How to Date a Non-Beliver

I know you. The one who clicked on this link, hoping to read something here that will affirm your current relationship or the one you want to be in.

I am you. Or at least I was.

The girl who loves God and has an honest-to-goodness desire to be married, to be a wife and a mom. The one who has been a bridesmaid…a lot. The one who knows her worth and often wonders why others can’t see it. The one who has waited for 4 years, 10 years, 15 years…or more for her “life” to start.

You fill your life with good and meaningful things. You try your hardest to trust God. Small group here, a weekend trip there, a good job. You listen to all the encouragement from your family and friends but secretly still cry about once a week because the longing is so real and the wondering why grows on you with each passing year like an ugly wart.

You are lovely…but you don’t feel it anymore. You are lonely on a level that family and friends just can’t fill. And while Jesus is indeed enough…there are still desires.

The world feels like a twilight zone where no good men exist and the ones that do, oddly enough, look right through you. An alternate reality to the one you dreamed of your whole life growing up. You are living in a world where everyone else's life seems to have kept going and yours somehow stopped.

You feel left behind. And alone.

Then…he comes along. The one who finally sees you. I mean really sees you. The woman in you and he thinks you are beautiful. He makes you feel special. Somehow, over some course of time…you let him into that place inside where to void has caused gnawing pains for years. And suddenly, miraculously, almost overnight, the pain goes away.

There is only one problem. He isn’t a Christian. He does not have a personal relationship with God, and you most certainly do.

Twice in my life, I have been in love with men who didn’t love the Lord. (Looking back, now that I'm married it wasn't the constant love that only an equally yolked marriage can create, but it was earthly, romantic love)

I did not go looking for them, they found me. I worked in close proximity to them and an initial attraction grew into a real appreciation for their company which led to a date. The rest is history.

Let me tell you something girl. I don’t judge you for falling. A LOT of people will but most people have not walked your road, or rather stood there in the middle of it while everyone else zoomed by.

I have. I honestly to goodness have. I am 35. I am still unmarried. I am still waiting to have sex. I know your experience. 

And that is why I will never, ever judge you.

But, I must warn you.

The road you are on, or about to embark on doesn’t usually turn out well. It can. I have actually heard of some situations where a non-believing partner has a genuine conversation after starting to date a believer. I’ll get to that. But first, let me tell you – from my experience – how to date a nonbeliever.

Get Ready to Be Mad, a lot

If you come from a god-fearing family, this situation normally upsets a lot of people. Be prepared to feel the most misunderstood you have ever felt. You will get mad at them for not “supporting you” but how can they, really? They are afraid for you and don’t know if you will have the ability to let your brain (and faith) triumph over your heart. Most people don’t. So they will get mad and you will get mad back.

You will also get mad, or more likely hurt, every time your new man doesn’t show up at church. Every time he doesn’t listen to that sermon you sent him. Every time he says he will do something about God but doesn't. 

I don’t like being mad at the people I love, but somehow these situations seem to cause a lot of that.

Get Ready to Miss God

In order for the relationship with non-believer-guy to grow, you will have to meet him in the middle. And you will, because it feels so good to finally be bonding with someone you actually like and who is a living-breathing male!

You will have long talks and walks and kisses and it will all feel good. So good, that you will forget for a little while, how much you need God and how good it feels to be close to Him. 

Your prayers will become almost exclusively about the relationship and the salvation of your guy. Your time in church, if he does join you, will be spent wondering the entire time what the boyfriend is thinking.

Forget actually growing in your faith yourself.

You will probably stop worshipping the way you used to and maybe even stop hanging out with your friends as much. Why? Because this guy just feels good, and He is enough.

For now.

But the day will come when the newness wears off and you will wake up to realize that you miss God. You hear His voice in the distance and it actually sounds wonderful. Sweet. More wonderful that you remember.

Because the Sovereign and Loving Father misses you too, and will never leave you, He will woo you. He will convict you with His lovingkindness.

When that moment comes that you know, deep in your gut that your guy is doing this whole church “for you” and that it has never really turned into something that he is truly interested in for himself - your heart will start to feel like you are betraying your Lord.

Up until this point there has been an honest-to-goodness agreement between you and God. God, I really think you are using me in his life. If it ever becomes clear that he is not interested in the faith, I will walk away, I promise. I do love You, Lord, more than Him.

(Are you wondering yet how I got a hold of your journal?)

When this moment comes, you have three choices.

1 – Lie to yourself and go on ignoring all the signs that your man really doesn’t want to get to know God and looking only for the smallest hints that he does.

2 – Renege on your promise to God. Sorry God, I chose him, but I still love you too!

3 – Break up with him

Be Prepared for Heartbreak

I’ve chosen #3. I have an annoying inability to lie to myself (and an awareness that when I do so I lose all confidence and good mental health!) and by the grace of God, my heart is still the most enchanted with my Savior King. Even when I love someone else. 

This is when it turns ugly. The breakup happens and it hurts.

Have you ever cried so hard you’ve had a migraine? Get ready for that. Have you ever been so grieved by loss that you lost your appetite, for weeks and weeks? That might happen too. Have you ever had a sense that something just broke inside you that is unrepairable? Have you felt true depression?

Breakups hurt no matter what, especially when people have fallen in love. Equally yolked or not human connection is real and when it gets ripped away, the hole left is agonizingly... empty.

But there is something about praying for the salvation of another, that makes your heart attached to them in a different way. There is something about letting someone go, and not knowing if you will ever see them again, not even in heaven, that causes a there-are-no-words-for-this-sadness in a way that other break-ups don't.

I literally remember telling one of the loved-me-didn’t-love-jesus-guys, in tears, that I can’t imagine spending my life here with him only to not spend eternity with him. He had compassion for my sadness but no understanding of my words.

I’m more hunted by that than anything.

Gird Yourself for Some Serious Guilt

After it’s over you will experience a sense of shame and guilt. It will be greater in proportion to how long you let the relationship go on and how far you went physically. Even if you kept it relatively short and don’t sleep with the guy (my situation both times) you will STILL feel bad for letting someone fall in love with you, only to eventually tell them that you are walking away for a reason that was there from the very start.

Yuck.

I don't experience a lot of guilt in my life on this level. The level where I knew I was, well, using someone, or trying to change them. 

Listen, sister. I’m writing you this article today because unlike the rest of the world who will try to tell you Just Don’t Do It, I’d rather just give it to you straight and say, if you do insist on going down this road – be ready.

I don’t know the real numbers, I wish I did but I bet 1/50 get saved. 20/50 break up. Where does that leave the other 29?

Unhappily married.

Of the few stories I’ve heard of where a partner has a genuine conversation experience two things are usually true. #1 – they don’t sleep together. If you sleep with someone while trying to win them over to Christ you can FORGET IT and #2 – the honest interest on the part of the non-believer happened right away, as if God was really already working in their heart before you showed up. If months and months pass and there isn’t much change – that’s a bad sign.

My advice to you, sweet, lovely, lonely, amazing, worthy woman is simply this. Do not go down this road unless you are sure that you can deny your heart what it wants when the Spirit speaks up.

And honestly, do you even want to make that choice?

It was way way harder than I thought it would be.

(Note: This was written 6 years ago when Rebekah, the author, was 35 and single. In 2023 at the time of its republishing, she is 41. She met and married her Jesus-Loving husband 4 years after this was written. She believes everything she wrote here to be even more true now than it was when she wrote it.)