Red Flag #2: He’s had a religious ephiphany.
It was love at first sight until I became the devil.
A young friend who works as an admin assistant set me up with her father. She said he was a semi-retired architect, a salt-and-pepper creative type just like me, looking for “the one.” I cringed and said okay and we met for dinner later that week.
Okay so my heart thudded hard when I saw him waiting for me at the bar. The guy was sexy in a commanding, super-suave kind of way, causing my mind to race ahead of me—like way ahead. By the time I got through my glass of wine, we had been married in a small church in Tuscany, were still reminiscing about that funny lady-man we met on our honeymoon in Thailand, and he was drafting blueprints for his and her studio additions while pinching a handful of belly pudge (because I’m such a good cook).
Back to the dinner table.
He was talking about what he wanted for his future when suddenly I had this vision of him kneeling under a stained-glass window, sunlight streaming in from above to create a super-illuminated effect around him. I laughed at how cliché it seemed.
“What’s so funny?” he said cutting through his cannelloni with the side of his fork.
“Oh nothing,” I giggled, “It’s just that, well, have you ever had an epiphany?” I said it, casually as if I were asking, “What’s your frank opinion of colonics?”
He dropped his fork. I watched it clatter to the floor. We looked at each other.
“Once,” he said slowly. “It was years ago, something happened to me. I was sitting on my balcony late one night. I had been watching the thunder and lightening earlier. Suddenly I saw light streaming in through a stained-glass window of…”
“I know, I know,” I said waving an asparagus tip at him. “JC, right?”
He stared at me intensely, an eerie mix of anger and saintly reverence in his eyes.
“Are you a Christian?” he asked after a long solemn pause.
“Not exactly,” I said, explaining that in my view, all paths lead up the mountain.
“That’s devil talk,” he exploded. “You are the devil!” His head spun around looking for the exit.
For a brief second I thought he was pulling my leg but then I felt the eye dagger. At that point, things went from freaky-weird to scary unpleasant. I tried to mollify him by saying how much I respected his views even though I didn’t share them.
He raised his hand for the check as though summoning the inquisition, paid it immediately, and left without another word.
True story.
Now even if you are a Christian, this is a Red Flag for the simple reason that he thinks he’s special—as in sanctioned-by-the-only-deity-that-matters (his own) special. A guy who sees the world in this kind of black-and-white manner–dividing people into good (saints, like him) or bad (devils, like me)—is not exactly heaven-sent (if you’ll pardon the expression). Intolerance is just the tip the iceberg and all your loving ain’t gonna melt him. I’d stick to a normal, nice tolerant guy—the kind who thinks we all have a right to be here regardless of our beliefs. But at least he picked up the tab.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Okay, remember how in the last comments I talked about having lost my Self to my husband of 23 years? Well, so far you’ve hoisted the #1 and #2 flags well. When he
a) convinced me we had to start going to church to save our marriage; and
b) bounded up to the pulpit one day declaring Jebus Cripes as his L&S and dropping to his knees and holding his hands out to me, declaring to one and all that if I would join him up there (can you hear the angels singing?) and welcome Jebus into my heart as well then he just knew our marriage could be saved and our sons would not suffer the pain of divorce; and
c) decided the following week and every subsequent week [until I wised up and said FU I'm not going to church anymore] that he wasn’t feeling well enough to go but I should continue taking the boys if our marriage was important to me,
well…you can see where all this is going, can’t you? Jump ahead 6 years. I’m finally whipping out the D word after finding out about his 7 year relationship with another and…yep…it’s all my fault for not sticking with the church crap.
I’m sorry…am I ranting? 
And a brilliant rant, it is. Thank you for reassuring me that I am not the only one seeing visions — you actually have lived it. I believe in the sanctity of one’s own self. Any guy who doesn’t honor that is a small-minded tyrant. Pulling in “religious rules” and using them to control and manipulate for his own power (but mostly assuage his own supreme guilt)–well, I’ve got lots of nasty words for people like that. Good for you in gaining clarity and insight. There is nothing more powerful than seeing things as they truly are.
Other than pulling out the nutty, “you’re the devil,” stuff, I swear you would have never used the word, “crazy,” for this guy. Accomplished, gentlemanly, handsome, worldly, but never crazy. But it all goes to show how one “bad apple” can ruin a guy’s brain. Anyway, on to the other issue you raise — I’m not expert but I did watch a couple of friends try to negotiate this. She’s Jewish. He’s Catholic. They dated and broke up countless times before finally marrying. The big concern was how do you raise the kids? They could handle (accept) the religious difference until it got down to children. Eventually she gave in to him and they raised them Catholic on the condition that they could chose later. It only makes sense if you can put your family above your definition of God.
Dear Pinky:
You know and I know that you ARE the Devil. Especially in a red dress, I mean blue dress – whatever.
Of course, he was a nut for telling you and running away.
Reasonable men run into your evil clutches and beg to never be released. Sign over their soul? Oh, the legions who’ve given it all up for you and are left burning.
Pray tell you will tell all – including Red Flag (Horn) tips for guys.
Your angel,
Sus
Dear demon-in-an-angel’s disguise — takes one siren to know another. That’s all I’m gonna say…love you!
Both sides can learn from this one.
Not too long ago I was dating a girl who happened to be a follower of the Mormon faith and I was not. For me it was no big deal but for her it was a different story. Now I knew she believed in her faith very much and knew it would one day destroy the relationship but being young, stupid, and dating an extremely gorgeous and super smart girl I decided to push on and throw to wind the red flag. Well one day came sooner than I thought and she came to me wanting to convert me and I said no. I can still see the mix of anger and sadness in her eyes to this day (hasn’t been very long…) and upon explaining a similar situation to where being a “good” person was enough to go up top and having grown up Catholic and still holding certain values from that she said I would burn in hell and stormed off. I chalk it up to a respect factor and though I had the respect for her to make her own religious choices she obviously didn’t for me.
Having that said I have noticed (and am not surprised by this) that in general mature women are more open to different views upon religion and the likes than their mentally developing counterparts. However reading this intrigues me because although there are always people who are head strong I wonder if this sort of red flag transpires more with mature men, mature women, or if it is closer to a draw? Also makes me wonder if outside my experiences these sorts of situations occur more often with immature or mature couples?
This whole issue is why I pay very close attention to the religion category when skimming names on personal services. I hate to stereotype people and yet time and time again the “spiritual, but not religious” liberal that I am is contacted by the “conservative” and “Christian, Catholic, Lutheran, you name it” men.
What I am getting a sense of is that they seem drawn to my free-spirited style (or maybe they see me as the wild girl that they might play with) and yet are unable to move beyond their own narrow-minded boundaries, thus making them people that I don’t want to spend time with.
Hi Britt, I don’t think there’s a rhyme or reason to how people act. Aging and maturity doesn’t seem to change the fact that we all get emotional about things, particularly religion and sex. I know they say you’re not supposed to bring up hot topics on the first date but look what happened to you. You fall in love and then they spring the, can you convert? question. Yikes. Sounds like you held your own.
You had a vision and it freaked him out.
I’m with you on the idea that all spiritual/religious paths lead to Faith. One of my biggest questions is if two people from different paths can have a successful relationship or not.
But, that sounds like he’s just crazy.