Permission to propose

[Ginger]

Originally Posted by Tony

I'm kind of an old fashioned guy who holds on to some rituals. With my second wife, she had three children. Her daughter, the youngest, was displaced 1,000 miles from her home & friends right after 8th grade graduation when her mother moved up here to me after doing LDR for a year. We discussed marriage but I did take one on one time with the kids to tell them my intent & in essence ask their permission. I was fairly sure it would be yes because their mom was very happy. However, had it been no, I doubt we would have married. The children are part of the package & they need to be just as happy. In the end, they were thrilled, I proposed, she said yes & both her sons walked her down the aisle.
Just my experience.

And your reasons for not marrying, if the kids had been opposed to it, would have been out of putting them first, and being compassionate about their needs. It shows good parental instinct.

My sense is that (ironically) if they had been opposed to the marriage and your response was not to marry, that would have prompted them to trust you more, and it might have put them on a path to accept the marriage at a later point.

But a partner's parents are not in the same category as a partner's kids, and the response comes from a different place. (Goes without saying but I'm saying it anyway)