u/Crelisya

I’m wondering if any of you have struggled with religion in a similar way, because lately I feel completely torn and honestly exhausted.

I grew up in a family that wasn’t extremely religious or radical, but religion was always there in the background. It was kind of part of the culture and the way I grew up. I still believe in God, and I don’t think I’ve completely left religion behind. At the same time, I’ve never felt completely at peace with it either.

There’s one particular issue in my religion that is considered very serious and basically non-negotiable: marrying someone who isn’t Muslim. I’m currently in a relationship with someone who isn’t Muslim, and this has created a lot of guilt, fear and doubt for me.

My father strongly disapproves of my relationship for religious reasons. But the difficult part is that my relationship with him has always been complicated, even before this. He has said a lot of things to me over the years that really damaged my self-esteem and made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. I’ve been insulted and put down so much that, honestly, I think I eventually started believing some of those things about myself.

And now he also makes me feel guilty about my relationship. He has said things along the lines of “because of you, I’m going to end up in hell” because I’m with my boyfriend. Hearing things like that makes me feel incredibly guilty, as if I’m responsible for his relationship with God and for the consequences of my own choices on him.

So religion has become mixed up with all of these feelings for me.

On one hand, I believe in God. Religion is still part of me, and I don’t necessarily want to leave it behind.

On the other hand, I’m tired. I just want to live my relationship, love someone, build something with them and have a normal life without constantly wondering whether I’m doing something wrong or whether I’m going to “pay the price” for it.

Sometimes I honestly think that life must be simpler for people who aren’t religious. Not necessarily because they’re happier, but because they don’t seem to have this particular kind of inner conflict. They can fall in love with someone without constantly wondering whether their relationship is morally wrong, whether they’re disappointing God, whether their family will reject them, or whether they’re making a choice they’ll regret forever.

And I think what makes this even harder is that I don’t know what I believe anymore. I’m not sure if I’m genuinely questioning my faith or if I’m just overwhelmed by guilt, family pressure and everything I’ve experienced growing up.

I recently had an experience related to religion that made me question myself even more, and now I find myself overthinking every little thing and wondering what it means about my faith. Instead of religion feeling like something peaceful, I sometimes feel afraid of doing something wrong.

I don’t want to disrespect my religion. I don’t want to hurt my family. But I also don’t want to spend my life giving up my own happiness because I’m afraid of being punished or rejected.

I feel like I’m stuck between two versions of myself:

The part of me that believes in God and wants to remain connected to my faith, and the part of me that just wants to breathe, love someone and live my own life without constantly thinking that I’m going to hell.

I’d really love to hear your opinions on my situation. I’d also genuinely love to hear about your own journeys, how you dealt with religious doubts or conflicts between your beliefs, your family and your relationships, and whether you eventually found a way to make peace with it.

I’m really interested in hearing different perspectives and personal experiences, so please feel free to share.

I’m wondering if any other INFJs have struggled with religion in a similar way, because lately I feel completely torn and honestly exhausted.

I grew up in a family that wasn’t extremely religious or radical, but religion was always there in the background. It was kind of part of the culture and the way I grew up. I still believe in God, and I don’t think I’ve completely left religion behind. At the same time, I’ve never felt completely at peace with it either.

There’s one particular issue in my religion that is considered very serious and basically non-negotiable: marrying someone who isn’t Muslim. I’m currently in a relationship with someone who isn’t Muslim, and this has created a lot of guilt, fear and doubt for me.

My father strongly disapproves of my relationship for religious reasons. But the difficult part is that my relationship with him has always been complicated, even before this. He has said a lot of things to me over the years that really damaged my self-esteem and made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. I’ve been insulted and put down so much that, honestly, I think I eventually started believing some of those things about myself.

And now he also makes me feel guilty about my relationship. He has said things along the lines of “because of you, I’m going to end up in hell” because I’m with my boyfriend. Hearing things like that makes me feel incredibly guilty, as if I’m responsible for his relationship with God and for the consequences of my own choices on him.

So religion has become mixed up with all of these feelings for me.

On one hand, I believe in God. Religion is still part of me, and I don’t necessarily want to leave it behind.

On the other hand, I’m tired. I just want to live my relationship, love someone, build something with them and have a normal life without constantly wondering whether I’m doing something wrong or whether I’m going to “pay the price” for it.

