Wanting the Wedding, Not the Marriage

You've probably heard by now that Dr. Laura is taking her program to subscription satellite radio and planning to make some changes to it. It should be interesting as she feels less pressure to be politically correct.

Anyway, I have subscribed to her website and so I get to download every second of her show – at leat what they want to put online. Her infamous n-word call (for which she has duly apologized) didn't make it to the website. But that kind of editing is rare.

Because I hear every call, I got to hear the one she wrote about in this blog entry, "Girlfriends Compete Over Wedding Days".

Well, my caller told me she was engaged and planning a wedding, and her friend is also engaged and planning a wedding....and the friend's wedding is happening sooner than hers.

"SHE STOLE MY THUNDER," my caller said.

What? The triviality with which this young woman saw "friendship" and "marital vows" was astounding. I gasped and said that her friend's wedding - nor any other event in the world - could steal any thunder, as it was not about thunder. It was about lifelong vows in front of God, family and community to love, honor, and cherish 'til death do you part.

Too many people, women especially, want the wedding. They don't think enough about the marriage, nor do all of them really want a marriage.

She hung up on me.

I don't blame her. I was hoping she was ferociously ashamed of using a man who loved her with vows of love, loyalty and fidelity as a "win" over a girlfriend. Yeesh!

My heart goes out to this guy, who will probably have to get her pregnant before her friend and get the new car and house before her friend does. He won't be measured by his character and warmth -- he'll be measured by how much and how fast he gets her to trump her "friend."

Yeah, it's rather scary. Hopefully, he or someone he knew heard the call or he’s seeing the red flags. Getting married is one of the biggest decisions anyone can make, and it is personally catastrophic if you marry the wrong person. Who knows how much money this guy is or his parents are spending on the wedding? How much alimony will she get when she divorces him? And more importantly, what will it do to him emotionally? Hopefully, she will mature and change her attitude before they have any kids.

My wife's sister was engaged to be married before we were engaged, but we had our wedding before she had her wedding. We didn't tell them to have a long engagement, which they did, but we did have what I would consider a short engagement. My wife was a virgin when we married, and her sister was shacking up with her man. Those facts probably had something to do with the length of the engagements and timing of the weddings. It was a bit of an issue with her sister (who is younger) that we got married first, but nothing along the lines of the caller.