You Better Man Up Before Asking to Marry My Daughter

Advice for a Dad Facing His Daughter’s Live-In Boyfriend

Deep Dive Podcast Discussion:

A RECENT CALLER to my daily radio show posed an important question about something I have some experience with. He asked my advice on how to handle a situation in which the guy his daughter is shacking up with is gearing up to ask permission to ask for her hand in marriage.

Each time I had “the talk” with the men who asked for my daughters’ hands in marriage, I raked them over the coals in a friendly and polite, but very direct, way. I did so because, as my daughters’ father, I’m the man who stands between them and any man who wants to marry them. To borrow a slightly modified line from Charlton Heston’s rancher character, Henry Hooker, in the movie Tombstone:

“Don’t worry. They want her, they gotta go over me first.”

There’s much more I could have said, but time constraints are always a consideration on live radio. Here’s my verbatim conversation with the caller, Jim:

Jim:
So tomorrow my wife and I are meeting with my daughter’s boyfriend, and I am quite sure he is going to be asking for her hand in marriage.

I have two concerns slash questions.
The first is he, and this is the lesser of the two, did not reach out to me, he reached out to my wife. She asked me and everything like that. It is a little odd.

The larger question is they are currently living together, and I do not know this but I suspect they may be planning some kind of destination wedding without any Catholic component to it or anything like that.

So I am torn. Of course I want to support my wife and my daughter, but I have grave concerns if that is what is going to be happening. They are definitely living together. That is not an if.

That is my question. I suspect you have been asked this before, but I would appreciate your thoughts on that.

Patrick:
I am wondering, first of all, how old are the two of them.

Jim:
They are twenty four.

Patrick:
And she was raised Catholic. I do not suppose she is practicing her faith anymore is she.

Jim:
Yes she was raised Catholic but she is not practicing her faith, and he in fact is Catholic.

The “May I Marry Your Daughter?” Conversation

Patrick:
I have five daughters and four of them so far have gotten married, and I have had to have that talk with my now sons in law.

This situation was not what my daughters were in, so I did not have to talk about it from that standpoint.

But if I had to do so, or if I do have to do so, I would say the following things to the young man.

Number one, no, I am not going to give you my blessing to marry my daughter for as long or until you stop this nonsense of using her for your own sexual pleasure.

You have given her no commitment. I understand that maybe you are thinking about doing it. Interesting. But thus far all you have shown is selfishness and a desire to enjoy my daughter as a sexual object without any commitment or responsibility.

Until and unless you can demonstrate sufficient maturity that you are not going to act like that, then no, I am not going to give you my blessing to marry my daughter.

Furthermore, what you are doing right now, and you both know better because you were both raised to know better, what you are doing is contrary to the Gospel.

You have turned away effectively by the way you are acting and what you are doing from Jesus. There is no way I am going to give you my blessing to lead my daughter further into sin.

Who knows what other sins you might lead her into. You have already done this.
I like you, you are a nice kid, and I could picture you as a son in law, but not like this.

So get your act together and get serious about marriage, get serious about my daughter, get serious about your Catholic faith.

If you are not going to get serious about it, then all the more reason why I would not give you my blessing to marry my daughter. That would be good money after bad.

So no, you do not get my blessing. Here are the things you can do, and if you do these things then yes, I would be happy to at least consider giving you my blessing to marry my daughter.

I would put it like that. I would be very blunt, man to man. No voices need to be raised, no anger, but tell it like it is.

At this point you are not worthy of my daughter and I am not going to do it. Then see what happens from there.

Maybe he will say, sir you are absolutely right and I am really sorry and I will move out and we will get back on track and I do love your daughter and I do want to be married to her and I appreciate you getting my head screwed on straight.

Maybe he will say something like that. Maybe not, probably not.

Could you look yourself in the mirror and say that you gave your blessing to some schmuck who is living with your daughter and enjoying all the benefits of marriage without any responsibility or commitment to her.

Try to imagine that turning out somehow really great, that somehow he is going to turn into some really solid guy after the fact.

I do not see that happening and I am not saying this to be glib. I certainly would not allow a guy like that to marry my daughter.

If they went ahead and got married, that would be a different story. There would be nothing I could do about it, but I would at least put my body between him and my daughter verbally speaking and take that stand.

I think that is what a father needs to do in a situation like this. Those are my thoughts.

The “Destination Wedding” Question

Jim:
Thank you. I appreciate the directness on that.

Let us say he agrees to that. What about the issue of a destination wedding, something that is not a sacramental marriage?

Patrick:
That is the second part of it. It might actually be more difficult, that second one.

