1.    My boyfriend of 2 years just proposed to me last week. We are deeply in love with each other and I can’t wait to be his wife. The problem is, we have different religions. I’m a Buddhist and he’s a Christian. Although both our families never said anything about this, I’m afraid this will affect us in future. Should I convert to his religion or should he convert into mine?

Congratulations on your engagement, that’s a wonderful news. To be in love, to be engaged and about to be married are the greatest feeling anyone can experience. As to your different religions and whether or not one of you should convert to another’s religion, I’d say please hold on that thought first.

First of all, how much do you love each other and how deep is your faith in your own religion? If you feel that your religion is the best answer for you, it’s your calling and no other religion suits you, then why should you convert to another religion just because your fiancé is in another religion than yours?

If you do convert your religion to your fiancé’s, then sooner or later you won’t find happiness in your ‘new’ religion and you may even convert back to your original religion. Isn’t that is the same then?

So, you should ask another question. How much do you love your partner and how much toleration and understanding both of you are giving to each other. If right now, not being married yet, you guys can live with each other even though you are at different religions and everything goes along well, why should you change your religion then? If it’s not broken, what’s there to fix?

The keys to successful relationship and marriage among two different religions are that you both should tolerate, understand and respect each other. When your partner needs to go to the church, respect and let him do so. Don’t stop him from doing it. The same goes to him. If you need to go to Vihara (Temple), he should let you do so too.

If, for example, you don’t let your boyfriend go to Church just because you don’t like to go there, you don’t want to have any relations with Church, then sooner or later both of your relationship will crumble and end. The same goes to if he stops you from growing in your own religion.

There are so many couples who have different religions and yet have a very happy and successful marriage. Everytime I asked them how do they make it, their answer is always “respect and understand each other religion”.

Besides, your fiancé loves you for who you are, not because of your religion, and so as you. If religion really bothers both of you so much, I don’t think you will be engaged by now. It’s due to love and both of your own personality that attract each other, not due to religion.

So once again, my advice is, tolerate, understand and respect each other religions, and just enjoy your marriage. Good luck.

2.      I love my girlfriend so much, but I can’t stand that she always nag at me. She’d nag and complain on almost every little thing around her. I’m too fat, I’m ugly, this food sucks, this waitress so rude, the traffic so bad, this car smells, why are you wearing this shirt, why you never buy me flower, why cant you be like my friend’s boyfriend, etc. I can’t take it anymore and I’m afraid I have to break up with her. I’ve told her about this nagging many times and everytime I do so, she’d cry. I can’t stand tears. Please help!

Wow, I’d say you are a brave and stubborn man. Stubborn in a sense you can stand her nagging all this while. Bravo to you.

Now, before you even decide to break up with her, I’d suggest the following.

1) Try to talk nicely to her about her nagging habit. During the talk, don’t include any emotion, judgment and opinion on both of you. The aim of this talk is to let her truly understand about her nagging habit that bothers you and hoping she’d completely understand. Once she understands it, let’s hope and cross our fingers, that she’d change it. You both can try to make agreement that if she does nagging again, you can remind her of this nagging habit of hers. The signal can be as simple as just holding her hand, tag her shirt, or just say “honey….” and look at her. A decent and harmless signal.

Now, if after such honest talk and she still refuse to listen and become all defensive, or even crying again, I’d say this is not a good sign. If she truly loves you as much as you love her, she’d try her best to change this bad habit of hers. But if she refuses to do so and only expect you to always accept her that way and only wants you to change for her, then I’d say this is not a two-way relationship.

I strongly believe a healthy and two-way relationship is when both partners agree to understand each other, change each own bad habit if the other’s can’t take it, and always and always respect each other.

But then again, if you can, somehow, live with her nagging habit, then just let it be. I’ve seen so many men can live with their non-stop nagging wife for more than a decade and yet they still happily in love. So you see, love is a powerful thing.

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