Sometimes I honestly think that life must be simpler for people who aren’t religious. Not necessarily because they’re happier, but because they don’t seem to have this particular kind of inner conflict. They can fall in love with someone without constantly wondering whether their relationship is morally wrong, whether they’re disappointing God, whether their family will reject them, or whether they’re making a choice they’ll regret forever.

And I think what makes this even harder is that I don’t know what I believe anymore. I’m not sure if I’m genuinely questioning my faith or if I’m just overwhelmed by guilt, family pressure and everything I’ve experienced growing up.

I recently had an experience related to religion that made me question myself even more, and now I find myself overthinking every little thing and wondering what it means about my faith. Instead of religion feeling like something peaceful, I sometimes feel afraid of doing something wrong.

I don’t want to disrespect my religion. I don’t want to hurt my family. But I also don’t want to spend my life giving up my own happiness because I’m afraid of being punished or rejected.

I feel like I’m stuck between two versions of myself:

The part of me that believes in God and wants to remain connected to my faith, and the part of me that just wants to breathe, love someone and live my own life. Without thinking that im going to hell

I’d really love to hear your opinions on my situation, especially from other INFJs who have experienced something similar. I’d also genuinely love to hear about your own journeys, how you dealt with religious doubts or conflicts between your beliefs, your family and your relationships, and whether you eventually found a way to make peace with it.

I’m really interested in hearing different perspectives and personal experiences, so please feel free to share.

Hi everyone, I’d like some advice because I’m honestly not sure how I’m supposed to feel about this situation.

I’ve been with my boyfriend for 4 years. He’s an INTP, and I love him very much. He loves me too, and overall there’s no real issue with our relationship.

The thing is, he tends to analyze people's problems and get really involved when someone comes to him for advice. Normally, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. I actually like that he’s thoughtful and wants to help people. But lately, I’ve realized that the amount of emotional energy he puts into some of his friends makes me uncomfortable.

A lot of these people are friends he met through gaming or online communities. Sometimes girls or other friends will come to him with personal problems, and he’ll spend a lot of time talking to them, analyzing their situation, comforting them, trying to understand them, etc.

It’s not that I don’t trust him or think he’s cheating on me. I genuinely don’t believe he would do that. It’s more about the level of emotional investment.

I naturally have a hierarchy when it comes to relationships. I’m not going to emotionally invest more in some random friend than I do in my partner or my family. But my boyfriend doesn’t really seem to work that way. Sometimes he’ll put an incredible amount of energy into helping someone he barely knows, and honestly, sometimes it feels like he invests more emotionally in their problems than he does in mine.

Another thing that makes me uncomfortable is that some of these people eventually develop feelings for him. He always tells me that he would never do anything with them and that he can’t control how other people feel about him. And logically, I understand that.

But our own relationship actually started in a very similar way. We met, became friends, talked constantly, helped each other through things, developed an emotional connection, and eventually ended up together.

So I’ve always told him that I think people can easily become attached to someone who is constantly there for them, listens to them, understands them, and gives them emotional support. That kind of intimacy can create feelings even if you never intended for it to happen.

Personally, I’m very careful about this. I don’t really have deep emotional relationships with other men because I’m aware that it can create ambiguity or emotional attachment. I put boundaries in place precisely because I care about my relationship and I don’t want to accidentally give someone false hope.

There was also one situation in the past that really affected me.

He had a friendship with a girl (who was trans) who had a lot of serious personal and family issues and was struggling with bipolar disorder. The friendship eventually became extremely unhealthy, and my boyfriend ended up becoming depressed because of everything that was happening with her.

And I basically had to deal with the aftermath of a relationship that had emotionally damaged my boyfriend, even though I had never asked for any of it.

I was extremely frustrated and confused by the whole situation. I was also very patient with him and tried to explain that I was already doing my best to manage my own emotions and not dump everything on him, while he seemed to actively seek out other people's problems and immerse himself in them.

After that experience, he actually realized something about himself. He told me that part of the reason he does this is because helping people makes him feel useful and capable, and because our life together is relatively peaceful, he had almost forgotten that some people can be extremely complicated, contradictory, or even cruel in their reasoning.

In a way, I think I've had a positive influence on him. Our relationship has shown him what a stable and peaceful relationship can look like.

But sometimes I feel like he has gone too far in the opposite direction and now assumes that everyone deserves the same level of understanding and emotional investment.

