B
BamaRider
Guest
The problem with some background-
Our 28 year old son is our only child, and the kind of son everyone wishes for. Good looking, successful and a good Catholic, he is quickly moving up the ladder in a large billion dollar company.
He has had a string of girlfriends over the years, some we met, some we didn’t. Most were never around very long.
However, he is currently in a relationship with a Baptist girl, and for whatever reason, it has turned very serious, to the point they are talking about marriage. She is the same age, no children, never married, so none of those problems exist. This girl has other issues dealing with personality, but like l told his mother, we’ll have to let our son deal with them. If he doesn’t have a problem with them, then we’ll just have to get over it.
My son was raised in a loving Catholic family, surrounded and nurtured by only people that loved him. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, he has never known divorce, or outside child care, he never caused us any problems. His girlfriend comes from a broken home, mother divorced her father when she was 10 to pursue a career. I think she still has a chip on her shoulder about it. She is the middle child of 3. Although I don’t know for sure, my take is her family unit was dysfunctional at best.
She is a practicing Baptist, sings in the choir etc, and has 2 uncles that are Protestant ministers. I’ms sure over the years she has been fed some anti Catholic rhetoric. I voiced my concerns about this relationship with them not long ago, and from that conversation, she told me the wedding would be Baptist, and the kids would make their own decesion about religion. I told her in no uncertain terms “that wasn’t gonna fly.”
I also told her some of the stuff that went on in her family, we just don’t put up with, “that marriage is a serious thing, and in the eyes of the Catholic Church is a Holy Sacramenet, given to us by Jesus, and if you don’t view it as such we’re gonna have a problem. Now, I don’t know your mother, and I’m not gonna judge, but leaving it to pursue a career, is NOT ok. I know you had no control of your mother, but I just want to make sure you don’t take the same view as her, because that is definately not how our Church, and family feel.”
I only said that to her because I know history likes to repeat itself. It is a known fact, children of divorce have a greater tendency to go that route when things get hard. I’m not gonna judge ALL such children, but I will go with the general.
In a recent conversation with my son he said the kids WOULD BE Catholic, but the ceremony was still being discussed. My son is naive when it comes marriage law.
Our family is small, including extended family. My brother and sister each only had 1 child, my parents are deceased, and our size has made us very close to each other. We view our nephews almost like sons, and Chris feels his cousins are brothers.
She has been attending Mass with him, and when they are here she joins our entire family (aunts, uncles, cousins) for Mass on Saturday evenings.
One of the concerns I have about this girl, is she may want to marry our son to gain something she never had. Although my son makes a good salary, I’m just a retired firefighter, so money is not it. I’m sure she loves him, but perhaps she looks at our small, tightly woven family, as something she wants to be a part of, to maybe have something shes never had before.
I spoke to my son about this, and his response was, “why is it a bad thing for her to see how a family is SUPPOSE to be?” I did not know how to respond to that. LOL.
She thinks we feel she is “not good enough” for our son. But that is not so, I just want to make sure my son does not do something he might regret, and that my grandchildren attend Mass with the rest our family. Not having that would be very hard to deal with.
I told my son “I don’t even know why were talking about it, you oughta know how we feel about this. I want you to go back to and tell her the rules of the Church are gonna be followed, or won’t be a wedding, and if she can’t deal with that, you’re moving on.”
My wife tells me that is too hard line, and might drive them closer together. Better to let her witness how we practice our Faith, and to see first hand what it means to my son and his family. But I told her, somethings are just meant to be, and if she is adamant about not allowing our son to follow his faith, a call has to be made, and I fear him making the WRONG one.
No date has been set, no announcements have been made. My son has righfully put this on hold till this issue is dealt with, and secondly to see how his recent relocation will work out.
In the meantime we have this elephant in the room with us when they are in town and around the rest of the family.
Advice?
Our 28 year old son is our only child, and the kind of son everyone wishes for. Good looking, successful and a good Catholic, he is quickly moving up the ladder in a large billion dollar company.
