Back Story:
One of my closest friends currently feels compelled to chastise me because my boyfriend and I have no plans to get married (hello - we’ve been dating less than a year!) and I jokingly told her that we may just live in sin to annoy her.
She and I both attended the same highly conservative christian school & university: she knows I am aware of the mindset. However, I am much more of a free spirit and always have been.
I’m not looking to tell her off - I’m not looking to get in to a great religious debate. I just firmly told her that I wasn’t going to have this discussion with her and that I wasn’t going to have someone attempting to counsel me spiritually when I didn’t ask for it.
**So here’s my question: *****How would you respond (politely) to someone who feels compelled to chastise you about spiritual things? ***
Pretend these are people you care about and do not want to insult or call names.
“Honey, I know you mean well, and I’ve heard your take on this a couple times now. I think I know what I’m doing, so I’d really prefer it if we let this subject rest and talk about other stuff, okay? Now, about that new movie…”
Tell her off. Outside of making topics out-of-bounds, they’re going to stay right where they are. Even then they’ll still come back eventually and you have to give a dirty look, but the respite is longer and more easily fixed.
“I’m surprised that you’re so willing to be so inconsiderate of principles that I’ve told you many, many times are important to me. Don’t you want to stay good friends? I hope so, and I don’t think either of us ought to talk about this subject ever again. Thanks for understanding how I feel.”
The idea being that you think that discussing this will cost her your friendship, which is really the only leverage you have (I presume). If you’re not willing to break off your friendship over this, then welcome to a lifelong uncomfortable relationship in which unexpected outbreaks of glurge may occur at any tiime.
Seriously, it’s just never been a longstanding problem for me. Perhaps I’m just oblivious to subtle pressure or disappointment. But NO ONE in my family or origin or my husband’s family shares my faith, and it’s just not been a terribly big issue. We talk about religion a lot, and when they ask me about my beliefs, I share them, and if I have a question about theirs, I ask and I listen. We’re all mostly mutually respectful of each others’ personal options, although I know my mother-in-law is saddened that her son is no longer Catholic. Really, if I could get them to be as reasonably live-and-let-live about politics, I’d be a happy girl.
The only thing I can think of is one Jehovah’s Witness employee when I worked at a video store who started leaving pamphlets on my car and in the break room. I enjoyed our conversations about his religion, but I thought the paraphernalia crossed the line, and I told him so, nicely. “I’m interested in your faith as your personal experience, and I’d love to hear more, but I don’t want this paperwork, please stop leaving it.” No problem.
I find that most people like to talk about themselves more than they’re interested in talking about me; if I can keep the conversation focused on them, what they think, what their experiences are, then they mostly don’t realize or don’t care that I’m not agreeing with them.
I tried not to influence your responses by adding much more of my personal background in the OP - in fact, I deleted a lot of it out so that you wouldn’t give advice as much as just how you respond when politeness is key.
I try to temper my answers with as much empathy as possible - taking in outside variables like the fact that her husband is quite sick with cancer and has been most of the year, she teaches at a Christian school, we have a 20 year reunion this weekend, etc. I recognize that she sees me in love and happy and not as available for her as I once had been. That I’ve recently helped her re-connect with a lot of our high school friends on facebook and so therefore she may feel peer pressure because many of them have remained conservative.
There’s a lot of factors that I could see consciously or subconsciously influencing her sudden need to chastise me. Which is why I chose to handle it the way I did.
However, my OP question was based on how I would handle it in other situations where I would still care for the person, but they may not have these issues. Hence, the post.
Keep the answers coming - it’s great to ponder and have in the back of my mind for next time. (There’s never an end, Rorshach).
