First I am not trying to offend anyone on their religious views, I personally do not care or want to convert anyone from what they practice nor do I judge. But I do not like to be pushed to practice a religion.

To start: My fiancé and I were raised non-denominational Christian. We do not practice our religion actively and are very happy and content in that aspect of our life.

We moved into our neighborhood last year and in the past month our next door neighbor has been coming to say hi when we get home or she sees us outside. One day she invited me to church and gave me a pamphlet and we exchanged numbers but I politely declined her offer. A couple weeks later she ran into my fiancé and said that she was working on a paper and needed to interview a veteran and an acute duty military member and if we would be ok being interviewed. He said yes. The next day she asked me what day would work for the interview so I asked her what the interview was about and she said “it’s not religious at all, but it’s about how the Bible has helped you in your career”. I was not comfortable with this but still agreed to it because I’m a people pleaser.

So the day comes and she “interviews” us and it was 100% religious and really had nothing to do with the military. Then she asked us if we could have one question answered, what would it be. So we said “if God is such a loving God why do people suffer who don’t deserve to”. So she said in a week we can meet with her and she will answer it for us. Even though I made it clear that I was not really that invested in discussing this topic but she pushed. So we meet with her again, and then she talks us into doing this course with her about the Bible which we did not want to do but my fiancé panicked and said sure. When we got the link to the course it was for Jehovahs Witness, and we are nondenominational Christian so we don’t have the exact beliefs as her. I personally have a lot of religious trauma as well from my childhood.

What is upsetting is that there was never a paper she was writing. She was using that to get us to do the course, and she accidentally let that spill during our talk. She even mentioned how this was her “job” and she had a lot of clients who would meet with her for this course. We are not comfortable doing this and I will let her know next time we meet. But I’m irritated that she lied and technically manipulated us into meeting with her. When she asked if we wanted to learn more I always respond that I really wasn’t interested but she pushed and made me feel bad. She even said the reason for my miscarriages is because of all of the sins of my past. I feel gross that I let this happen and it has brought back a lot of my religious trauma from growing up.

I have an idea on how to tell her we are not interested but she pushes and honestly she is a little scary. I remember when we first moved in she wrote us a letter saying we have “ruined the neighborhood” because our dog barked outside ONCE while other dogs were barking and that she would report us to the HOA. But we fixed that problem right away.. and we hear the other dogs in the neighborhood barking ALL day.