And now the struggle comes in...

For the past several years, I have been a firm believer that inter-belief dating is a bad idea. Not that I'm one of those people who think that someone who doesn't believe the same as I do is evil, or a heathen or whatnot. But rather, because it is difficult to combine two lives completely when there is such a variance in belief.

I want to be able to share my life with the person I am with, and having a different faith makes that hard, because it's a part of my life I don't know how to share without to be forcing it on them. As much as I can handle them not believing the same, to some degree it does hurt, because I can't share in their joy of that either.

Last night, the boyfriend told me that while he does believe in God, he doesn't really know if he can connect with being a Christian, because he believes that all the religions must have something right. That if they're all combined together, that the answer is in there. He doesn't really like church, and though he will attend with me if I ask sometimes, he doesn't think the answer is there.

To some degree, I'm fine with this. I respect that he is searching for the truth instead of just accepting something being told with him. That he is willing to admit that while one might be right, until the search for truth leads him to that conclusion he's going to keep searching.

I love that he's not a blind sheep, conforming to rules and regulations just because.

But there's a part of me that is crestfallen, because this is going to make things a lot harder. It's going to be harder because everyone already is pestering me about the whole equally-yoked issue. Because my parents keep telling me they're terrified if he's not a Christian that I'm going to lose my faith (to which I point out if someone can change my faith then I clearly didn't believe in the first place).

Mom won't get off my back about the fact that he hasn't come to church with us yet.

That stuff is all hard, but it's expected. True; God says in the Bible we shouldn't be unequally-yoked. But I think it also says something that despite his faith, the BF is incredible, treats me like gold, and sincerely likes me, which is more than I can say about any other guys I've ever dated, including the Christian ones.

And honestly, the Christian ones are never actually interested in me. I'm either too extreme in my thinking (not extreme as in fundie, but as in open-mindedness), I'm too nerdy, I'm not pretty enough, I'm not this, I'm too much that. I often wonder if a lot of Christian guys have this idea in their head that the Christian women to be married are the ones who fit the 'ideal' Christian woman category, and that anything outside of it just isn't right.

But I'm rambling. I think my biggest struggle comes into play with the fear of showing him my God-passionate side. I don't want him to feel I'm trying to force my faith onto him, but for me, my faith is my life. I live it, I breathe it. I just don't want it to be too much.