Dear Groom-to-Be: Well, aren’t you adorably quaint. These days dear you ask the girl first. Assuming Brittany accepts your proposal, it would impress her daddy no end if you asked your future in-laws for their permission to marry their wonderful daughter.

Good luck. You sound like a real sweetheart. —Annie

I’m a bit concerned that you’ve been dating her for five years and don’t have a relationship with her parents such that you already know you have their support. Let’s assume that distance or some other legit reason has prevented each of you from introducing the other to his/her parents.

Two things come to mind.

1) Your question, "father's permission," is sexist; it reveals something about your unconscious attitude towards women that doesn’t feel good. An enlightened mother would prefer to read, "Do I need her parent's permission?"

These days it's so much more than needing the permission of both sets of parents. You'll need the committed support of both families—assuming of course your intention is to have the marriage last. Most divorcees will tell you that one of the parents did not enthusiastically support the engagement.

The absence of enthusiastic aligned parental support can be thought of as a tight rope walker with one parent down below yelling, "I keep telling you it won't work." Never underestimate the power of a hex—also referred to as an intention to be right.

A few years after the wedding ceremony the couple notice that it was not their intention to have the marriage last, merely to try it out until their mind generated enough reasons to quit. Most divorcees sincerely believed at the beginning that they would remain married; most discovered that they were unconscious and lied when they vowed, "...till death do us part." A lie believed does not make it the truth. A truthful vow would be, "I'll stay married for as long as it works for me."

2) What does Brittany think/know will be her father’s response? It could be a setup, for you to thwart her father’s wishes. She should know now that permission is a given, that she has chosen a man whom she knows her father will be proud to have as a son-in-law. Loving daughters do this automatically.

On the other hand, a daughter stuck in adversary dramatizes her incomplete relationship with her parents by marrying whom she pleases, usually knowing full well one or both would not agree with her choice. Her unconscious intention is to cause them to fail as parents and to take as many down with her as possible,

For her to introduce you to a man whom she suspects might not like you would be abusive. In a healthy father-daughter relationship there is trust—trust that she will relate with, and bring home/into the family, people who treat others lovingly. She knows that it would be unethical and abusive to bring a "loved" one into a family that communicates abusively. Submitting another to a dysfunctional family is not a gift of love.

In order to create, have, and sustain a wonderful mind-expanding relationship you need to be willing to not have it.

My question: What if you "ask" and he doesn’t say the words yes or no but what gets communicated is no. Would you abide by his wishes? Or, would you enroll her in thwarting and ignoring him and manipulate her into marrying you anyway?

Specifically, are you asking permission or presenting a nonverbal ultimatum?

The ultimatum being: "Your daughter and I have decided to get married and we’d like your support, however, if you don’t like it, tough luck, we’re going to do it anyway." In other words, will your request for permission be just a "polite act" or do you intend to honor and respect his wishes? Keep in mind his nonverbal covert communications are the important ones.  "It's OK with me if it's OK with your mother" is tantamount to a covert hex on the relationship. If he’s not in favor of it then ultimately it won’t work, unless, and this is a biggie, she has estranged* herself from her dysfunctional family for life/until they've all completed xn hours of therapy per her insistence.

Let’s look at this from another perspective. If she doesn't know intuitively that her parents would enthusiastically say yes then she has serious communication problems within her family which she will bring into her marriage. She should have long ago validated for you her choice in you. "My parents will just love you. You’re going to love them." A daughter who is in loving supportive communication with her parents comes from, operates from, supporting them. The point being, daughters have a mandate, to search out and bring into the family someone who will enhance the family. Daughters who have communication problems with their parents have yet to learn the leadership-communication skills necessary for a successful marriage. To marry such a woman is to never have a communication with her that does not include part of a former communication with her parents that did not turn out mutually satisfying. Her arguments with you will contain remnants of arguments that she started and never won with either her mother or her father. The key word being, "started."

Also, a daughter who has sex with you by sneaking behind her parents backs will eventually deceive you. Put another way, conning a young woman into having sex with you, knowing full well it would upset her father is not smart karmic-wise. Your integrity will set up life for you to get what it was like for him for you to thwart him.

Based upon your question, my guess is she knows that her father knows she’s not ready for marriage, if for no other reason than how she treats him. You’ll know when she’s ready because you will have thoughts of envy and admiration about the awesome intimacy between her and her father. She would do well to engage the services of a communicologist who will coach her in having a complete supportive relationship with her parents. If you were ready for marriage you would have felt perfectly comfortable asking your parents your "permission" question instead of asking Annie—so, you would do well to elicit some coaching to support you in being complete with your parents. They were supposed to have taught you these things. That they didn’t says that there are quite a few conversations you have yet to have with them before you bring a daughter-in-law into the family. In support of a fantastic marriage I recommend that you do the Relationships Tutorial—conversations to have with your fiancé.

* Estranged: There is an exception to asking for permission. If either your parents and/or her parents are stuck in abuse and you both are willing to recess them from your lives until they get therapy to your satisfactions, then you can co-create a new paradigm, a new lineage. If you choose this path I recommend that you both do the Spouse Abuse Tutorial because, unbeknownst to you, both of you are also addicted to abuse—to being abused and to abusing (to include enabling abuse). A person who is whole and complete does not attract someone who needs therapy, this is why both partners need coaching.

For more about wedding vows go here and here and here (to read about wedding guest vows).

Great question! Thank you, Gabby