For two Catholics you would have to say, listen, if you want to get married, and if you are going to do the right thing and separate from each other, go to confession, start leading a virtuous life again in preparation for marriage, that is great.

I can get behind that. I can support that and I will support that, all other things being equal.

But part of that means you are going to be serious about your faith.

In order for a Catholic to have a valid marriage in the eyes of God and the Church, you have to get married according to what the Church refers to as the canonical form, which stipulates that you must be married in a Church unless you get a dispensation.

If you really want to get married at the beach, ask your bishop for a dispensation. He might give you one.

But to freelance and go do it on your own without care about what the Church says on this issue sets you up for an automatically invalid marriage.

Please understand, it is not that we do not want to gather with you at the beach or in the forest or on top of a mountain or wherever you would like to have the celebration.

You can repeat your vows, you can have a party, you can do anything like that you want.

All we are asking is that you do the right thing and get married in the Church in the presence of a priest, and yes I know all the deacons out there are saying, but a deacon too, yes deacons too, bishops too for that matter.

If you want us to be able to come and celebrate and enjoy, then do that and in the eyes of the Church and in the eyes of God you will have a valid marriage.

I do not know how hard of a sell that would be, but I dare say if I had to guess I would bet that most Catholic parents who have concerns about this never bring this up.

They grit their teeth, they grin and bear it, and they go along to get along and they go to a wedding celebration that is not a valid wedding.

Maybe if only they had said something early on, hey you want us to be there, we would love to be there, we will even help pay for part of this, but it has to be a valid wedding otherwise there is nothing to celebrate.

Those are some thoughts on that point. What are your thoughts?

Jim and His Wife Disagree

Jim:
Thank you. My head was going in that direction.

What is complicated here is my wife and I are not on the same page on virtually anything, and we are not on the same page on this.

She would not support that position but it is what it is. She is Catholic.

Patrick:
She is.

Jim:
Yes she is. But it is complicated.

Patrick:
I wonder if that is why the young man called your wife and not you.

Maybe he thought he would have an easier time if he asked her rather than you.

Do you think he is intimidated by you?

Jim:
I think so. That is why he reached out to her, because he knows she is safe and will support what they are doing.

Like you described, if I had him alone I would want to have a conversation about Jezebel and Ahab as well.

There is so much I want to talk to him about. Do not be an Ahab.

He does sound soft. He is a great kid, but he is soft and he is weak and he does not know his own mind.

He knows his appetites but he does not know his own mind it seems.

Not Ready for Marriage

Patrick:
Those are signs that this guy does not seem ready for marriage.

If he is that soft and that weak and that intimidated. Some intimidation in a good sense is always a good thing.

I do not mean that to be mean to anybody but rather he should fear the father.

He should have a sense of respect and recognize, as he probably does with you, that her dad is going to stand in the way of the daughter and some guy who may not be good for her.

Any father who projects that kind of I will protect my children, especially my daughters, I think that is a good thing, and I think he senses it based on what I am reading between the lines here.

Jim:
I think you are right. You have validated what my instincts were.

It is complicated. My wife is going to be there and she is saying this is wonderful and maybe they get married in Aruba or something like that.

But I cannot endorse what they are doing.

You hit the nail on the head with my concern about weak.

He is a great kid, I like him a lot, but he should have had the courage to reach out to me and make this a conversation with the father and not put that buffer in the middle.

That is indicative that he is not, well let me put it in these terms, if he is too afraid to come to his intended wife’s father to ask for his permission, at least he has the good sense to ask for permission, I will give him points for that.

But if he is too afraid to stand up as a man and go through that rite of passage, then what kind of protector and provider is he going to be to his wife when he does not have that kind of moxie it seems to deal with life head on and be a man.

I am not talking about toxic masculinity or anything like that, just to do what fathers and husbands are called to do.

That gives me a lot of concern. Maybe he can grow into that, but it does not sound like he is there now.

Bottom Line:

Patrick:
Correct.

Jim:
Thank you Patrick.

Patrick:
You are welcome Jim, you are welcome.

You are awesome. You do great things and I appreciate you a lot.

All glory to God and any good things that come from this show or anything else on Relevant Radio, we have to give God all the glory and all the thanks.

Do me a favor Jim, I am interested in what may transpire, so if things unfold, if you feel like talking about it two or three months from now, give me a call back.

I would like to know how things turn out.

Jim:
Thank you. I will call back in.

Patrick:
I will look forward to it Jim.

Thank you. God bless you and God bless your daughter and God bless this young man.

I hope he gets his head screwed on straight!

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