roshini asks: My boyfriend is a male chauvinist; he never understands my feelings and perspectives. I don’t like breaking relationships and so I thought to adjust with him, but later on I couldn’t, and we had lots of fights. He has trust issues with me. He is afraid to marry me since we are from different religions. Now I need to decide what to do – to be in this kind of relationship or to leave him!
Hi roshini –
Have you ever heard of John Gray? He wrote a famous book called Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and a number of sequels to it. At one point, he wrote about the question of whether couples should share interests, or have an “opposites attract” dynamic.
His answer was that it doesn’t matter. That it can be delightful when both of you like horror movies or football, and it can be fun when you disagree about lots of things. But, he argued, what matters is that the partners share Values. Core moral values. Especially if they’re thinking of having and raising children.
So she loves reading sappy romantic novels while he plays violent first-person-shooter video games? That can be okay, if they agree about those big issues – like religion in their lives, or whether it’s okay to commit crimes. Or the roles of men and women.
That last one is a big one. Because you can disagree about politics and just avoid discussing how you vote, but your beliefs about a woman’s place is in a home will show up every hour!
So you can probably see where I’m going with this. I have no idea how old you are. If you’re thirteen and want to have someone to go to the school dance with, then all I care about is that he treats you respectfully. But if you’re older, and thinking about a serious partnership – then my simple answer is No. You have different religions, you see the place of women in different ways, and besides these, he doesn’t understand or trust you.
You. Can. Do. Better!
And so can he. Better for him to find a woman who fits his ideals (who’ll probably then turn his life upside down by being ten times as demanding as you’d ever have been!), while you find a good guy who respects you, works to understand you, and shares your religious beliefs.
Some questions are hard. This one’s easy. For me anyway.
For you, now comes the hard part. But once you’ve freed each other, both your lives will be so much better!
Best of luck with it,
Shirelle