My daughter and her boyfriend announced yesterday that they will be getting married in December. On one hand I am glad for them, on the other, well, not so much.
Strangely enough I think the Lord had been preparing my wife and I for this situation. My wife has reported, over the past two weeks, several dreams wherein my daughter comes home from work and announces that she is finally moving out. Nothing about marriage, but my wife told me that she felt the two were getting close to eventually tying the knot. At the same time I have been feeling the need to talk to her boyfriend about his current status with the Catholic church and whether or not he is still and active member. I made it clear, years ago, that I wouldn’t accept my daughter marrying someone not of the Christian faith, and I intend to stick by that.
As you can see this presents a number of issues for myself, seeing as how my wife is not often on my side when it comes to matters of scripture. The “not being equally yoked to a non-believer” being the first of many issues I feel the need to talk to my daughter and her now fiancé about. I have said here on this blog, in the past, that I feel I raised my daughter with a lot of wrong information about her role in the world, and unfortunately I have been fighting an uphill battle to make her understand what scripture says about the role of a woman and the role of a married woman. My wife has been staunchly set against me in this, repeating that the things I tell her are “not what she believes about the bible”, and firmly convinced that the truths I tell her are twisted to a mans advantage. As many of my readers know, by virtue of your own journey’s through scriptural truth, this is a falsehood spread by many modern Western churches: That men have twisted the meaning and understanding of scripture to benefit themselves and to oppress women. The modern practice of “making things right” involves lifting women to holiness equal to that of Jesus himself, and anything less is seen as “unbiblical”.
My soon to be son-in-law is a nice guy, strong work ethic and, though kind of lackadaisical in masculinity he does have drive, having spent a summer in Alaska helping harvest salmon as well as going to school for mechanics. He hails from Mexico, having been brought into the U.S. illegally by his parents when he was young, but getting the right paperwork to stay in the states legally. He has been working on getting his citizenship, even talking to a recruiter about joining the military, but has been stymied over the whole DACA row. I don’t suspect he is marrying my daughter for citizenship, as they have been dating for around 3-4 years now. His mother and father are divorced, with his father continuing to live down in Mexico. He was raised by his mother and stepfather, who didn’t like him much. He doesn’t have much training in being a masculine man and it shows. He has a bit of natural alpha in him, but it crumbles when his mom gets onto him about things and sometimes even when my daughter does the same thing. I have gotten onto her before about her behavior, and now I know I have to speak even more.
I ask for your prayers in the upcoming battles. I must speak to my daughter about what is expected of her as a Christian wife, and where her mother and I have gone wrong in teaching her. My wife will fight against me, most assuredly.
At the same time I must speak to the boy about what is expected of him as a husband, especially if he has made the decision to accept Christ! I have no doubt he has been taught the whole “co-captains”, new-age, feminist garbage I learned growing up, and no doubt its worse now than it was then.
This is what I must do. I will be accountable for it, whether I do or not. Until I allow her to be married she is under my authority. In a time when such a statement is seen as ludicrous and archaic the words of the bible still hold true. If I fail to do what is expected of me then I fail in my duty to be obedient to the word, and I cannot let that happen. I love my daughter and like her fiancé, I owe it to them to let them know what they are in for, and how to avoid the pitfalls so prevalent in our “modern and enlightened society” of 50% marriage failure rates.
Snapper's Domain 
my daughter has a friend getting married next month. i’m pondering writing something for her.
when i was in my 20’s i really searched for answers about marriage b/c i didn’t come from a home where i wanted to repeat anything. i read books, listened to sermons, went to retreats … and read the bible. i could never get past what the bible says and how it’s not ‘if-then,’ … ‘if he does this, then i can/should do this,’ meaning my actions are based on his. it’s just not in there. what God expects of me as a wife is clearly defined.
i’ll probably share what i write on my blog, if it helps any with your daughter.
i would think it *might* be easier to reach the young man b/c i think there will be a part of him that will long to be the man as God designed him to be.
presentation will probably be critical in a lot of this, which you well know. and bathed in prayer, which you already do.
