Growing up in my Faith, I expected potential mates to judge me on the content of my character. I remember vividly in high school how young ladies my age at church spoke glowingly of me but who ignored me when we were at school, apparently to save face with their peers.
Over the weekend, someone read a post from 2010 about preference and conviction, in which I opined the influence of parents in the choice of romance. Although we all prattle how much it's "our life" and "our decision" and "nobody can make me do it", all too often the family influence is felt and reverberates to the effect on everyone. Sometimes it's a good thing. Sometimes it's a painful thing. Even if your parents suck, they are still your parents, and so it can be understandably difficult to defy their wishes and counsel, even if they are doing vile and wicked things. No matter what we do, our relationships work better when our parents approve. Like everything else parents support, if they support our relationship choices they will help us make them succeed.
One of my first visits to see BYU Divine Comedy cemented this concept. In one of their skits, they mentioned "a suitable male companion of whom your parents approve". Despite the service played by the campus in helping young ladies get their MRS Degree in Elementary Education, it doesn't always lead to smart matches. My sister once brought a young man home to meet the family, and we couldn't stand being in the room with him for more than a few hours. It helped her see the light and search elsewhere. My parents supported us anyway when I for example chose against their counsel, but that was because they loved me. Only a bully claims they love you and then works to undermine you. Since they loved me, they offered their help. Ultimately it didn't work anyway, but I knew their love was real. I knew they liked me. That was good because the women apparently don't.
With rare exception, I have never dated a woman whose parents liked me. When parents like me, their daughters prefer the company of other men. When the daughters like me, the parents always get in the way. Accordingly, by the time I moved to Vegas, I determined that I would simply skip to the chase when it came to dating and ask permission to date their daughter before we got involved. Since dating to me doesn't imply constant coupling or coupling at all, I'm essentially just asking to spend time with their daughter and court her, after the fashion of yesteryear. Well, some of the father's "weren't going to be fooled by that" because they all "know what every man really wants", and consequently for whatever reasons real or imagined, some young ladies never gained any traction. Those who did were women who were either estranged or emancipated from their parents. My hiking buddy would love me to marry his available daughter; aside from the awkwardness created by dating her dad's best friend, she wasn't really interested in the life I imagine. Although he raised her to that idea, she's not ready to entertain it yet, if ever, and so it doesn't help me that he likes me for his daughter. His parents also liked me, and I think they would have encouraged me to become part of their family if they had a daughter young enough for me to seriously consider. Meanwhile the available women don't like me even if they should, and if they do their parents feel threatened and slander me whenever possible. In one particularly egregious case, it was ok for the twin sister's boyfriend to schtup her regularly, but I was evil from the getgo and would never be good enough. Seriously? Wow.
Once, I broke my own rule. After knowing one young lady for about a year, having developed feelings for her and at my hiking buddy's encouragement, I let her know that I liked her. She persuaded me to not ask her father, because we both knew that he would shut us down and we'd essentially never speak again. Neither one of us wanted to end it, and so we moved forward. Trouble was, eventually we both knew there would be a showdown with him and that she would have to choose. She was worth the risk to see if she would pick me in the end. She didn't. If I had stuck to my plan, we would have never gotten to know one another, which would have been a shame, because she's the best woman I've ever known, at least the best woman for me.
Family makes a great deal of difference, and no matter what you think you do marry a family. Saturday after class, a student who recently filed for divorce from her husband confessed that the only person she ever regretted was because of family interference. One of the lab technicians who preps for my classes told me a month ago that his girlfriend's family had finally consented to them. He was lucky enough that she told him she would leave her family for him. Well, I would never ask that, and neither would he, but I'm glad it's working out for him. It's a very difficult thing to marry well, and it's even more difficult if not impossible when the parents disprove. I know from personal experience that the parents can undermine things, leading to a breakup or even to ultimate divorce both of which happened to me.
No matter how you look at it, Romeo and Juliet is after all a tragedy. It's a tragedy that they both die. Unable to follow their hearts, the starcrossed lovers end up both dead, and both families lose. It's a tragedy that the parents and families hate one another. Before the lovers make their plan confederate, Tybalt is slain in a duel, and the families quarrel in public and private with each other, driving the gulf between them even wider. It's a tragedy that Juliet asks Romeo to deny his father and refuse his name, and it's a tragedy that she is willing to do the same. I wrote years ago about Familial Piety, and in most instances, even if the parents are wrong, they are doing it out of love, out of a desire to protect their children from mistakes. My student who confessed to me Saturday spent the last five years, which might be the prime years of her life, with a man who didn't deserve her and didn't really want to be with her. It is a tragedy that we are not actually able, allowed, or willing to love the people we ought. All too often we hurt those we love and love those who hurt us. Scripture tells us what ought to be. Man and woman leave their parents and become one flesh. They become their own entity, a new family. However, the roots of family trees run deep, and it's difficult to be the black sheep even if it's the right thing to do.
People who really love you won't ask you to change. People you really love will not need to change. Requiring that they leave their family, their faith, their house, their principles, their comic books, their cars, their jobs, etc., as a condition of your love is manipulative. It's not real love. It says, I will love you if you meet my expectations. Imagine how bleak life would be if parents did that with their children, if God did that with us! I do not want to deny her father. I want our grandchildren to see and know and interact with and love their grandparents like I did. I want them to recognize, laud, and honor their ancestors like I do. Everyone has rotten apples in their family tree. It's most unfortunate when it's her parents.
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