Anyone here ever have anyone break up with them over religion/race?

[bleedingheart]

A long time ago when I was in college I was pursued by this fellow who was quite a cutie. He was intelligent witty and very nice. The only thing was that he and I did not share the same religious faith...but that wasn't an issue in the beginning.
We got along just great and things were going along smoothly until his family got wind of the fact that he was dating someone (he was from Florida and going to school in PA)...

From the moment his parents (and especially grandmother) found out that he was dating me ...they started pressuring him to break it off and eventually he did just that...and it was all over our religious differences.

I have to say that I was young and got over it eventually but it was a very odd situation to be in...

[AWD]

1. Yes

I was dating a Jehovah's Witness, and she couldn't introduce me to her friends. It seems that they only encourage each other to date within the religion.

So it was one of three ways...hide me from her friends, convert me, or break up. We tried all three. Once her friends found out, they tried to convert me, and we decided to end it because it got too insane.

Damn shame too....Gwen was a wonderful person.

on a side note - I did end up getting a great joke out of it. I now tell people that I had to enter the Jehovah's Witness Protection Program.

[bleedingheart]

3. that is a funny joke

[populistmom]

2. No

I'm a half-Catholic, half Protestant person and it was never an issue really. As for me, I lost my virginity to a Jewish guy, so I suppose that counts for being warm and receptive to all religions personally. (Thank goodness he wasn't Kosher.)

[bleedingheart]

5. lucky for me my hubby and I got over that issue right away

he was raised calvinist..I am catholic...the guy I dated in college was jewish....

[JohnKleeb]

11. how are you half just out of curiousity?

Like was your mom Catholic and your dad protestant or vice versa. I am fully Catholic being bapitized and all and both my parents too. Its funny really, one time when I was young I thought on my mom's side I was Serbian had I been, theres a good chance I would be Eastern Orthodox being my grandfather would have had my grandma become that when they married, and they would pressure my parents to do the same to me, and my Irish grandma on my dad's side was old as she still is and wouldnt care, :shrug:. No I havent had this problem becaues I havent dated ever.

[populistmom]

15. Long story

Saying half and half is the short version. My mom was Methodist and my dad was an atheist (grew up Southern Baptist) when I was born. Over the years, my mom converted to Catholicism (she still is despite TWO divroces with my dad) and beginning at age 8, I went through all the sacraments (except I wasn't married in 'the church'). I even went through Catholic school from 1st through 9th grade. I did, though, go to a lot of Methodist services when I visited my grandparents.

Over the years, I found myself in too much disagreements with teachings of the Catholic church and felt like a hippocrite for even going on the holidays when I felt nothing for it, but I wanted something, especially for my children. My husband, a life-long Irish Catholic felt the same. We went to both a Unitarian church and a Methodist church for awhile to decide and were torn, but decided liberal Christian fit us better (all those Methodist churches can differ individually).

I know this is old, but I just found it, so I thought I'd respond.

[pippin]

4. divorced fundie spouse

came to a point when my liberal tolerance could no longer stand the god-speak and god-do of my spouse and relatives. Felt strangled most of the marriage by the can't do this and can't do tha attitude that utimately robbed the joyfulness out of living. Always thought religion was supposed to make you happy but have discovered over the years that fundamentalists really make a big thing out of suffering. :shrug:

[bleedingheart]

6. I am with you on that...why does religion have to rob the joy

out of life for some people.

I find I grow more spiritual with age and more understanding of others... perhaps its motherhood...I have become a big doe eyed sap and I like it that way... :-)

[adamblast]

7. Sort of... I broke up with a boyfriend over New Age mumbo jumbo...

...he started getting heavily into some really lame cultish stuff, and we eventually had to admit we didn't respect each other's opinions much anymore...

[blondeatlast]

28. If it's taking the joy out of life, they're doing it wrong!

Whether it's their life or someone else's.

