How would you deal with a SO like this?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Many years ago, I fell pretty hard for a Muslim girl from Malaysia.

This is a conversation we once had. We were speaking in hypotheticals. (Forgive me. This isn’t exactly verbatim, as it was years ago and I’m going from memory):

Me: So what would your parents do if they found out you were living (unmarried) with an Atheist man?

Her: Lol. They would freak out! They might not let me leave. (She was referring to if she went and visited them after the fact)

Me: What?! Well, fuck that! I don’t want you going over there!

Her: Well, I guess I wouldn’t be able to go then.

Me: Huh?

Her: Yeah, if you’re my man, I can’t go unless you give me your blessing.

Me: Uh, yeah… You could just tell me to fuck off and go anyway. I’ll still be here for ya when you get back.

Her: Oh no! That’s not how it works!
We never had to deal with these cultural differences in a serious way because at the beginning of our relationship, her mother fell ill and she wound up moving back home so she could be with her in her remaining days.

I’ll say this: I’m not sure how this girl reconciles it’s (hypothetically) okay to live with (and have sex with) a man outside of marriage, but going on a trip sans her man’s blessing is crossing the line. I fully admit, I don’t get her logic.

All that said: I was pondering “what if”. If we did wind up moving in together, I’m not sure how I would deal with that sort of submissiveness.

I guess the only way to deal with that sort of cultural impasse would be to just always give your blessing. But that doesn’t exactly feel right either.

How would you deal?

2

Just for the record, I think that the implication was that for her to go home you would require your blessing because she wouldn’t be able to come back. That’s how it’s different than living with you. In one, she’s doing something that her parents wouldn’t approve of. In the other, she’s effectively never going to be able to come back. If you approved that, well then, that pretty much speaks for how important the relationship is to you.

3

Huh. I figured she was saying she’d go there and, well, not mention living with him. And I also figured she was saying she’d only go there – and not mention him – if he nodded and okayed the whole go-there-and-not-mention-him thing.

4

I think she quickly and easily submitted to your forbidding her, mostly because it was a convenient and totally culturally acceptable excuse to not go, nothing more.

5

I read it as, she had a choice as to where she got her orders: her parents, or the OP. She’d rather be ordered by the OP to stay here, than by her parents to stay there, so she chose the OP. So, she was consenting to be obedient, but choosing ahead of time what the orders were most likely to be.

6

One of the things that attracted my wife to me was that she stood up for herself. I don’t think I could have dealt with that sort of submissiveness.

7

Never commit to a religious person of any faith. They are all irrational.

8

Your world views are fundamentally extremely different and don’t fit together in any reasonable way. If you two are just together for a short fling, then fine. But you have no long-term future together that works in any sense that most of us would consider ‘working.’

Ten words:

Mutual trust and respect.
Shared or compatible goals, values, worldview.

If you don’t have those, either things will fall apart, or at least one party will wish they had. But no amount of effort expended in trying to make the relationship work will make it work.

9

Everybody is irrational to some extent. Such a blanket condemnation is silly.

10

No question about it! Fuckin’ nuts, we all are. Stay away from us like we were plague carriers. :wink:

11

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just naive, but I think as long as you have mutual trust and respect, I’d like to think the two people involved can make it work despite cultural differences.

12

Well, that’s one quick way to drastically shrink your dating pool…

13

Hey, he’s been around. He knows thing. I defer to his worldly knowledge. :smiley:

14

It’s really not. My personal deal breaker when dating was ‘no one who isn’t an atheist,’ & I was never lacking for options.

Though a dating pool of mostly millennial urban gay guys probably has a higher proportion of atheists than any other group.

The OP’s exchange is disturbing, & I can’t imagine ever getting involved with someone like that.

Sent from my R1 HD using Tapatalk

15

Everybody is irrational to variable extent, and those indoctrinated in dogma the more so.

16

So don’t date anyone who is irrational, but everyone is irrational. Dude, I’ll bet your forearms are huge! :stuck_out_tongue:

17

Says the guy who eats out of dumpsters.

18

YMMV, my experience with with the Philippines, there may be culture specific issues in play I am not familiar with. I am not your lawyer, some restrictions may apply, offer not valid in Delaware.

You are dealing in a world where “traditional gender roles” are still very much a thing. Some families are more progressive than others, but much of SE Asia is going to behave more like rural, god fear’in, salt of the earth conservative Christians when it comes to things like this. The whole SJW thing does not have anywhere near the traction is has in urban america.

My interpretation of what you are saying is that:

1)She leaves home and goes off to live with you.

2)She returns home for a visit and in conversation mentions she is living in sin with an apostate.

3)They promptly {hopefully metaphorically) lock her ass in her room and do not allow her to return to you, reinforced by threats of being cut off from the family, going to hell, etc.

They may not be able to effectively stop her from returning, but does she want to see her family crying her eyes out because they are so disappointed in her daughters choices. Effectiveness of guilt trips may vary.

My only thoughts are if you are going to go there, be prepared for the long haul. unless you are dead serious about this girl and going to marry her, you are not doing her any favors blowing up the bridges with her family. This is not a culture that sees marriage as a transient easily dismissed thing. If unless you are heavily involved with you extended family as a substitute, she may find your world extremely isolated and be unhappy/anxious. Many countries do not have the social safety nets that we have, extended family is that net for them, commitment to family is a huge deal.

As far as submissiveness. Don’t make that assumption that shes some kind of pushover. She is probably capable of making a rented mule look cooperative if she really feels strongly about something. She will probably never openly disrespect you in front of others even if you are a jerk to her, but be prepared to pay dearly later.

Only advice I can throw down, always be the good example, always treat her well, love her to pieces. Even the most hardass fundamentalist is going to be hard pressed to go all bilblical about the divergent choices of a healthy happy adult child who is obviously in a good place especially if you are married and have similarly well cared for health happy grandkids.

Just be prepared for any failings on your part to be blown way out of proportion or used as an excuse for further criticism.

19

You can have cultural differences. You don’t have to agree on everything. But you have to have compatible goals, or it won’t work.

Are you going to have kids? How are those kids going to be brought up? Are you going to make decisions together, or is one person going to make all the decisions? Where are you going to live? Are your parents more important than your spouse?

If one person is a devout Muslim, and the other is an intransigent atheist, what happens with the kids? Do the kids get religious instruction? Does the non-religious person have to stay in the closet for the sake of the kids? Do you put off these decisions and hope they’ll somehow work themselves out?

It is certainly possible for an atheist and a religious person to have a happy and conflict-free marriage, if both agree on how things should work out and are willing and happy to actually stick to those agreements, or willing and happy to alter those agreements if they aren’t working. But that’s having shared goals, even though you arrive at the same goal from different starting points.

20

Just to reclarify: I am no longer with this girl. This was an event that happened many years ago. :slight_smile: