretty low. However, this belief system would require me to get literally baptized by her father.

I can probably lie and say I 100 percent believe, but that would be against the point of the whole thing I'm doing now. Should I stand firm on my fractional belief system, or should I actually try and be open to the ideas she has that I find wild now?

Love, 

Heretic 

Dear Heretic,

Despite the fact that I have always been a terribly romantic person, I’ve had my doubts about love at first sight. I wanted to think it was possible, due to the inherent romanticism, but I have some difficulty taking things on faith. I harbored the suspicion that what people are actually doing when they describe love at first sight is elevating lust. And then I had my own conversion experience. Something close enough to love happened quickly enough that I now count myself among the true believers. 

Which is to say, I believe you have been driven to a pleasing kind of madness and I understand why you might give yourself over to it. Something you previously thought impossible has happened, and in the light of that who are you to say what else you might be wrong about? I can easily imagine myself becoming so enamored of another person that I would say astrology is real, or that Ted Lasso is funny, or any number of things I absolutely do not believe and can’t imagine myself ever thinking. 

I also count among my friends many people who have a deep religious conviction, and I am able to find fertile common ground with them despite my own atheism. But the age of the earth? Geology? Evolution? There is a point at which the madness of love becomes simply losing your mind. That point is when it becomes necessary to reassure people that you are ALMOST CERTAINLY NOT being recruited into a cult.

Frankly I’m not sure how your more restrained approach of only agreeing with 95 percent of the stuff she believes would even work either. Are you carving out a 5 percent exception for the sinfulness of homosexuality? Is pre-marital sex on the “agree to disagree” list? Would you simply never watch Jurassic Park together? Apologies for being glib but these are the kind of beliefs that have real, terrible consequences in the world and as hard as it may be right now you have to think clearly about what you are willing to endorse. 

Good luck, I think this might take a miracle. 

Love,

A Fuck Up

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