English Cathlolic dating Tunisian Muslim- help please!!

Submitted by Lou (United Kingdom), Mar 31, 2007 at 11:18

Hi all,

I stumbled across this site and have been really interested in reading all of your comments. Unfortunately, most comments are negative which does scare me a bit.

I'm a 25 year old British Catholic female who happened to fall for a 26 year old Tunisian Muslim whilst on holiday earlier this year. We've only been dating a few months but it's already feeling pretty serious. I've got my next visit planned to Tunisia in six weeks and he's going to sort out his holiday visa for a visit over here. We've met each others parents already and I was really welcomed into his home.

We've talked about marriage already although this wont happen until next year at the earliest. Originally I was suspicious about him using me for a visa to the UK, because two of his closest friends have recently married an English and Irish girl, both of whom have converted to Muslim. But my boyfriend says he would live anyway to be with me (including Tunisia although I couldn't cope with that). He is very Westernised already and looks and acts like a European all of the time. He drinks and smokes occasionally and tells me he's not a practising Muslim. He assures me that it's not a problem that I'm a non-muslim. I've told him that my family are Catholics and that we would need to get married in the UK in church. He doesn't seem to have a problem with this.

There is however, a slight doubt in my mind following all the bad press that there is about English/American women marrying Arab Muslim men. Having read this site, I am even more concerned! Our relationship seems too good to be true (except for the obviously distance); does that mean it's all going to go horribly wrong!?!

Has anyone else been in a similar position to me? Particularly where Tunisian men are concerned? I have no intention of converting to Muslim as I am happy with my own faith, but I am concerned his religion would still mean he would expect me to bring up my children as Muslims. Although I have nothing against the Muslim faith, I have always intended to raise my children as Catholics.

Are the Cultural differences going to be too much for a young couple to handle? Any advice would be gratefully received!

Thanks,

Lou

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