My SO and I come from very different backgrounds. Most of my family is french or cajun, and very catholic. His family is middle eastern and very muslim. Him and I both went through phases in our life where we didn't really believe in anything. I personally was never a religious person, and expressed this to my family on numerous occasions. My SO on the other hand was the type to question everything, and actually decided to become atheist when he was only twelve (if that says anything about his personality). He's 21 now and reverted back to islam before he came into my life 2 years ago. The first year of us being together was full of discovering and disagreements. This was partially due to our significant cultural differences, social environments, and a little bit of religion.
I started opening up more to the idea of islam with my own independent research. As someone who was never religious, I found myself deeply intrigued by islam as it gave me a peaceful, grounded feeling. My SO and his uncle were very adamant about me making the decision to convert on my own, without feeling coerced into doing so. At the time, I still really was not sure. I only became sure about 2 months ago when I unofficially converted. I still have a ton of reading to do and I definitely have some things to correct under my belt, but I feel very good about this choice. It helps that my SO is a reverted muslim and he also has a lot to correct/learn, so we're doing it together.
My decision to convert was 100% personal, but I do owe some thanks to my SO's mother. After spending a lot of time with her in Canada, and having her tell me why she converted, the conviction behind my decision to convert felt that much stronger and valid and is ultimately why I feel so strongly about making it official this winter.
However, no matter how strong my conviction is, I fear that my family is not going to receive it well. I met my SO when I was 17 and I am now 19. As naturally entails, you go through a bit of a metamorphosis in life once you reach adulthood. You begin to explore more and your view of life becomes more broad. My family believes that I have significantly changed and are not very happy about it. In their eyes, I was supposed to stay 16 forever, apparently. I know that if I mention converting to them they will think that I only did so for my SO (which is not the case at all) and alienate me even more from the family. It's heartbreaking to feel like they do not support me in anything I do. Our families will never be able to sit down with each other and have a normal conversation due to major cultural and religious differences, and this also makes me very sad.
I honestly don't see a way to fix this situation, but I'm just wondering if any of you have experienced something similar or have a success story involving different cultures or religions. It would make me feel a lot more hopeful about my situation in the future. My relationship with my mother has been incredibly rocky for the past 4 years or so, but I still love her dearly and if my SO and I ever get married which is now looking more likely (I have not officially converted, but once I do there's a high possibility that we will have our "Nikah" which is marriage in islam). Both of these events would be huge and to not have any of my family supporting me would be devastating, especially my mother. It's the harsh reality of my situation and I've sort of grown to accept it, but it dawned on me this morning that maybe I don't have to.
I started opening up more to the idea of islam with my own independent research. As someone who was never religious, I found myself deeply intrigued by islam as it gave me a peaceful, grounded feeling. My SO and his uncle were very adamant about me making the decision to convert on my own, without feeling coerced into doing so. At the time, I still really was not sure. I only became sure about 2 months ago when I unofficially converted. I still have a ton of reading to do and I definitely have some things to correct under my belt, but I feel very good about this choice. It helps that my SO is a reverted muslim and he also has a lot to correct/learn, so we're doing it together.
My decision to convert was 100% personal, but I do owe some thanks to my SO's mother. After spending a lot of time with her in Canada, and having her tell me why she converted, the conviction behind my decision to convert felt that much stronger and valid and is ultimately why I feel so strongly about making it official this winter.
However, no matter how strong my conviction is, I fear that my family is not going to receive it well. I met my SO when I was 17 and I am now 19. As naturally entails, you go through a bit of a metamorphosis in life once you reach adulthood. You begin to explore more and your view of life becomes more broad. My family believes that I have significantly changed and are not very happy about it. In their eyes, I was supposed to stay 16 forever, apparently. I know that if I mention converting to them they will think that I only did so for my SO (which is not the case at all) and alienate me even more from the family. It's heartbreaking to feel like they do not support me in anything I do. Our families will never be able to sit down with each other and have a normal conversation due to major cultural and religious differences, and this also makes me very sad.
I honestly don't see a way to fix this situation, but I'm just wondering if any of you have experienced something similar or have a success story involving different cultures or religions. It would make me feel a lot more hopeful about my situation in the future. My relationship with my mother has been incredibly rocky for the past 4 years or so, but I still love her dearly and if my SO and I ever get married which is now looking more likely (I have not officially converted, but once I do there's a high possibility that we will have our "Nikah" which is marriage in islam). Both of these events would be huge and to not have any of my family supporting me would be devastating, especially my mother. It's the harsh reality of my situation and I've sort of grown to accept it, but it dawned on me this morning that maybe I don't have to.
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