Urgent Tough Personal Question on Marriage and Relations
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Asalam Alaikum !!!
I have a question for which i am affraid to recieve the answer but I feel like I have to ask the advice of free thinking people.
I was brought up without any religion forced on me in some Orthodox Chirstian setting. I always believed in god in my heart though I havent practiced much except rare prayers at some moments of my life.
Because of that I did a lot of things that were bad for my soul including premarital relations, drugs... Which inevitably lead my to a bad situations, which I now see as a blessing and a lesson sent by Allah to put me on a straight path.
During the holy month of ramadan I fasted, at first for health, but then ended up reading Quaran and converting to Islam. And now I am trying to follow it and be righteous and cleanse my sould of all the bad things I did, and becoming incresingly religious.
There is one thing that is making my chest heavy for I do not know what to do. I have a girlfriend for about 2 years who I love dearly and she loves me. I feel as Allah brought us together and with his help we brought eachother out of darkness into a much better place and a state of being.
Since I was with her from before I converted we were already intimate for a long time, which posed a problem when I converted, because I do not know if I am going astray and do not know how to look at the problem.
She was brought up as a catholic which being a corrupt religion corrupted her mind and made her turn away from organized religions. She also had a lot of bad things happen to her as a child wich made the situation worse. She does not disbelieve, but at the same time she doesn't know what is out there though she believes in some universal power which I understand she doesnt want to reffer to as god (catholic influence and bad associations I suppose). It is hard to speak for another person but I hope you get a picture. I believe there is a chance that god will open her heart and guide her... I pray to him so he would do it, but he does what he wills so I do not know. She said she will read Quran for me.
She has been away from me for 4 month on a school trip to india. She is coming back soon and I do not quite know what to do. Before I felt as if we were married since, I converted after we were together and old concepts of marriage are quite different in modern world. We kept being intimate.
We made eachother faithful to eachother which we werent before we met.
Marrying officially is not entirely possible. Because she thinks it is too early for her and I agree also her Catholic father probably wouldnt be ok with that at the moment.
However I think that perhaps it would be possible to find a muslim who would marry us without having big ceremony or having her parents present to be lawful in the eyes of God and not the social law. And then few years later when we are ready we could renew our vouls making our marriage official in the eyes of the law and inviting her family and stuff like that.
I have about 2 weeks before she comes back, we long for eachother and I do not know what to do. I pray to got to open her chest and help her see God and bless our union and make it happen, I pray him to lead me to straight path. She is closer to believing than she was before. But it is up to him in the end, since he guides whom he wills and leads astray whom he wills. I pray that she would agree to that and be patient with me until that moment.
Please advise what I should do?
Can we marry as if she was Catholic ?
Can we marry ?
If we cannot marry what would be your advise ?
Can I consider ourselves married since we were in relations before I converted ?I pray to god that I could stay with this girl because I love her with my heart and want to spend the rest of my days with her being faithful and worshiping one god.
I believe all my sins were forgiven when I converted, and I want to minimize committing new ones...
Please approach this with a free mind taking into account that God is Most-Merciful and Most-Wise. And give me a good advice to releve the weight on my chest.
There is so much more I could say. Ask more questions if you think it could help. I hope you can understand and perhaps even relate to situation. Insha Alla I will find an anwer.
Thank you all in advance... May peace be with you !!!