I am at this place where I feel like I’m carrying a burden too heavy for words to carry. But I need help. So I will brave it and bare myself before you.

I am a Christian who fell in love with the daughter of a native doctor. When she first told me about her religion, I was a little shocked. She didn’t look anything like a traditionalist. Not that I am saying people look like their faiths. It’s just that she carried herself about with the grace and poise of the Christian women around me. What I am trying to say, she is very morally upright.

I was crazy about her right from the beginning. It must be the reason I downplayed the impact our religious views would have on the relationship. Somehow I deluded myself into believing that she would convert to my faith.

However, as time passes I have come to understand that love alone is not enough to sustain a relationship into marriage. I am losing interest in the relationship. I feel it’s time to move on. This is where I have a problem.

Throughout our relationship, she has told me tales of the kind of people who consult her father for charms. She has spoken about the reasons they asked for the charms. Some of them were vengeful women who wanted to punish their ex-boyfriends for leaving them.

Whenever she told these stories, her voice would rise in excitement. That is what bothers me. The glee in her eyes when she talked about all the diabolical ways these women exacted revenge on the men who jilted them. Tell me, how do I think about stepping away from a woman like her without inviting vengeance, spiritual retribution, or the possibility of her father’s wrath?

I used to laugh these stories off. I brushed them off thinking they didn’t work. Or that they wouldn’t work on me because I don’t believe in such powers. However, I don’t want to tempt fate.
It saddens me that I have gotten to this point in the relationship. It was never my intention to break up with her. As far as I was concerned, we were going to get married. She is respectful, supportive, and generous, even to my friends. If the circumstances were different I wouldn’t be thinking about how to walk away. Here lies the case, my world is not her world.

We are on the extreme ends of the religious spectrum. I cannot accept her beliefs. When I brought up the conversation of conversion she asked, “Why should I change? Your pastors come to my father in secret. They seek his help to grow their churches, and to fortify themselves spiritually. Should I believe their faith is superior to mine when they sneak through the back door at night?” I didn’t have any answer to give her so I dropped the subject.

Another time when I brought it up again she pointed out the hypocrisy she sees in some Christian women who carry the cross of Jesus on their heads in public but date two or more men at the same time in secret. She said, “I am not a Christian like these women but I don’t do those things. I am a one-man kind of girl. So based on what I have seen of their lifestyle why should I trade my faith for theirs?” This one too I was quiet.
My family knows she is not a Christian. They are not happy about it. They’ve made it clear in subtle ways that they won’t approve of marriage to her.

It is at this point that I have decided it’s best I leave. If they are not going to let us get to the altar then why prolong the inevitable? It’s not as if either of us will agree to convert to the other’s religion.

How to tell her about the break up now is my headache. I don’t have the courage to do it. I’m terrified out of my mind. Sometimes I rehearse the lines in my head. I tell myself I can do it. Then I remember her stories of vengeance and betrayal avenged, and all of a sudden start shaking in my boots.

I need help. How do I go about it without incurring her wrath? I want the breakup to be as amicable as possible but I can’t predict her reaction so I’m lost. It could end peacefully or it could end in spiritual warfare. It all depends on her. How do I do it? The sooner it’s over the easier it will be for us to move on.

—Moses

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