Religion and relationships

[shalini]

I found the cellar a few days ago looking for answers to my computer problems and I got to lookin around at what else there was here .. and found how so many people have disucssed thier troubles/concerns here for advice. Well I have a issue of my own that I would like some outside prespective of and I thought that this would be a great place for just that. Its gonna be long so bare with me.

I started talkin to this guy I liked at work, and its been about 9 months since the beginning of real conversations. After about 5 months of hanging out (alone and with friends) and talkin on the phone for hours almost every night, I told him that I had really started to like him more than a friend and he acknowledged the same feelings but there was something preventing him from going any further with this relationship. He told me I wouldn't understand ..

A week goes by and we are able to talk face to face this time and I asked him to explain to me what his reasoning was. He tells me that he wants to date for marriage (I am not opposed to that) but that he wants someone that is Christian like him. I, obviously, am not Christian. He believes that only Christians will go to Heavean and he would only want to marry someone that would go to Heavean with him after death. However, after all that, we give each other a hug and a hug turns into a kiss which turns into more kisses. Nothing else happens that night and we both go to our respective homes.

The following week, we talked about what had happened that night. Nothing much came out of it. I think we both were expecting closure but it didn't happen. I told him that religion is not a big deal to me so that it was ultimately his decision as to what would happen. He told me that he really wanted to be with me on one hand but that what he had said about his faith and how things would work once we had a family and such would still matter in the long run to him. Thus not giving a definite answer.

Four months later .. our relationship has advanced to where we act as a couple, when we are alone. If his friends knew about us, they would force him not to see me again. I also agreed to go away with him for a weekend, where he told me he "loved me" for the first time. I too, I love him. I have not connected, like this, so well with a guy before. Sometimes the topic comes up where he should not be with me or that we should stop acting as a couple between each other .. because that is what will eventually happen. But each time, we both cry and get sad and don't want to lose the other so we ignore reality for a little longer.

He is going out of country for work in the next month, and will be gone for one maybe even two years. So really when we are ignoring reality, we (I) are (am) looking at it as a few more months to live it well and be happy with this guy for as long as I can. Let the future bring what it may..

The spiritual connection is the only thing that divides this drift between us. He hesitates when bringing up stuff that he is doing for church. And I guess he grows distant when he is engrossed in his spiritual activities. I remember being on the phone with him for 10-15 minutes in silence, yet not hanging up because we wanted the presence of the other person still. The silence is not because we were fighting .. just because he didn't have anything to say at that time and because it felt akward neither did I. These kinds of conversations occur during the weekend after he goes to church or after Bible study.

I'm not sure what to do .. even though he is going away we have set up alternate ways of communication. We each have invested in web cams and settup ways to talk online. Should I continue to just live happily till it lasts? Or should I let the distance and time make its rifts between us?

I guess the extreme action would be considering converting to Christianity. I don't think I'm ready to take that action at all. I'm not that religious in the first place, and I've tried so hard to create my own understanding of God and supreme power, that I'm not sure that I can easily accept another's views.

Any advice would help .. my mind is tangled and fighting a battle of logic vs. heart.

Thanks!