You Better Man Up Before Asking to Marry My Daughter

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

A RECENT CALLER to my daily radio showposed 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.

Aside from the cohabiting part, which I didn’t apply to any of my five lovely daughters, I did indeed have “the talk” with all five of the men who asked for their hands in marriage. I raked each of them over the coals in a friendly and polite but very direct way because, as my daughters’ father, I am the man who stands between them and any guy who might want 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.

Continued below.