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[zevabe]

Dad got engaged to his non-jewish girlfriend. They are planning to tie the noose, I mean knot in September of next year. Not exactly unexpected, but still not pleased.

Anyone wishing to say Mazal tov can keep their comments to themselves, thank you.

Comments

[yonihamagid]

My father went through a similar thing with his father. My father has two younger brothers. I believe the youngest had made it to college when my grandfather married a non-Jewish woman. My grandmother had died when my father was in college and his youngest brother was in high school. There was no question of more children. My step-grandmother was a woman who had never married, and I believe both of them were older than your father and his fiance are.

In the end it was about companionship. My grandfather needed someone with him. His wife was dead, his kids were out of the house. He was aging and unable to easily take care of himself. This woman represented stability and someone to lean on. Would my father have preferred someone Jewish for his father? Absolutely. Did that prevent him from regarding this woman with all the respect due her, and his father, as his father's wife? Not at all.

As children, she was Grandma Marcy to us. While we had very little contact with her because we lived in a different state, much less city, I didn't even know she wasn't Jewish until I was an adult. It's not that my parents kept this from me, it's just that it so wasn't an issue, they thought I already knew when it happened to come up in conversation.

I'm not trying to tell you how you should feel about this situation. I recognize that the relative ages of those involved, particularly your future step siblings, make this a very different situation. However, just like your father stopped living your life for you when you left home, you cannot live his life for him. You have every right to disappointment and to make that clear to him, but it would be a terrible shame if you allowed this to damage your relationship to him, and even to her. Live your life as you feel best and recognize that a) not everyone will agree with you as to what is best and b) even those that do, will not always be able or willing to live up to the standards you set for yourself.