Broke up with me because I am not Catholic

Hello everyone,

Probably don't need advice (unless you have some but wanted to share my most recent breakup experience.

After seven months of dating a wonderful man that I met online, and a month of him being very hot and cold, I finally confronted him about our changing dynamic and how it was affecting me. Out of the blue, he brings up this issue of how he is catholic and I am not (I'm not even christian of any denomination), and he could not see himself with a non-catholic woman since our goals wouldn't match. He said while I didn't have to convert, the kids would have to be raised catholic- catholic school and church activities. I told him while I have no problems with them having a Catholic upbringing, I would need 50% share in their religious experiences, since I would be the mother and the kids would need to understand where their mother comes from and understand that they have religious options. Two days after this conversation, he broke up with me.

First, I feel this conversation about family happened way to early in our relationship, where we were just not going to survive such a heave topic. However, in terms of such stringent requirements, why did we even start dating?? When I confronted him about why this was coming into the picture this late, he said he wasn't expecting to date me for this long, and then falling for me. So, it seems like he freaked and pulled the rug from under me. This was after he lied about not being a staunch catholic on our first date (I did my homework!)

During the breakup was the first time we also exchanged 'i love you's' which is sad. But he said he has to do this in spite of loving me because he cannot envision a non-catholic future. There is no way I can fight this. I told him to talk to the priest, and he said no, because he is not ok with any other solution. He also said , 'breaking up is most likely a mistake, but it is one i have to make. Besides, no one suffers from their mistakes for too long, so we will both be fine' (I hated this comment and fought him on it).

I am confused, hurt and feel pretty victimized. I also feel like this religion thing is such a copout. He is hardly a devout catholic in his actions and the way he lives his life. The relationship was healthy for the most part, so I am missing that. Religious differences do seem like a deal breaker the way he puts it, but bringing it up so conveniently into the game with no negotiation leaves my heart broken. There is nothing I can do about this but move on. After texting with some hurt and anger, i finally put a stop to all communication and am now focusing on being sad and recovery. Would love to hear what people have to say. I just needed to vent.

Seriously, screw him. And screw all the rest of the people who think like this. If you need any firmer evidence of what religion does to humanity, HERE IT IS!

And with this said, there are millions of wonderful people who will love and cherish you for the human being that you are, dogma need not apply.

Be sad that he still lives in in the cold dark past. By happy that you're free of his prison!

I love how you wrote in your post, that all you needed was just to vent

The guy sounds like he is really worried what his family would say or how they would reart.. whatever.. bleh!

Real men with integrity and strong sense of who they are... well very very very tough to find

Sorry that it hurt. *hugs*

sure you will be great soon!

(inbox me if you are looking for pen friends)

Sounds like a total copout. You guys dated for what, 7 months and he only JUST decided now that he's bothered that you're not Catholic EVEN though you are okay with bringing up your children as Catholic (which, BTW, would be acceptable to many, many Catholics). Oh please. If it actually bothered him, this would have been brought up way, way before and you two wouldn't have dated as long. It's a total freaking copout.

>> I also feel like this religion thing is such a copout.

Ah yes, he is using the tried and true 'fatal flaw' method for breaking up.

I think for whatever reason he decided it wasn't working and he needed to break up with you (maybe he just met a hot catholic girl at church with his mother) and he's ready to move on. So he picks the one 'fatal flaw,' the thing you can't change and announces that is the reason he is leaving and makes no attempt to work around that. It is because he needed a convenient excuse, and he found one!

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to hear he is already dating some new catholic girl. not because she is catholic per se, but because he sparked on her. And if he decides he spies someone else new while with her, he'll hit on another 'fatal flaw', as in 'you're too tall, or you don't like football, or you're allergic to cats, or you're from Canada' or any other reason that sounds good at the time that he can use as an excuse other than, 'i got bored and sparked on a new girl and will be leaving you for her' because the latter excuse makes him sound like a chump.

btw, i chortled at the 'no one suffers from mistakes for long' comment. I'd say that elevates the possibility that he's already got another girl lined up to date to about 99.9%. He's talking about himself, and knowing that he's got another likely candidate for romance already identified so he's ready to leap into that and not 'suffer' alone for long.

First, I feel this conversation about family happened way to early in our relationship, where we were just not going to survive such a heave topic.

Tbh, it probably should have happened much sooner rather than him wasting seven months of your time. This is a question of culture and the culture he wanted for his family and your response just let him get that it wasn't going to happen the way he wanted it to.