BTW, my husband is a "lapsed" Hindu--raised that way (He's Punjabi) but no longer practices. I'm a Protestant/Catholic mix now attending UU. All are happy; that's what counts.

[Cleita]

8. Both.

I did the breaking up though, when I realized the relationship wasn't going anywhere because he couldn't tell his family about me. It was either because I was Hispanic or that I was Catholic and sometimes both. The first time I was sixteen years old and the boy was the son of a Baptist minister from W. VA. I guess I was Juliet. But to be fair the Catholic portion of my family didn't approve of him either.

[Cheswick2.0]

9. in an odd way

my non practicing jewish ex inlaws couldn't tolerate that I was an actual practicing Christian. They worked for 15 years to break us up (never actually using religion as a reason) and finally suceeded when he had a midlife mental breakdown. The odd thing was that I had spent many years teaching my children about the Jewish heritage because I thought they should understand all their roots... and their grandparents never once taught them a thing about their culture or religion.

[eyesroll]

10. Not me, but my sister (sort of) dumped someone over religion

My family is Jewish (culturally, anyway -- not very observant). She was very serious with a Catholic boy. His mom was thrilled. His mom wanted them to get married (even went so far as to try to guilt him into proposing -- "I have lupus and you never know how long I'll be here"). Keep in mind that my sister and her boyfriend were in their early 20s -- we're not talking ticking clocks here.

The last straw was when the mom showed my sister the family christening gown, and said she could have it when she had the babies christened.

And, apparently, the boyfriend fully expected her to convert when they got married. She wasn't going to. They broke up. I wouldn't have lasted that long. Whitacre D_WI was raised Catholic, but he's about as observant as I am...

[GOPisEvil]

29. Well, if your sister ever wants to meet another lapsed Catholic...

...:hi: LOL! :silly:

I dated a Jewish woman for a short time. I took the opportunity to learn about some of the things I had always heard about, but was ignorant of. These days I only go to church when someone gets married or dies.

[mikehiggins]

12. Not quite the same thing

but when several friends found out my fiancee was Puerto Rican they were aghast. Cut me off cold. It was generally considered that PR girls were okay to screw, but nobody would want to marry one.

Thirty years and two kids later, I still don't miss those old friends at all.

[Astarho]

13. kinda/yes

I've had many girls who would not og out with me because I'm not "spiritual" enough, instead picking the old hippies.

I was once going out with a girl, a wannabe (ask any Native American about them) and we were hitting it off, eventhough I'm not an Indian.. Then a few weeks later she met a Native (or at least he's part Native, who plays it up) and they're now engaged, and I'm yesterday's news.

[JVS]

14. Yeah, she thought she was a deity and I disagreed

[mitchum]

16. Yes! My wife was furious when she found out about my Catholic...

mistress.

[7th_Sephiroth]

17. yeah

i dated a muslim girl until her brother and his friends attacked me for not being muslim

[Ernesto]

18. OMG!

I, the crude athiest heathen dumped my (now) wife several times over her bible thumpin' family nonsence. Now, we've been married well for 20 years... It is interesting to me that I have showed them the truth of the fact that we have the strongest, healthiest family unit of all these dissfunctional nuts put together.

[WilliamPitt]

19. Actually, yeah

Two breakups from race. One weird, and another I still hold against myself. The first was an amazing Filipino girl I dated in high school and into college. Lotsa stuff went into that one, but I distinctly remember the 'cooling-off' process began one afternoon when she told me she probably wouldn't marry anyone who wasn't Filipino. We'd been together over a year at that point.

The second one basically turned into one of the most important and painful learning experiences I've ever dealt with. I was thirteen, and her name was Heather, and she was my first girlfriend. She was black, from Roxbury. We were together for about two weeks, and then I took her to the Boston Marathon; the top of Heartbreak Hill runs pretty much right past my house on the Newton/Brighton line, and its a great place to watch the runners die in large lots as they stagger over the crest.

