For many religions, dating within the faith is a requirement for maintaining a healthy spirituality. However, what happens when a person falls in love with someone that is not of their faith? Should they continue their relationship, or should they end it before they get too involved?

Ultimately, the answers to these questions will depend on how strict you are with your religion. If you genuinely believe your religion is the right one, you may try to force your partner to convert. This could cause tensions later on, especially if the relationship results in children.

There is also the question of day to day lifestyle. There are many things about the way we live (or don’t live) that may be incompatable with the person that we are in love with. What if one person is a strict vegetarian, and the other person loves meat? That could cause problems. What if the man has lived in simple accomodation al his life, his only major overheads being that of trailer park hire and caravan insurance, whilst the girl expects to own a large house with a maid? Perhaps one is a member of the pagan faith, believing in trying to live in harmony with nature, what happends when the other person wants to go have vaser lipo? It’s not just about the spending of communal money, there is an ethical problem that may occur. These things might seem small when you are young, but in the long term you have to love with these things. Are you able to?

Such a situation is particularly hard for couples where one person is a conservative Christian. Consider the experience of one of my friends, whose parents were in an interfaith marriage. Her mother was a conservative Christian, while her father was an atheist. She ended up leaning more towards Christian views, which caused conflicts with her father. As a result, she always worried that he would end up going to hell.
Other problems could arise if an interfaith couple has different views about sexuality. Secular people might not care about premarital sex, while religious people believe that such an activity is a sin.

However, on the other end of the spectrum, there are the interfaith relationships where conversion actually did happen for the non-religious partner. In fact, some religions even have organizations that can help with these conversions. The Eternal Jewish Family is an example, as they help interfaith couples convert to Orthodox Judaism.

Yet, when thinking about these situations, you have to wonder if the conversion was a result of romance or personal interest. And, if it’s not personal interest, you have to further wonder if their conversion will hold any weight for the couple’s long-term spiritual concerns.

So, with that being said, I would say be careful pursuing interfaith relationships. If you or your partner hold a carefree attitude towards religion, it is possible that such a romance could work. But if you don’t, you’re opening the door to more complex problems down the road and you might as well leave the romance at the cup of coffee from the Coffee machine before it even develops into something more.