based on a lie that I told to my sweet love

So yesterday’s entry has provoked quiet a lot of thinking.  I think I’m a pretty open-minded person.  I’m generally willing to try new things, give new concepts and ideas a chance – the same goes for new people.  I believe what I believe, but recognize that not everyone holds my beliefs.  It is a concept I’ve often thought about.  There is a clearly defined difference between truth and opinions.  I think beliefs lie somewhere in the middle of the two.  My point is that I understand not everyone believes exactly what I believe.  While I believe it to be truth, others may not.  As messed up as America is, one of the amazing things of this country is the freedom given to us to disagree.  I can believe and worship one way and others can do as they wish.  I respect that right, because I wouldn’t want someone telling me I cannot believe and worship as I wish.

I have friends who believe things differently than I.  It is their right, not just as a person in this country, but as a natural right.  I strongly believe in this.  It is tied into my idea of free will, but still.  I don’t mind having friends who believe differently than I do.  They often open my eyes to things I didn’t know, or didn’t understand before knowing them.  Often times it causes my beliefs to change, allows me to grow and mature.  Which is a huge and important part of life.  I revel in the diversity of culture, religion, beliefs, traditions, and perceptions in this country and this world. So the latest revelation of mine makes me feel so closeminded and judgemental and hypocritical.  Yet I still cannot seem to get myself around it.

Manny and I have had a great relationship for the past year and a half.  There is a part of me that seems to be falling in love with him deeper than ever.  When he tells me of women he becomes involved with and then hurt and mistreat him, all I can think of is how I blew my chance.  How I would never do that to him and wished we could be together.  What stops me from saying anything to him is the knowledge that I’ve felt from the first time we broke up back in high school.  We will not be able to be together and I know he has moved on.  I don’t want to go through what I know is the inevitable heartache.

The reason I broke up with him the first time, so long ago in high school, was that he was not a Christian.  We had a few discussions about religion, church and beliefs.  Our ideas were too different and I knew I could never marry him and be content.  I want a husband whose beliefs are in line with mine.  I want a husband who goes to church with me on Sunday, not to make me happy, but because he wants to.  This may seem unfair, but that was the biggest and perhaps most important pro Tim had over Manny.  He was a Christian, not to please me, but because he truly believed.  Our beliefs were not identical, but they were much closer than Manny and I could ever hope to be.

I do believe I’m extremely open-minded, or at least I try.  But everytime I think of Manny, or everytime I imagine trying to win him back, I hold back.  I know we would never work because of that one difference.  It feels like the one flaw, a fatal flaw, keeping him from being my perfect match.  And what kills me the most is my inability to explain this to him.  I’m not sure he would understand, and I’m fairly certain it would simply spark a horrible fight between us.  Possibly a fight we would not recover from.

A part of me feels I owe him the truth, the simple explaination I was never able to give him as we dated and broke up over and over.  But another part of me does not want to destroy the wonderful relationship we have now.  It would only serve to make us both unhappy and miserable.  And I do not want him to become a Christian just to please me.  It is something more than that.  It has to do with his eternal soul, apart from mine.

But it kills me not to tell him.  I feel like its a secret, a lie that I am telling him.  It breaks my heart to love him so much and not be able to be with him.  The longer he and I go without any other problems, the longer I see this as the only thing keeping me from trying to get him back.  But it is a fatal flaw, and something that I cannot fix.

So this sad love song has really struck home with me, and I am going to post it again.

What can I say?
I’ll never know what happened today
I’d written a song to string her along
I knew it was wrong

She told me we would last forever
That all she’d ever had was me
I’ve just said goodbye
Based on a lie that I told to my sweet love

But if all she has is you
Make sure you’re one in a million

She’d waited in vain
A figure in black alone in the rain
She still wears my ring, a curious thing
A curious thing

She told me we would last forever
That all she’d ever had was me
I’ve just said goodbye
Based on a lie that I told to my sweet love

But if all she has is you
Make sure you’re one in a million

If all she has is you
Make sure you’re one in a million

If All She Has Is You ~ John McGlynn