Ok, so I was driving to work. Now I generally listen to Howard Stern. I’ve become addicted to him since he joined Sirius a year ago. But today they were playing a rerun from 1988. So after awhile, I turned on the local radio – Milwaukee’s WKLH. The morning crew was giving away vacations to Cancun for Valentine’s Day – provided couples were willing to get married on the air.
At one point, the subject of getting engaged came up. All three of them insisted that before a guy asks a girl to get married, he should approach the girl’s father for permission. In fact, the son of one of the DJ’s just got engaged himself. And he too (no doubt based on dad’s advice) asked for permission from not only the biological father, but from the girl’s stepfather as well.
Now call me crazy. But isn’t this sort of practice horribly old-fashioned? Now I have nothing against the concept, if a guy is inclined to do so. But should it be considered a requirement? I think that’s insane! And what if the father says no? Does that stop you?
Of course I think back to my own engagement. It happened Saturday, 9/26/98 – my 27th birthday actually. My wife and I had a pretty fast romance. Although we’d known each other for a few months prior, we’d only been a boyfriend/girlfriend couple since 8/12/98 – 45 days. We had a double birthday party planned for that night. Her birthday is September 28th. I had originally planned to propose to her then – and had even told a few people about it. But on the night of the 25th, I changed my mind. She spent the night at my apartment, and we planned to open up birthday gifts for each other the following morning. I figured since all our family and friends were going to be at our party on Saturday, what better way to celebrate. So we’d have a birthday/engagement party. After we’d opened all our gifts, I produced one final gift, got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. She was totally caught off guard. But of course she said yes.
But had I asked her father’s permission? Hell no! Why should I? No offense, but it really didn’t concern him. Would he have granted it? Of course. But still, why should I have to do that? We decided right away that as of November 1st, we’d find an apartment together.
Incidentally, the night of our engagement, my father-in-law approached me and said, “If you two want to move in together, that’s fine with me.” Now, that was a very nice thing to say. But again, we were going to do it anyway. A few months later, someone asked my mom how she felt about us moving in together before we were married. My mom’s response, “They never asked for my opinion.” (She wasn’t concerned anyway.)
My point is, I was an adult. And although she was six years younger than me, my wife was an adult too. So what obligations do we have to ask for permission for such things? Am I just stubborn and rebellious? Are others old-fashioned? What’s the deal?
About Me
- TWORIVERSWALRUS
- These are the stories of my life in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. The names have not been changed. My focus will be on all the classmates and teachers I encountered over the years. To the best of my knowledge, everything I write here is true. However I admit that some things may not be. If I have another source, I will do my best to name that source. However, secondhand information is not always accurate. If I've made a mistake, please tell me. I never considered myself to be a true member of Washington High School's class of 1989. But I was, in name only. I mean no malice or carry no grudges to anyone I write about. This blog is for me and me alone. These are my opinions. They may not be facts. However, I will never knowingly post something that is false. This is my point of view of my former classmates. On the off chance that anyone I write about happens to see any of this, and are offended, dont be! These are simply my opinions based on experiences from many years ago. My opinions are not a reflection on who you are now or who you were then. Besides, people can change. The pricks of yesteryear may be the saints of today - and vice versa. Welcome to my mind.
13 comments:
hell no. a daughter is of no
"possession" to her father. i think it's creepy that people still ask permission but on the other hand some people find it classy and have a bonding moment with the future in law. so in that sense i guess i can see it as a potential benefit to the future relationships. f.y.i. my husband didn't ask my father for his permission
I don't think the guy should have to ask the father's permission. That's lame.
Unless, of course, he wants to marry MY daughter.
Second engagement, huh? You learn something everyday. Will there ever be a third?
Like I said, I don't have a problem with the asking of permission, if one sees fit. But to consider it a requirement? Never!
Maybe I was married to someone else before you.
Corrected.
"Maybe I was married to someone else before you."
Shhh, Burt! That's our secret.
Ah ha, another attempt to get me fired and neglect all other adult obligations. Whatever... before blogs/blogging there was online shopping. Looking forward to non-classmate related topics.
THIS is an interesting subject for me. I agree that a father does not possess his daughter; however I think that if the daughter feels that the father did his job in a manner worthy of respect, that the gesture of "requesting" the daughter's hand ought to be extended.
