Lydia Canceled Her Own Proposal

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
That's Mojo in the morning Mojo on the Morning Show.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Lydia has come in for this next topic here right now,
speaking of our More Mojo podcast that we talk about
all the time, the Act Show podcast. Something was brought
up on this podcast that we never got a chance
to discuss on the radio. You might have heard a
couple of weeks ago Lydia discuss how she almost got

(00:25):
married and I actually literally had to have her dad
step in to stop it.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
What's the story, Lydia.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Okay, so a couple of years back, I'm talking like
when I was twenty one twenty two ish, I was
in a really serious relationship and I was promised to
this guy. So when you're promised in the Kaldian culture,
that means you introduce each other to your families, you
can post them on social media, and you can get
really serious with somebody.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
And for those who don't know what a Caldean is,
we talk about them all the time, but if you're
outside of the Detroit area, they are an Iraqi Catholic.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Yes, so he wanted to propose to me, and I
knew this was coming because we had been promised for
about a year and a half. Two years at this point,
and a thing that him and my dad would do
is they would go out to breakfast together. And I
knew at this certain breakfast that something was coming because
he had been telling me he wanted to talk to
my dad, and so I was prepared for it. And

(01:24):
I told my dad before he was going out to
breakfast with him that I felt like this proposal was coming,
and I don't think that I was ready for it,
and I didn't think that this guy was my person.
And so my dad ended up going to the breakfast
and he did ask for my hand in marriage, and
my dad told him no.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
It's still such a crazy story to me. The whole thing, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Which if you didn't have the relationship that you had
with your dad, would most dads do that for their
daughters or would they would they go, you know, try
to talk you into it.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
I think I would just tell.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Them to grow up, which is kind of a valid reason,
like girl.

Speaker 5 (01:59):
Guys, do it your For people who didn't listen to
the more Mojo podcast about this, And I don't remember
what it's named.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
Is it called Lydia was Promised or something?

Speaker 5 (02:07):
Just if you if you go back, it's the title
is something of that to that nuture. But is it
your mom and your dad who picked out this guy
for you to date in the first place, or was
this You're like, you met this guy on your own.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
I met him through a cousin who was also dating
his cousin, so we had met through basically family in
a sense. But it wasn't pre arranged.

Speaker 6 (02:34):
Attle.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
My parents are very open with whoever I want to
be with or mary or eventually end up with. It
just so happened to be a Kaldian thing and that's
how we do things.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
So it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
We wanted to bring this to the air because I
wanted to ask listeners to participate and ask you the question,
has that ever happened? Has anybody ever been promised to
somebody like done this same tradition, because I'm assuming this
is a tradition that happens in your culture. But also,
you know, how does this happen? Because I would like
to promise Megan to Steve Goubarro for I think.

Speaker 6 (03:07):
That you guys can do that. So I think you
got to take my dad out to breakfast first.

Speaker 7 (03:11):
Just so I'm clear, you just try to auction me
off as a bride.

Speaker 6 (03:14):
Why not?

Speaker 7 (03:14):
I thought you were a girl's girl.

Speaker 6 (03:17):
See a goborrow, You'll be fine.

Speaker 5 (03:18):
But also fascinating to me is people who ask for
the dad's blessing or whatever and are told no.

Speaker 6 (03:25):
Especially when he was close with my dad.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
I think that was kind of a hard thing for
my dad to do, which, yeah, I mean he had
to do it.

Speaker 6 (03:31):
It's daughter over boyfriend.

Speaker 8 (03:33):
Yes, artole situations within the community where you're promised and
the promise is actually a guarantee, and say, for example,
you don't really like the guy, but your dad has
already promised you do you have to go along with it.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
I think it depends on the family. I would say
nowadays no, but beforehand yes, And that's why I think
a lot of those engagements and marriages ended in divorce.
Even now I'm seeing pre paron es with cousins who
are now flash forward divorce after twenty to thirty years
because they really didn't want to marry that person.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, what's happening?

Speaker 9 (04:09):
Uh Hannah, Hi, guys, how are you good?

Speaker 1 (04:12):
What's going on?

Speaker 10 (04:14):
So we're Albanian and not for me so much, but
my older sisters we would go to church on Sundays
and that would be like where the guys would look
for women and they would make a comment or you know,
tell my dad and then they would say, okay, we
want to send a man to come and look at
your daughter at home. So my dad was really close

(04:34):
with us. And you would say, hey, listen, there's so
and so interested. You know, do you guys want him
to come and have a coffee, And my sister would
either say yes or no. So it was never pressure,
but it was always like it was just crazy.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
It's like, can I be honest, It almost seems like you're,
you know, selling a car or something like that.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Is it awkward?

Speaker 10 (04:53):
It is. But at the same time, at least they
didn't pressure us, like my dad gave us that choice
of yes or no.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
You know, it's wild because I know that, you know,
the Albanian community, like the Kaldean community, everybody seems to
know each other too, right.

