What Your Date's Relationship With Their Parents Can Tell You

In my first blog on this topic, we looked at the importance of understanding how your date treats their parents through recognizing the value of the Fourth Commandment.

This may have come as a surprise to some of you! But, when you examine why, it will make sense.

Your future spouse will also be the parent of your future children.

When dating someone, and discerning marriage, you are also dating the potential future parent of your potential children. If your date is disrespectful to her own parents, do you think that they will have a problem if their own children are disrespectful to them?

Therefore, it is important to consider how your date keeps the Fourth Commandment, as this may also affect the formation of any children you and your date have—should you discern that you are called to marry each other. While this may seem like a lot to consider before you even get engaged, it's definitely something that deserves attention. While your future children may not be in the forefront of your mind right now, they are something to think about if you truly feel called to the vocation of marriage.

So, what should you be looking for?

Does your date roll their eyes at their parents? Disrespect them in public? Treat their parents like a bank or fail to express gratitude for a home-cooked meal or a gift? Does he or she only call home when they need or want something?

Keep in mind, no parents are perfect, and some children may need healthy boundaries for some parents, but abandoning parents isn't an acceptable boundary according to Catholic teaching—just the opposite:  “The fourth commandment reminds grown children of their responsibilities toward their parents. As much as they can, they must give them material and moral support in old age and in times of illness, loneliness, or distress,” reads the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2218.

The Church teaches that the Fourth Commandment has its roots in the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Fear of the Lord. It appears that the Western world ignores this gift of the Spirit, as evidence in its struggles to keep the first three Commandments and, therefore, struggles to keep the fourth. For instance, euthanasia is an example of Western culture failing at the first three Commandments then struggling to keep the fourth. Why bother to honor our earthly father we don't first honor the Heavenly Father? 

Honoring parents can take place in many forms.

Honoring our parents might mean learning to forgive them, listening to their stories, having a cup of coffee with them, making sure they are taken care of in their later years. The call to be obedient to parents ends at the emancipation of the children, but the obligation to respect them never ends, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2217. What that honor looks like will differ from one family to another.

However, when grown children refuse to honor their parents, they pass this attitude on to their children. Parents teach their children by deed that it is ok to dishonor parents. So, when Dad tells Junior to do good and avoid evil, Junior has already learned that it is okay to dishonor Dad and ignore him because honoring parents is not what the family does. In other words, failure to keep the Fourth Commandment in a family might be setting up children and spouses for future failure.

As your relationship grows, pay attention to the other relationships your date has and how they do or don't respect them. Over the course of the whole relationship, pay attention to the parental relationship of your significant other.

If you notice he or she constantly struggles to honor his or her parents, you might need to have some long, and maybe difficult, conversations about the Fourth Commandment with them.