Yeah, it sucks to be such a pussy.

I agree, he should've asked anyway. If you NEED acceptance from a guy you don't really know, you yourself says is over protective, the girl probably deserves someone with more balls anyway.

Hey, if the father doesn't want his legacy to pass on in the form of a grandchild, that's his problem. You don't need that. Just find someone else and move on. Don't try to mess with someone trying to remove themself from the gene pool.

Or, how about instead of dumping someone he obviously cares about, **** tradition and marry anyway.

you weren't asking or his blessing, you were asking for his permission....

@#130: Either that or he's already assigned his daughter to someone else as part of an arranged marriage.

*shakes head* The fact that he wanted to get her father's blessing shows that he respects her enough that he refuses to put her in a position that she has to choose between him and her father. If they marry and her father is that against it, imagine how the father could and probably would treat him at the wedding. At any future family gatherings, if he were even invited to them. I've seen instances of a parent disapproving of their offspring's spouse, and I assure you, the result is NOT pretty.

what a bitch! If she wanted to get married so badly, she could have proposed to you herself!

well then tell her that or just get married without

I agree with your two above (3 & 5) posts. Though, Lacey has the point in that sometimes you can just tell the parents to screw off lol... though sometimes they have an idea of what they're talking about (they're not good enough for you, they're no good in general, etc). My grandfather refused to attend my uncle's wedding. I can't say I blame him... lol... but he's a dude, you don't usually ask for the dude. Point remains, though.

I agree, 2 years is just a little too soon for marriage, at least for me. My parents were together for 8 years before they got married. (They dated while my mom was going through high school and college, my dad was four years ahead of her) I'm not saying we should all wait 8 years, that's a ridiculous amount of time in most situations. But still, 2 years is a pretty short time to decide that you want to spend the rest of your life with someone. If you love them and want to spend a long time together, what's a couple more years before getting married? As for the asking daddy deal, I don't see the problem with it. I'd personally be happy if my boyfriend asked my parents first. It shows that he respects my family, and that he wants us to all go into this marriage on good terms. I agree that he shouldn't have spent 6 months trying to convince her dad though. If his dad was being stubborn, he should've just gone and asked the daughter, and get her to help talk dad into the marriage idea.

You think 2 years is too soon? Maybe they had already known each other for a while before that. And if you're getting close to your 30's you probably don't want to waste another 8 years waiting to see if you really want to marry the person. OP is an idiot. It is nice to ask for the parents' blessing but ultimately the decision isn't theirs. If they say no then just tell them too bad and move on and propose. Waiting 6 months just shows you're a pussy.

Um, I was engaged after 9 months. Granted, we waited another 2 years to get married. I have now been happily married for 4.5 years.

I think you misunderstood. I said two years is a short amount of time for marriage, not the engagment. My problem with the two-year timeframe though is that the girlfriend dumped the OP just because he hadn't popped the question already, as if waiting longer than two years would've been unacceptable. If she was having a problem, she could've brought up the subject of marriage HERSELF, and if she wanted to, SHE could've popped the question! And SOMAgirl, I think you said what I meant to say in your first sentence. Lol, thank you. :) And, littlegolferboy, like I said, 8 years is a ridiculous amount of time to wait in most situations. It worked in my parents' situation because my mom was starting high school when they started dating. (Though when they starting talking about marriage is a different story, so maybe saying 8 years is inaccurate.) Of course if you are older and want to get your life started, you might want to speed the process up. As long as you actually know what you're getting into, that's just as well.

my parents have been happily married for 23 years, and met each other 3.5 years before

My parents knew each other for 2 years, hot engaged after 2 weeks got married a year later and stayed together 32 years. Sure, they broke up but for some very intricate reasons. They were happy together for very very many years and raised 3 kids. Some people just know what that person is the right one. Granted that's an exception to the rule but it does happen.

my parents were only dating for 1 and a half years and have been married since 2006.

yeah, no marriage before sex.

It's not just about being overprotective, it's about the guy's respect for the girl's family. When you marry someone, you DO marry into their family. Hence "mother-in-law". Unless you plan on never having holidays with your spouse's family or letting your children visit their other set of grandparents, it MIGHT be a good idea to see if the family likes you. No, it's not required of the guy to ask the girl's father. The father in this case might be saying "No" because he really doesn't think the guy is capable of being a productive husband: 1) Maybe the guy doesn't have a stable job 2) Maybe he's hugely in debt ($80k student loans, credit cards, car payments, high insurance for some reason?) 3) Maybe he always talks about having kids, but isn't showing any indication he's on track to accomplish that (No college degree, no high school degree, no stable income, not home a lot, the girlfriend is sad a lot and tells her family why) If after 6 months of trying, the father is still balking at the idea, maybe it's a good idea to take a hard look at yourself -- it might not just be that the father doesn't want to see his little girl growing up.

He probably was asking so her dad doesn't hate him for life