We have been drawn to talk about how to break up with a non-believer after receiving feedback from a series we did on our youtube channel on “signs you’re in a toxic relationship”.
The reason why this is important to us is that we believe Christian relationships are supposed to honor God. If you’re in any relationship and it doesn’t do that, then we believe you need to rethink it.
Let’s face it friends the hardest thing to do is to fall in love with the wrong person or find the right person at the wrong time.
My wife and I have one simple rule, if it’s not drawing us close to God, then we don’t want it. This is what informs our decision when it comes to dating and marriage. The one piece of advice we give to young Christian Couples is; your relationship has to draw you close to God and if it’s doing the opposite, it’s time to let go.
I know it’s easier said than done and most of you have already thought about it but somehow you’re afraid or you honestly don’t know how to break up with your non-believing partner.
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I am glad you are here and by the end of this article, you will gain the necessary tools to help you break up with your non-believing partner.
Let’s dive in and look through the process together.
How to break up with a non-believer the right way
Non-Believer
Let’s first define who is a non-believer so we are on the same page going forward.
A non-believer is someone who doesn’t share the same faith as you. And for Christian, a non-believer is anyone who hasn’t accepted Jesus as their personal savior.
This is the 10 steps to breaking up with a non-believer
These steps are drawn from scripture and some are the experience and advice we give to couples we mentor and our circle of friends. Hope this helps you process and evaluate your relationship because we believe every relationship is unique and consist of two unique people.
However the principles from scripture are universal they cut across cultures, age, and color.
This is the process of how to break up with a non-believer.
Set Priorities
You must first decide that Jesus has to come first and honoring Him is your top priority in your relationship.
Christian dating is not just about two people loving each other, it’s more than that, it should be more than that. Let me suggest to us that Christian dating is about two people who love Jesus, and that love draws them together.
You and I know that our highest calling here on earth is to seek first God’s kingdom and all its righteousness and everything else will be added to us.
That doesn’t mean we don’t approach and show interest to someone we feel connected to, No. What I mean is we must find someone who helps us pursue our calling deeper and better. I will further go ahead and say that we need to find someone with who we can together pursue God.
Just ask yourself this simple question; If he/she doesn’t love God what makes you think he/she will keep his promise of loving you.
Our love for God sets the standard and foundation for our love for our partner. If your partner is not ready to walk with you on your faith journey then it’s time to break off the relationship.
To be honest a non-believer will never see things in your lense cos their situation informs their worldview.
Think About Future
Talking about world views, you and your non-believing partner have different world views. Yours is informed by what God wants, on the other hand, theirs is informed by their selfish desire of what they want.
Let’s be honest we all date someone with a desire that one day we will get married and spend the rest of our time together. We even use such terms as “forever”, but wait a minute, do you want to spend forever at least here on earth with someone who doesn’t share the same faith as you. Just think about that for a minute….
Imagine dating someone who doesn’t believe that marriage is about serving one another? Have you thought about that? Are you willing to roll the dice on your future and hope your marriage will work without Christ?
My intention is not to scare you but to help you think about your future in a more objective way, because God is love, if we don’t have God we don’t have love.
Think about values.
Christian couples or Christian relationships are supposed to follow a certain set of rules that informs what they can or can’t do. Let’s just pick one, Boundaries. For you to be in a healthy relationship with another person you need to have some sort of boundaries to help protect you in the relationship.
To be able to set and communicate boundaries well you must at least share the same values. Take, for example, sex; how are you going to set boundaries about intimacy when your non-believer partner believes sex before marriage helps the two of you bond, which goes against what the Bible commands.
How will you convince him/her that sex before marriage is a sin? How will he/she feels when you tell them that you can’t do sleepovers, deep kissing, and that other stuff that leads to sex?
Are you now convinced that you and your non-believing partner need to call it off?
Believe that God has a better plan
The main reason why most of us are afraid of breaking up with a non-believer is that we feel like we will never find someone who can love us the way they do or even better.
We tend to want to change them so they can fit into our situation. And for some is not even about how they treat us cos we know we deserve better but when we look at our biological clock we get scared, we feel like we don’t have time to find someone else better. We chose to settle for what we have even if we know it’s not the best thing to do.
My advice to your child of God is to trust in the Lord, it doesn’t matter if you’re in your 30s or even 40s God has the capacity to change your situation in a day. All you need to do is to surrender your life to Him. God is the designer of love and I can assure you that He knows your best lets Him guide you.
You better suffer the pain of break up than suffer the pain of a bad marriage.
Now you know that God has the best for you, but the choice is yours. You must make the decision to either suffer the pain of a breakup or suffer the pain of a bad marriage. I suggest you chose the first one and ask God to help you deal with the heartbreak.
My marriage has taught me that you need someone who shares the same values, loves God together, and is ready to serve you even when he/she doesn’t feel like it.
Final thoughts
God desires us to honor Him with our relationship, let this be your motivation for falling in love and if the person you have doesn’t meet this cut, then let them go.
Does God break up relationships
Does God break up relationships? God never breaks up any relationship, but our love for God will cause us to leave a toxic relationship that is not honoring Him.
If you can’t make solid boundaries and date in a way that pleases God then I suggest you leave the relationship.
God desires you to be with someone who draws you close to Him rather than drifting you away. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about how to break up with a non-believer.
As a pastor and Christian relationship coach we find ourselves counseling so many young Christian couples who have these same challenges. And our advice is usually the same, dating a non-believer is a bad idea, you might not see it right now but it’s one of the biggest red flags in Christian relationships.
Their response is usually something similar to, am in love, he is a good person, or for some who agree with us, their big question is usually. How do I break up with a non-believer? Maybe this is your situation right now, and we want to help.