I understand what everyone is saying- screw him if he's being honest, and definitely screw him if he isn't. It is unfortunate that I am likely to not find out what the reality actually was. This concept of 'fatal flaw' does keep creeping into my head, but at this point, I don't want to think he made all this up just because he is anticipating greener pastures elsewhere

I miss him, and given how careful I was in making sure I treated the relationship like an adult, I really don't have any regrets in my behavior while this ran it's course and that is a huge relief off my shoulders ( lots of self help/ how to communicate with men forums helped with that!). This really is me having to just keep telling myself 'this was not the one, keep looking' over and over again until I am over it!

He was a really nice guy, and while it is obvious that I loved him, it is painful for me to realize and see how heartbroken my friends and family are. I feel like I failed all of them in some way, as did he.

I take it from everyone's feedback that I refrain from trying to figure anything out or communicating with him any further. It's going to be very tough!

>>First, I feel this conversation about family happened way to early in our relationship, where we were just not going to survive such a heave topic.

btw, no, it was not too early to have this conversation, in fact if he was this serious about needing a catholic bride, he shouldn't have dated you to begin with or told you first thing that he'd never take you seriously and move into a marriage because you weren't catholic.

If this was the ONLY reason he broke up with you, then that conversation came 7 months too late and he never should have led you on and dated you and wasted your time. But i suspect it is just his excuse for the breakup, and that most likely he is moving on to someone else or just wasn't feeling strong enough feelings for you to try to work anything out, as hard as that idea is for you. As you said, he's not a devout catholic, and he didn't even try to resolve this with you or work it out, so he'd already lost interest in the relationship and was turning his attention elsewhere, whether he has a new woman lined up or not.

So try not to romanticize what you had because obviously he didn't. He was either very dishonest with you about his goals in dating you (i.e., he always knew he wouldn't marry a non-catholic, but wanted to have a fling with you regardless), or else he realized that he wasn't feeling strongly enough about you to continue the relationship, so was bailing on the catholic excuse hoping that would be the least painful thing to tell you rather than telling you he wasn't interested in you enough to continue or try to work things out.

Plenty of people will date people they find attractive on some levels, even if they know deep down they'll never marry them for other reasons, especially if they are not in the mood or in a hurry to settle down yet and are just enjoying dating and passing the time. It's 'good enough for now' dating vs. dating with serious intent to find a lifetime partner and settle down. So you were 'good enough for now' for him, but not an appropriate marriage partner in his mind, and unfortunately he just now clued you into that rather than letting you make the choice whether you only wanted to date seriously or just have a fling.

Any guy who toys with a girl for seven months and then dumps her with a stupid excuse is NOT a nice guy.

He failed you. And yeah, definitely see that you don't try contacting him again, he deserves not a second more of your time or effort.

I understand what you're saying, Lavenderdove, and obviously in my head the thought exists that problems become walls only if you let them. I know he ended it because he is done, for whatever reason... I did tell him that he better not be using God and religion to create a lie, because that is going to come back to bite him. While I am not very religious, I am a big believer in the universe and karma.

I also feel like if I hadn't brought up issues, he would have kept on dating me for months and months, so in some ways he would not have felt guilty even after years of taking up my time? I cannot even think in such selfish ways.

It is hard to understand recovering from something like that. He really was not a bad person, and never treated me badly, so it is hard for me to understand this breakup (even the losing interest part). In the past I have been needy, but this time around, I feel like I was asking for the right amount of attention and commitment.

From his end, he sent me a message today offering to keep lines of communication open after we take a little break to process the breakup. I am not sure how I feel about this. From my side I am not responsive or communicative at the moment.

We learn the value of walls not in times of peace but from our enemies.

You were VERY good to bring up these issues then, and build those fences, because when you did, you made it clear he wasn't on your side of the fence and he "couldn't" be on your side of the fence. Which is BS, because if he actually did care about you, there would have been no fence that could have kept him separated from you. Except maybe if you said you were a lesbian, but eh, even then I've heard of people making things work!

There's a better man out there, keep your heart up!

Thank you for your stern yet supportive advice everyone, (Especially Lonewing), I really need this!

This was after he lied about not being a staunch catholic on our first date (I did my homework!)

My heart goes out to you. I was raised Catholic, and there are plenty of us from recent generations known as 'cafeteria Catholics,' where we live our childhoods under the basic religious upbringing but opt for an adult life either loosely tied to the church--or we break entirely.

The problem is, family traditions kick in--hard--when it comes to 'crisis rites' (rites that symbolize a change in status--baptism, communion, confirmation, marriage and funeral) and suddenly, the not-so-staunch are forced to decide whether they will participate in the adult rituals, which require certain degrees of commitment to reunion with the church and vows to abide by church rules.

