Question 

My 85-year-old father wants to remarry.  He announced his plan to my brother and I about a month ago.  He told us that he met a woman that he loves and he is planning to ask her to marry him. 

Dad was not seeking our approval or our opinion; he was just informing us of his plan.   

We have never met this woman he wants to marry.  He says that he met her at a bar and that they have been seeing each other for a few months.  All we know is that she is divorced, has four children, and is a bit younger than him.  He was quite reluctant to share even that information. 

He puts it as, “I am not getting any younger, so why wait around” sort of decision.  This is coming from a man who never dated for 20 years after our mother died. 

My brother and I are quite surprised.  We know that he does not need our approval, though we wonder what we should say to him. I could use some advice here. 

Answer 

Everyone deserves to be loved and to be happy.  It is what we as humans are striving for, and your father believes that he has found it, maybe. 

The truth is that he is living in the later years of life, statistically speaking, for a male at this point in time.  He is technically correct that he may not have years to make a decision to marry again. 

What is a bit puzzling in this situation is that he has not introduced his girlfriend to you, yet he told you about his plan of asking her to marry.  By bringing it up, he is either seeking your advice or approval, possibly both.   

What you need to do is circle back to your father and have a dialog about marriage after all this time.  He has the right to come to his own decisions, assuming that he is competent.   

This may be a conversation that just one of you has with him so that he does not feel that you are ganging up on him.  You could suggest that he has a similar conversation with your sibling, getting another perspective.   

Let your father know that you are surprised, though happy for him.  Ask him if he is willing to talk about what he is planning.  Since he brought it up to you, I suspect that he is at least somewhat interested in talking about his plans.   

Once you have opened a dialog with him about marriage, you can acknowledge what he said that he is not getting any younger, yet there may be a bit more to consider.  Since a marriage would bring families together, it would be a good idea to meet the family before marrying, and not just once.  Have they met with lawyers to plan how they wish to manage their assets now and after death? How do they plan to merge households?  Have they considered being partners that are not married, at least for a while?  What is driving the urgency now; that has not been there for 20 years?   

Try to find out a bit about the woman he is in love with. Ask him to tell you about her and their story.  The internet is a treasure trove of information about almost anyone these days.  It will not be too difficult to learn about her that way once you know her name and a little bit about her. 

There are some red flags in this relationship, and I believe that he is hoping that you will identify them and help him help himself.  If he was planning a marriage without any input from you, he would not have told you about his plan.  I recommend that you seize the opportunity that he provided by talking to you about it.