"Requesting" probably isn't the right term these days but I think by at least taking the future father-in-law aside and informing him of his intentions is an important part of joining two families. I guess I'm old fashioned. I found myself somehow disappointed 11 years ago when my soon to be fiancee didn't show that little sign of respect to my family.
No permission requested, no permission granted. Marriage took place. Marriage ended. Correlation? Who knows.
I think if I had asked for permission from my wife's father, he would have said, "what the hell's wrong with you?"
You know, I was just thinking...I think the intended meaning behind this custom was to ask for his/their blessing...not permission. I don't know if that changes anything.
I'll answer this one for you.
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just trust me on this one.
You see, Brad, I am Meff's wife's dad.
Make sense now?
How bout’ some more ranting psyco babble on the subject…
Tradition – don’t think in terms of today’s twisted society. Think about the roots (no not the movie) of how this came about or at least my best guess. Many many moons ago there was something called a dowry. This was given to the newly weds after marriage. The father of the bride would give some large sum of money, land, etc…. If no ask father’s for permission, that’s right no dowry. No dowry means no cash, no cash = sucks!!!
As far asking for the mother’s permission today it would have to be a new tradition and I just don’t see it coming full circle. The parents or father of the bride is still normally looked at to “flip” for the wedding.
P.S. Sally, if you see this, click my name, go into my profile, and E-mail me. I have a question for you.
What’s happening? It’s simple really. My marriage is crumbling. My lovely wife, who I have doted on for nearly 10 years has blindsided me with plans to divorce. To say I am shocked and hurt would be an unbelievable understatement. I NEVER saw it coming – NEVER!
So how did this happen? Well, there’s no need to rehash any details. But suffice it to say, unbeknownst to me, my wife has been unhappy for quite some time. Well, in her own words, she was “not as happy as she could be.” Fair enough. She says we haven’t grown as a couple. She says she’s grown, but I haven’t. Fair enough. What bothers me is that she never expressed any problems to me. She’s lived with these feelings for a few years now. In her own words, she simply didn’t want to hurt me. Instead, she chose to work these issues out in her head by herself. She worked on improving our marriage by herself. Of course she failed miserably. I’m of the opinion that no one person can fix a marriage. It takes both partners to work on it. I of course did nothing because I never knew there was anything wrong. Why would I bother to grow or change anything if I never knew anything was broken?
So now we’re in a huge mess. I begged for marriage counseling. She was on the fence about it. She stayed on that fence for several weeks, not making a decision. Then she finally agreed to it – but with a catch. She wanted to go into marriage counseling to help us become better people while we go through divorce. I of course wanted to go to counseling to try and fix what’s broken.
She remained on the fence as to whether or not she wanted to divorce. She never fully closed the door on reconciliation. So that of course gave me some hope – even if it was just a glimmer. But then two weeks ago (12/12/07) she finally said, “I think we’re through.” And that hit me like a ton of bricks. And my thoughts turned to suicide. It wasn’t a new place for me. I had ventured down that path 10 years earlier. That time, I wound up in the hospital for three days. This time, I didn’t see that happening. I left work unannounced, drove to the babysitter’s house and said goodbye to my two girls. I then went home to asphyxiate myself in the garage. Unfortunately, my wife figured out my plan, and contacted the county sheriff who literally showed up at my front door as I was preparing to go outside to shovel a clear path for me to get the van into the garage.
Two hours later, I found myself on the way to the hospital again. This time, they kept me for a full week before they felt it was safe to release me.
So where am I today? Things have gone from bad to worse with the marriage. My wife is as stubborn as always (a trait which I actually always admired) and is refusing to make any effort to try and save our marriage. She just wants to end it and start with a clean slate. Over the past several weeks, I have been trying my ass off to make things better and to fix what’s broken. But, just like she had done earlier, it’s clear that no one partner can fix a marriage alone. It takes two people working together. So I’ve failed miserably. If she doesn’t want to try, there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. I don’t understand her line of thinking. I never will. But again, what can I do?