So a kid can go through the motions of earlier rituals without fully understanding them--and then there's marriage. Marriage requires advance couples counseling with certain agreements, such as how children will be raised, records of all prior rituals or a need to perform them or re-perform them, and the marriage ceremony must be performed by a priest inside the actual church before the altar--not anywhere outside, such as the grounds or a home or public lands.

So a 'loosely tied' adult is faced with the choice to either marry inside the church and commit to reunification with the church, or, to invite an entire Catholic family to a non-Catholic wedding--which equates to inviting them to 'celebrate' an official break from the church.

In most families, that won't happen.

So your guy never needed to have this kind of face-off before with his family and his religious choices. He thought he could dabble in multi-cultural dating without any consequences--and he has since learned differently. Unfortunately, he learned this at your expense.

I'm so sorry you had to go through this.

Head high.

Thank you catfeeder, for this insight. And it makes so much sense. I feel he was definitely struggling explaining his stance on his commitment to Catholicism, and it sounds so much like what you're explaining- that he wanted to get re-involved with it.

Yes, his discovery was at my expense. For me, it is as simple as I liked him and now I miss him and have my negativity targeted at religion pulling people apart. But, at the end of the day, it is all his choice. I am indeed very small compared to this giant problem he brought up.

I feel he was definitely struggling explaining his stance on his commitment to Catholicism, and it sounds so much like what you're explaining- that he wanted to get re-involved with it.

He may not necessarily want to turn religious, but he likely spoke of loving you to a family member or another Catholic, who likely asked whether you would consider converting to the church if he wanted to marry you. If that answer was 'no,' then BF was likely reminded that he couldn't marry in the church--and asked whether that mattered to him and whether his family would accept this.

Regardless of how tied BF's been to his church before, this likely showed him the reality of his dilemma.

If he didn't care about you and your future all that much, he could have just opted to sweep this under the rug and continue to enjoy you for 'right now'. Instead he opted to be honest with you and cut all illusions of the two of you sharing a future.

I doubt that this was easy for him, but simple and easy are not the same things. While a Catholic may not be religious, we all tend to grow up with basic assumptions about our family involvement in our future--so any ideas of eloping or breaking certain ties to marry in a civil ceremony are only available to those of us surrounded by at least one generation of family who has also broken from the church.

I hope this brings you at least some degree of comfort, because chalking this stuff up to some creep making excuses to pull off a careless ditch of you isn't my impression. It wouldn't be good for your own head to assume that, because part of healing is owning confidence in our own judgment--and I doubt that you've been wrong for thinking highly of this guy for 7 months.

My best,

Cat

Thank you so much, Catfeeder, it is comforting, and I do appreciate your knowledgeable perspective. You pretty much sound like him, when he was making a case. The reality is that it is just a lot easier to deal with a breakup where I can be sure I did nothing wrong, including that I did not pick the wrong kind of man. He definitely wanted the same things I did, but yes, things went down exactly as you explained. I just feel so helpless in this whole scenario. He said I wouldn't have to convert, but the kids would have to be 100% catholic. It was a nice feeling that he was thinking of marrying me and starting a family. But at 32, I have too much of an identity and history to give it all up for him, no matter how much I love him

Recovery is interesting- there is nothing I can do to get him back, no regrets, just a sudden fork in the road that we couldn't work through. I wish he had tried harder and had seriously considered I was trying to negotiate with him. It just makes me so sad, but I have to accept it at the same time. Life I guess.

A relationship should not be like a souffle where at the first sign of conflict it collapses. So you bringing something up for discussion is not the reason for breaking up. In fact, if someone breaks up with you just because you want to discuss a hard topic, then there just wasn't enough of a connection there to make it work. And after 6 months together, you should be able to bring anything up for discussion.

btw, you need to cut him off if his attempts to contact you unless he openly admits he made a mistake and has changed his mind. Otherwise he'll probably try to set up some kind of a FWB situation where he gets to continue to use you in that pseudo-GF role until he does meet a Catholic girl he likes well enough to marry. The world is full of people to be friends with, so it shouldn't be an ex where there is lots of baggage and emotions to get around. You'll heal faster if you just let him go.

Thank you, Lavenderdove. I am doing well with no contact even though it hurts. I am just finding it hard to focus on everything else, you know, fuzzy brain and surroundings. Looking forward to healing from this.

OP, your experience relates so closely with my recent one!!

