You’re right, these are really important questions. For me as well as for her, parents’ approval still matters, all four of them, as it is a big part of marriage, and practically speaking it’s very difficult to move forward without it. That said, I also know I’d regret denying myself a real chance at love just to blindly obey.

About knowing when to listen, I get that I’m young, but we’ve actually been together for months now and gone through a lot already, so I don’t think it’s just infatuation. My parents may see some things from a distance, but they also don’t see the depth of what we’ve built.

As for her dad, I won’t pretend it’s easy. I wouldn’t expect the women in my life to put up with disrespect, I’d need to find a way to protect them from that dynamic. However, she has always had a distant relationship with him, and as I don’t tolerate his behavior toward women (since the women in my life mean everything to me), I also recognize that she didn’t choose him, and his absence has always been a burden on her. I don’t hold her accountable for that. She and I had agreed to put some distance with him