The problem in my situation is that my daughter was raised in a fairly quite, Christian home: We were just doing most of the husband/wife thing WRONG! Unfortunately it doesn’t look like anything is wrong because its the norm across the board. Mom says what she wants, dad gets up and does it. Mom is in charge, dad is a loveable goofball who is “in charge”, but we know who REALLY wears the pants in the family. WRONG! ALL WRONG! It leads to what the kids dont see: Strife, frustration, resentment, disrespect. It makes it that much harder to talk about in that it seems so counter-culture and bass-ackwards that it defies what they know and have been taught. But it is the truth, and that is what matters.
i totally get that. my parents and i became christians when i was 9 and we first began going to an evangelical church. from that point on my family was actively involved in church. and i was very actively involved in church from age 9 till my divorce. i went to a christian college and married a preacher’s kid.
so i totally get how skewed the teaching is in the churches and how distorted it is being lived out in marriages everywhere.
for some reason – the Holy Spirit? – i had a deep desire to only do things as God directly instructed. it took me years and years to peel away false teachings and soft teachings to finally be able to read the bible for just what it says – and it’s still a process for me.
and although this huge swell of female bible teachers and women’s ministry didn’t begin till the 90’s (if i remember correctly) this is one of the HUGE issues i have with all these female bible teachers – women follow the teacher rather than the bible itself. they let these female teachers think for them.
i remember when going to a bible study meant we opened our bibles and discerned what the bible said. in the 90’s that changed to reading books and doing workbooks written by women. it was easier that way … and it made a lot of women a lot of money selling their stuff. and it made women feel ‘righteous’ having a daily/weekly assignment to complete – like they were ‘godly’ simply b/c they did the work for the bible study. it also makes women feel superior to their husbands who do not have the time nor the inclination to follow the hoards and take a similar bible study.
i would love to point women back to the simplicity of scripture and have them shed all the layers of fluff and distorted truths … without becoming a woman they follow but rather teach them to follow God and His truths, alone, which directs them to honor their fathers and respect and submit to their husbands.
Sounds like my parents marriage… at least I’ve got a good example to follow of what not to do! At least he’s got some drive, you can work with that.
Yeah. He’s not a bad guy at all, but still, a wife typically ends up following her husband in some capacity and I want to make sure she follows him TOWARD CHRIST. Better to deal with it now, even if it causes some strife, so that it either wont have to be dealt with later or, if it is, they know the solution was given to them and not hidden.
How is he ‘lackadaisical in masculinity’?
Is he a nice guy in terms of being kind and patient or in terms of being a walkover?
He is a bit of a pushover and a mama’s boy, but not entirely. Sometimes he will speak up and tell his mom she is being silly, but most of the time he just acquiesces to her requests, from what I understand. I see him do the same thing around my daughter sometimes and it drives me batty. You can see, in his face, that he doesn’t want to do what is planned or requested by he gives up and just goes with the program. That will most certainly carry over into marriage, and is not healthy for him or for my daughter. Especially since my daughter is very much like my wife in that she likes to take control of things. It has helped her in her little retail job, but it wont help her in her marriage.
it sounds like he knows what he should do but has not been given permission to do it. handled well, you can give him this permission and teach him how to be a biblical man.
Prayers are with you brother!
It doesn’t sound like he’s as bad as my future brother in law. He was telling us all how proud he is of himself because in their vows they’ve removed the obey stuff because that’s all so backward and sexist. I’ve already seen him get pushed around by my sister.
Will be interesting to see how their marriage plays out. I’m not going to bother talking to them about ‘the red pill’ because I know it won’t be well received. I think the only thing you can do is act out a misogynistic, sexist, chauvinistic marriage which is very satisfying for both you and the wife and people might take note of what you are doing.