The guy I was seeing though told me on the second date that his family was conservative but he didn't elaborate until later. However, at least that immediately put me on my guard. He later tried to reassure me that his family would be OK with us (we only dated about 2.5 months so all this family talk was a bit premature anyway but brought up by me because of what he had mentioned earlier on). Somehow I wasn't sure about that and I kind of pushed him to end it because I didn't want to feel worse later if the relationship carried on. He basically made really discriminatory statements about certain groups and it made me wonder how he really felt about me given I was neither of his race nor religious background...aside from the fact that I was totally put-off by his discriminatory comments. In my case, he kept saying that my background wouldn't be a problem but because I was not 100% convinced, I decided to call it quits. Part of me thinks that if your guy was super into you, he would've also tried to work things out rather than pull a one-line explanation and bail...

Anyway, the more important point is that at least he warned me early on and I think that your guy owed you that too. In fact yours actually did worse by saying he wasn't influenced by religion and then changing his mind. Sorry but someone in their 30s should not be so irresponsible with another's feelings. Definitely keep strict no contact. He most likely wants to keep the lines of communication open to keep you as a back-up in case he doesn't find his catholic girl.

As I see it, nothing wrong in putting it down to a lapse of judgement - that's how we all learn. Next time you can be wiser to these issues and bring them up sooner.

I do feel for you and happy to chat more over PM

Thank you bluebell29. It seemed like we talked a lot about it- the breakup was three days long with hours and hours of conversation. But it was more a discussion about imaginary problem after problem with no desire to negotiate. I tend to believe him on his catholic stance and I think, to him, he really couldn't imagine a cross cultural relationship when it came to the question of getting serious. I also think he needs to learn that concerns and issues are different things. We broke up over concerns, not issues. In the end, yes, our relationship was not solid enough for him to work with, rather he went the other way.

As to my lessons, I was perfectly and stupidly happy and in love until a few weeks ago when I noticed a change in him. Tried to get at the bottom of it, and this is what came up. I believed him when he said he wasn't dogmatic and I believe him when he said he changed his stance on that. And yes, he did hurt me and does seem entirely too indecisive for someone in his 30s. I may be more stringent about this in the future, but I haven't drawn my conclusions of what my stance should be with regards to religion- especially if the other party is lying to themselves and everyone else

"The reality is that it is just a lot easier to deal with a breakup where I can be sure I did nothing wrong, including that I did not pick the wrong kind of man."

Sometimes decisions are made that are not "wrong" but end up leading to outcomes that we had not desired or anticipated. Don't beat yourself up about choices you made with the information you had at the time. Whatever you had going seemed to be working under whatever analysis you were capable of at the time. I think it's pretty likely that this was not the only issue between you two,but that there were others that you were just not able to see at the time. In the months ahead, you may uncover some of those, and grow to be able to accept that this relationship was not the best for you, but helped you to grow in some ways. Facing conflicts like this force us to take a look at what we really think we are made of, I think you are made of strong stuff.

Ultimately, someone who you cannot have a discussion about an important issue (or concern) without it leading to a break up is not a good candidate for marriage. I really get the sense that he was never as invested in this relationship as you were. And you found that out at 7 months before an actual commitment rather than later on when more was at stake. Sooner would have been better, but it happened when it had to happen. You can work harder in the future to discover incompatibilities earlier, but sometimes you can't predict when something like this will be found.

Thank you saluk. You are right. I did try to learn and do things differently this time (than in my past relationships) but the end outcome is the same, so that makes me sad. I am not yet down the path of blaming myself for the whole thing, so I will be re-reading your advice in the future to remind myself that I do not need to head down that thought process.

To everyone who contributed to this, an update. The ex did contact me two days ago after I went NC. He sent me a heartbreaking text message saying that he was confused and struggling. It has become clear to me that the only reason he broke up with me was because he expected to marry a catholic woman some day.

I was sensitive to him and have been texting, but I have been rather unemotional.

Today I got tough and asked him what he is expecting by continuing our communication. I don't want to drag on my recovery process. This has also given me time to think about whether I want to be with him. Breakups shouldn't be taken lightly, and he seems to have just realized that.

I think it is important that you set expectations here with him.

It is not to your advantage to be his shoulder to cry on while he busily looks for a catholic girl. He needs to really be willing to work with you and compromise and come up with a plan on how you might raise children blending your religious views, or he needs to leave you alone and let you heal and find someone who doesn't see your views as wrong or undesirable.

So set your expectations clearly. As in, he needs to either be working with you to come up with a compromise and be happy with that, or he needs to recognize he will not compromise and hence it is time to let go and let you move on and find someone who is fine with you as you are. Otherwise you are just torturing each other and not coming to a resolution.