He has had a string of girlfriends over the years, some we met, some we didn’t. Most were never around very long.
However, he is currently in a relationship with a Baptist girl, and for whatever reason, it has turned very serious, to the point they are talking about marriage. She is the same age, no children, never married, so none of those problems exist. This girl has other issues dealing with personality, but like l told his mother, we’ll have to let our son deal with them. If he doesn’t have a problem with them, then we’ll just have to get over it.
My son was raised in a loving Catholic family, surrounded and nurtured by only people that loved him. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, he has never known divorce, or outside child care, he never caused us any problems. His girlfriend comes from a broken home, mother divorced her father when she was 10 to pursue a career. I think she still has a chip on her shoulder about it. She is the middle child of 3. Although I don’t know for sure, my take is her family unit was dysfunctional at best.
She is a practicing Baptist, sings in the choir etc, and has 2 uncles that are Protestant ministers. I’ms sure over the years she has been fed some anti Catholic rhetoric. I voiced my concerns about this relationship with them not long ago, and from that conversation, she told me the wedding would be Baptist, and the kids would make their own decesion about religion. I told her in no uncertain terms “that wasn’t gonna fly.”
I also told her some of the stuff that went on in her family, we just don’t put up with, “that marriage is a serious thing, and in the eyes of the Catholic Church is a Holy Sacramenet, given to us by Jesus, and if you don’t view it as such we’re gonna have a problem. Now, I don’t know your mother, and I’m not gonna judge, but leaving it to pursue a career, is NOT ok. I know you had no control of your mother, but I just want to make sure you don’t take the same view as her, because that is definately not how our Church, and family feel.”
I only said that to her because I know history likes to repeat itself. It is a known fact, children of divorce have a greater tendency to go that route when things get hard. I’m not gonna judge ALL such children, but I will go with the general.
In a recent conversation with my son he said the kids WOULD BE Catholic, but the ceremony was still being discussed. My son is naive when it comes marriage law.
Our family is small, including extended family. My brother and sister each only had 1 child, my parents are deceased, and our size has made us very close to each other. We view our nephews almost like sons, and Chris feels his cousins are brothers.
She has been attending Mass with him, and when they are here she joins our entire family (aunts, uncles, cousins) for Mass on Saturday evenings.
One of the concerns I have about this girl, is she may want to marry our son to gain something she never had. Although my son makes a good salary, I’m just a retired firefighter, so money is not it. I’m sure she loves him, but perhaps she looks at our small, tightly woven family, as something she wants to be a part of, to maybe have something shes never had before.
I spoke to my son about this, and his response was, “why is it a bad thing for her to see how a family is SUPPOSE to be?” I did not know how to respond to that. LOL.
She thinks we feel she is “not good enough” for our son. But that is not so, I just want to make sure my son does not do something he might regret, and that my grandchildren attend Mass with the rest our family. Not having that would be very hard to deal with.
I told my son “I don’t even know why were talking about it, you oughta know how we feel about this. I want you to go back to and tell her the rules of the Church are gonna be followed, or won’t be a wedding, and if she can’t deal with that, you’re moving on.”
My wife tells me that is too hard line, and might drive them closer together. Better to let her witness how we practice our Faith, and to see first hand what it means to my son and his family. But I told her, somethings are just meant to be, and if she is adamant about not allowing our son to follow his faith, a call has to be made, and I fear him making the WRONG one.
No date has been set, no announcements have been made. My son has righfully put this on hold till this issue is dealt with, and secondly to see how his recent relocation will work out.
In the meantime we have this elephant in the room with us when they are in town and around the rest of the family.
Advice?
(I could see if she was addicted to drugs, or would be a bad influence on your son, etc) I will have to mull it over a bit more, but I think you are very protective of your son, and that is a good thing–I am also with my kids. But, you also need to let your son, who is a grown man out on his own, make choices on his own.