It’s gotten so bad right now that when I’m happy, she resents me. She told me that point blank. Because she doesn’t want to give any false hope that our marriage can be saved. It’s also to the point where if I do anything nice or friendly to her, in an effort to try to “woo” her, she resents it and thinks it’s pathetic and sad. If I make a decision about something in my life that affects her in some way, she accuses me of being controlling. If I say anything she disagrees with that might affect her life in any way, she accuses me of being manipulative.
So you see, the way I see it, I can’t win. Nothing I do is positive. It seems like the only way we can communicate is through anger. This of course is not a positive thing. It’s also very new to us. The entire time we’ve been together, we’ve never argued. In retrospect, I wish we would have. Because the issues that have now surfaced could have been addressed years ago. But instead, if there were any hint of a disagreement, she simply gave in to me. How sad. How sad that she couldn’t have stood up to me. I fault both of us for that. But had she pushed, just a little, I would have compromised to most anything. On those very rare occasions that she did, I always backed down.
It’s turned ugly over the past few days. I have accused her of having her priorities out of whack. I’ve repeatedly questioned her as to why she is so unwilling to try and salvage our marriage and our family. Surely divorce is not a good thing. It’s unpleasant and potentially very damaging to our two daughters. Call me crazy, but I think a couple should try their damndest to avoid divorce. I realize that divorce sometimes needs to occur if all else fails. But the two of us haven’t made any efforts to work together to try and make it work – not one. Instead, I’ve been fighting a losing battle by myself while she wants to bail out. She says, “My heart’s not in it.” Well, dammit, it should be! As I said to her, if your heart’s not in it, then something’s wrong with you. If your heart isn’t in saving your marriage and not tearing apart your family, then Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with your heart??? One’s family should be the number one priority in my opinion. And you should do everything you can do try and keep it together. Divorce should be a final option, only once all other options have failed. Of course she also had her infamous line of "Get over it" when I expressed my displeasure at her unwillingness to try. Get over it... sure.
Do you detect anger and frustration in my words? You should. Because that’s what I feel. My wife wants to part ways but still remain best friends. But how can I do that? My best friend is killing me. Would a best friend create a world of chaos, then walk away without trying to clean it up? How can I ever hope to forgive her for doing this to me and our daughters? It seems very, very selfish to me.
So what happens next? I wish I knew. As late as Monday night of this week – well, early Tuesday morning actually (I have had a really difficult time sleeping these days) I was once again prepared to take my own life, and had made up my mind to do it. But… I had a change of heart later that day. And I feel I’m in no danger to myself at the present time. But who’s to say how I’ll feel tomorrow? As a friend of mine (who has also had two suicide attempts) recently told me, those thoughts will always be with me. And she’s very right. Once you go down that path once, it always remains an option – as fucked-up as that sounds. I just need to overcome those thoughts and take things day by day. Thankfully the doctor has put me on some happy pills to help me cope. As the saying goes, once you’ve hit rock bottom, there’s no place to go but up. Of course one could always remain down on the bottom too. And that’s not very appealing. Because this sucks more than anything in the world.
We did go to marriage counseling two nights ago. And it was pretty much as expected. We’re on two different pages. She wants out. I want to fix it. I asked the counselor whether or not marriage counseling could rekindle a flame, or even kindle a flame to begin with. She said yes, it COULD. That doesn’t mean it will. But it COULD. But, both partners would need to commit to it. I am willing to try. My wife is not. I can accept trying and failing. That I could live with and be ok with. I’d be very sad. But at least I’d be at peace with the knowledge that we both tried to make it work – that we both gave it our best effort. But ending it this way, without even making an attempt, will leave me with nothing but sadness, anger and bitterness. If we tried and failed, I could at least keep my best friend, and wouldn’t have any resentment towards the wonderful mother of my children.
As was hinted in my previous post, I have plans to move to Hawaii if my marriage does in fact come to an end. My idea was to have the girls in the summer, while my wife has them during the school year. My plan was met with reluctance at first. But my wife has now come around to the idea and has warmed to it. I have a few friends who support the idea, and a few who don’t. But as many people know, Hawaii has been a dream of mine. For those of you who may have visited there before, you’ll understand. It’s paradise on Earth. Hawaii is a final option if all else fails. I hope I stay.
So that’s what’s happening with me.
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