So we're walking down the street holding hands. We're getting some weird looks, but nothing too heavy. Then a car drives by, and the windows were filled with the faces of three seniors from my high school, all of them staring hard at the two of us.

They cornered me the next day in this Lounge room, and triple-teamed me for a beatdown. It was rough, and it went on for a while. The crux of the message being delivered was that if they saw me with that nigger again, they'd kick my ass all over again.

I chewed on that for about a day and then broke up with Heather. I was thirteen, meaning stupid, and at the time felt I had enough troubles as it was. I had no real experience dealing with racial issues, except learning that dating a black girl in Boston is a fine way to get the beat shit out of you. I was scared.

That's one of those indelible things inside - and we all have these - that I'm just not going to forgive myself for, no matter what anyone says or whatever the mitigating circumstances may have been. I blew it.

Tell you what, though. That few minutes in that lounge at school with those three seniors gifted me with an indelible page in my personal manifesto. Page 1, paragraph 2 of said manifesto reads, "I fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking hate racists."

[SOteric]

20. In a way.

It wasn't a relationship. I accepted a blind date back in my college days. My roommate was seeing a guy, and his roommate really wanted to go out with me, so they set it up. He was from a local family of fairly wealthy ranchers. Half-way through the evening of our second 'date,' rancher-boy starts using the 'n' word with a particularly stinging venom, making disparaging comments about persons of hispanic origin and talking about how much he hates Catholics. A was stunned. He went on and on about topics which rather securely painted him a separatist whacko or a member of the KKK, though I suppose they're not mutually exclusive.

I was far from home, very small and very vulnerable. I didn't stand tall and tell him that I found his character lacking and his opinions and vocabulary offensive, and that "I am a Roman Catholic."

Much like Will Pitt described in his post, there's likely nothing anyone can say that will ever dissolve the bitter taste of accepting such hate as the bride-price of fear.

I phoned him 2 days later to lie that I'd reconciled with an old flame.

[HEyHEY]

21. Yeah she thought she was god and I disagreed

No not really, that's an old joke

[SOteric]

22. HEyHEY!!!

:spank:

[HEyHEY]

23. any chance you remember what that is form?

I can't for the life of me

[SOteric]

24. Not specifically, -but you can ask JVS from post #14

[HEyHEY]

25. Dang the bugger stole my line! Nobody upstages HEyHEY He'll pay!

:mad:

[DrWeird]

26. The first girl I ever asked out...

wouldn't go out with me because I wasn't a christian. It broke my teenage heart. And my confidence in asking out girls. Set me back awhile, a lifetime for a teenager.

Oh well. When I take over the multiverse she'll be the first to feed the lions.

[blondeatlast]

27. I found out once I was dating a racist redneck

SOB. We had dated about three times when he made a remarkably distasteful comment about our waitress.

I gave her a $20 tip as soon as she returned to the table, then got up and quietly left him there. No big scene (although he was aghast at my tip), just told him I couldn't tolerate racism and left.

[prolesunited]

30. Reminds me of a similar story

I got asked out by a successful lawyer in a neighboring town and he takes me to a movie. (As an aside, on deciding the movie, my only stipulation is that I don't like violent movies. When he picks me up, he says we're going to "Die Harder" :eyes: Probably should have suddenly not been feeling well right there.)

The neighboring community where we go was becoming more and more racially integrated and he actually apologize for all of the black people around the mall. Kind of like, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize there were so many blacks here now."

:wtf: What made it even more appalling was that he was a city councilman! Fortunate for him there were no people of color in the town he helped govern, and obviously he intended to keep it that way.

That was among the WORST dates of my life. Feeling must have been mutual because when he drove me home, he didn't even open the car door or walk me to my door. I can see if you're going out for awhile, but on the first date?

Perhaps he was just a total asshole. :shrug:

[SOteric]

31. Good for you!

I so very much admire you for quietly standing up to him.