I’m a very tolerant and understanding person, and I genuinely don’t want to tell him who he can or cannot talk to. He has every right to have friends, help people, and be there for them.

But I’m struggling with how I should interpret his behavior without letting it affect me so much.

Am I being unreasonable? Is it normal to feel uncomfortable when your partner becomes this emotionally invested in other people's problems, especially when some of those people end up developing feelings for them?

And how can I set reasonable boundaries without becoming controlling or making him feel like he’s not allowed to help people?

I’d really appreciate some outside perspectives because I’m not trying to isolate him from anyone. I just want to understand where the line should be between being a compassionate person and becoming emotionally over-involved in other people's lives, especially when you’re already in a committed relationship.

Honestly, sometimes I feel like our government is really good… not at educating people, but at deciding what we’re allowed to know and what we’re supposed to forget.

We keep learning the same stuff over and over again, French colonization and the war of independence, which is important obviously. But the moment you try to go further back into our own history, it’s just silence.

Like Algeria’s history somehow started with France.

We barely talk about the Amazigh, even though they’re the indigenous people of North Africa, and a lot of us, myself included, come from that background. Figures like Dihya get mentioned here and there, but without really explaining the scale of resistance against the early conquests.

And more importantly, a lot of uncomfortable topics are just avoided altogether: military conquests, power dynamics, population displacement, capture of people, the trans-Saharan slave trade, and systems like the jizya, which clearly created inequality in status.

And even if conversions to Islam weren’t always forced directly, there were still strong pressures and incentives, like taxes, lower social status for non-Muslims, and advantages for converts, which could create a kind of indirect “forcing” in certain situations.

I really notice this when talking to some Algerians, a lot of people genuinely believe Islam arrived here completely peacefully, with no conflict or resistance, like it was all just smooth and natural. When in reality, it was way more complex than that.

This whole period tends to get romanticized, as if everything happened peacefully and organically, with no tension or power struggles. But history clearly shows there were also significant local resistances.

At the end of the day, we’re left with a version of history that’s incomplete and biased, where some parts are highlighted and others are almost erased.

I need to talk about something, and before anything else: if you’re here to insult or judge me, just keep scrolling. I don’t need that.

I feel like, as an Algerian woman, I have no freedom. Let me explain. I come from a family that isn’t even religiously extreme, but despite that, I’ve never really had a say in my own life. People will say “well, you got an education, that’s a right, you should be grateful,” but in reality… since I was a child, my father has controlled everything.

I wasn’t allowed to go out, I wasn’t allowed to make my own choices whether it’s clothes, personal preferences, anything. Everything had to go through him. Even when I can do things myself, he insists on doing them. I’ve become introverted because of this (and ironically, he complains about that too). When I try to learn basic things like handling administrative paperwork, he refuses to teach me, saying I don’t need to know because he’ll do it himself while at the same time complaining that he has to do everything. Make it make sense.

Even with clothes, he imposed his taste on me. I had no say at all. And the worst part is, he genuinely doesn’t see the problem. In his mind, it’s just his role as a father: he decides, he manages, he pays, so he controls. At home, I feel like I’m in a company where I have to obey the boss.

I tried to live with it for a long time. But then I fell in love with someone. He’s not particularly religious, but not atheist either, and he has always treated me with respect i know him since im 16 he is literraly my best friend. I want to do things the “right” way and get married but the only thing blocking my life is my father. And it always has been.

And I can swear to you that if I were a man, things would have been different. I’ve clearly seen the difference in how we’re treated within the same family. As women, we’re expected to carry the image and reputation of our father and family, while sons are given much more freedom.

I’m exhausted. I feel like I’m living in a prison. I’ve never experienced freedom. My entire life has been designed by him, to the point where he even said he planned to choose a husband for me himself.

But this is my life. I’ve spent 26 years living the life someone else wanted for me, acting the way I was expected to act. I’m tired to the point that it’s affecting my health I’m losing my hair, I have severe anxiety i can't even eat anymore, and I’m just not happy. That’s the reality.

And I’m so tired of people saying “he’s your father, he wants what’s best for you.” No, he doesn’t. In his mind, I’m his “property,” which means I have to make choices that align with him and reflect his image. But the truth is, he doesn’t even know who I am.

I’m so done with people forcing their culture, opinions, and life choices onto their children. Please, if you’re going to control someone’s entire life like this don’t have kids. You’re just making them miserable.