I can hear the heartache in the post of sw33t…I am coming to Orthodoxy after discovering maternal Jewish roots (at this point, it is unclear to me if a conversion will be necessary or not). The pain of trying to carve out and excise parts of the life you have known is unreal. I wish I could find an apt way to describe it to posters here who have known only Orthodoxy and have no plans of leaving that community. My family is not even religiously observant (no church-going, etc.), but I now have to try to figure out what previously happy cyclical events I can partake in.
Perhaps if posters here could imagine something that you love doing with family, something that has no specific religious link in your family but has become somehow inextricably linked to the larger culture…maybe this activity or event has been the source of countless precious memories from as early as you can remember, and then you contemplate giving it up forever.
I am not sure what the thing is that would resonate with posters here, but I can tell you one thing that really pains me today (and tomorrow) of all days — the “baby’s first Christmas 1977” ornament that my parents formerly had me put on the tree each year, first as the oldest child. When I would see it and place it on the tree each year, I am not thinking of presents, or of the overwhelmingly excessive commercialism of this time of year, or of religious aspects of the holiday — I am remembering warm rooms full of light, love, other children, the best parents a child could ask for, and dear relatives who have passed.
I do not come from a religiously observant family, but these are my memories from my first 35 years. These are my beloved parents and family, where I have always felt loved and cherished and even now accepted as I pursue a long-hidden family identity and religion that means so, so much to me. I sometimes feel like I will have to cut myself and my life in two.
Given the anguish tied up in all of this, I personally would not want the additional anguish of having a spouse who really was looking for someone else (as Naysberg posits). Even if it is the case that I am Halachically Jewish, I will never be frum from birth. If that one characteristic is of paramount or even very high importance to a prospective spouse, then other characteristics of mine — for instance, how I discovered my Jewish soul against the odds, gave up a way of living, and adopted a new one to honor G-d, my beliefs, and a family history that was nearly lost due to the Holocaust — will not be given the crucial consideration that any soul mate should have when he thinks about why he loves, respects, and honors his other half.