They say love has no religion. They say love is boundless. I would like to believe that, but it is not always that simple. Even though love has no religion and is boundless, there are parts of our lives that have boundaries and set rules.
Religion, culture, class and ethnic backgrounds all have different taboos and rules regarding relationships depending on who and what you are. If you look around our campus, you may find a few people who come from starkly different backgrounds who can exist in a successful relationship, yet this is the exception rather the rule.
These “exceptions” can come in many forms, whether it is Christian-Muslim, Christian-atheist, black-white, poor-rich, and each comes with a different set of hurdles. Some couples can successfully overcome these hurdles and others get bogged down in differences.
You may be asking yourself why I am writing about this. For one, it is part of a personal struggle to make sense of my own relationships. As accepting as I am of other belief systems, I sometimes find it hard to maintain romantic relationships with these same people.
It is not for lack of trying, but certain walls of tradition, duty and belief have been built up that are not so easily overturned. In other words, I want to learn from these couples that exist how they manage their relationship with such differences. Secondly, I feel there should be more relationships between people of different backgrounds. It broadens your horizons and allows a person to experience life in a different way. In the long term, an argument could be made for the furthering of globalization, but that goes far beyond the scope of this small article.
I would also like to point out another somewhat significant point in all this: acceptance.
Being in a relationship with someone means you accept them for who they are, every hair, every skin cell and every quirky behaviorism. In cross-belief relationships this can be hard, because one of the two may feel that they need to change for the other person for the sake of the relationship or that they have to change the other person for it to work out in the long run.
My advice? Get that load of crap out of your heads. I do believe in fate and destiny, but relationships just as much as friendships are two-way streets. Both people need to make sacrifices and you can’t truly love someone for who they are and ask them to change a fundamental part of their being. Maybe over time the relationship will produce a belief hybrid that will allow both individuals to be in the relationship more easily, but sometimes there are irreconcilable differences that will drive a wedge in the relationship. I would love to know how people who come from such stark backgrounds make it through the hard parts and exist in successful relationship. It is something many of us could use a few pointers on.
Dalton Capps is a senior history major from Coldwater.