Speaker 10 (05:05):
Oh yeah, and then sometimes you have dads that are
like they don't give you that choice. You know, my
uncle married off his daughter and she had no choice.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Wait, you mean that if she she didn't want to
get married, but your uncle made your.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Cousin do this?

Speaker 10 (05:19):
Well yeah, like not I feel like it's so bad
saying that, But yeah, I guess, you know, like he
he told her like he's a good family, he's a
good man, this will be a good life for you.
And you know she didn't fight her dad on it,
and they do. They have a good life, you know.
But you learn to love someone and I think that's
I don't know, it's crazy, but that is wild.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
By the way, there's a lot of people that do
dating apps that wish that they had this.

Speaker 10 (05:42):
Probably arrange the marriage for Hey, we're going to arrange
a marriage for Megan Magne. We're getting you girl.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
I'm telling you. Who do you think who would be a.

Speaker 10 (05:49):
Good choice for mean guy?

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (05:54):
Megan, We're a good Albanian girl.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Oh, thank you the call. Appreciate it. Take care of yourself.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
When when Lydia was talking about this, I you know,
she told stories about this guy and why you didn't
want to do it, and.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
You want to tell the listeners a little bit about that.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
What was it that you said in that podcast, which
it is, by the way, Shandon entitled that Lydia was promised.

Speaker 6 (06:17):
He had a really bad hygiene.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
That was one of the big reasons, Like he didn't
brush his teeth, didn't shower, didn't really change his clothes
that often, and the good morning text would have to
be followed by hey did you brush your teeth?

Speaker 6 (06:28):
Hey did this morning?

Speaker 11 (06:30):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Isn't that crazy?

Speaker 9 (06:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (06:32):
And also his mom and I didn't get along like
she was very protective over her sons, and specifically this
one because it was her oldest, and I felt like
that just wouldn't work for us because he was very
much so a mama's boy. It wouldn't have gone anywhere.

Speaker 7 (06:47):
Can you be protective over a man that you forgot
to raise? How to brush his teeth?

Speaker 4 (06:51):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (06:51):
She would justify everything.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
Anything that he would do or what I would say,
she would justify it and say that I was wrong.
And if I were to marry into this family, I
would have to accept the way that he is in
the way that they are.

Speaker 8 (07:01):
Question for you, now, it doesn't have to be specific
to you.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Don't feel pressured. Make this more of a generic thing.

Speaker 8 (07:08):
Typically, when girls are promised to guys, are they virgins?

Speaker 6 (07:16):
I don't think so. Okay, I don't think all of them.

Speaker 8 (07:18):
If your promise at that point, are you able to
have sex or Nope?

Speaker 3 (07:24):
You have to wait until the day's the wedding. Well
according to the families. I mean, but the girls and
the guys do it anyway.

Speaker 8 (07:31):
Is it typical that you get repromised, like the promise
didn't work this time?

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Do you get promised to somebody else?

Speaker 5 (07:37):
Or you can get repromised because you'll you'll you'll eventually
get repromised if it's oh yeah, if it's a Keldyan
man that you start dating.

Speaker 6 (07:44):
There's Keldyan's listening. I will for the promising.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
So the mom and the dad and that come to
the girl's house like the bride's house to be, and
they shower her with like you know, gold or money
or flowers like whatever.

Speaker 6 (08:02):
And you can get a ring or you can't. I
mean I got a ring.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
We didn't do a crazy tanatha like we were in
dresses and stuff. It was just like a brunch that.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
We had in my house. Can you invite friends? Like
would we be invited to something?

Speaker 3 (08:12):
You can for sure come? He didn't get the ring back, No,
I just tossed it.

Speaker 11 (08:18):
Do you find that there's a shift in the culture
at all, Yeah, that like it is progressing towards more
of a.

Speaker 7 (08:27):
People having relations before marriage.

Speaker 11 (08:30):
Or whatever, like, do you think that's actually happening most definitely?

Speaker 4 (08:34):
Or what about Chaldeans marrying outside of the culture.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
I love that because that's happening a lot more too.
And I I love that people are allowed to love
who they love more so now than ever in our culture.

Speaker 8 (08:46):
I love that for us because it's some fun ass Kaldians,
open the dawn, bro.

Speaker 11 (08:53):
It's becoming Do you think it's becoming more like we're dating?

Speaker 7 (08:57):
I want to get engaged. I'll ask that, I'll be
prompt and we'll get engaged.

Speaker 11 (09:00):
Dada, YadA, YadA, versus the arranged marriages or are those
so pretty common?

Speaker 3 (09:05):
I don't think arranged marriages are as common as they
were before.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
By the way, I just think that this is interesting
because of the process of dating sucks so bad. Like
if you look at this, like, I know this sounds
weird to say this, but when I hear the miserables
people that are out there on these dating aps, I'm
like going, well, who knows you better than your parents?

(09:30):
Like before in the past, I would think that this
was so archaic and crazy. Now I'd go this would
be like so much nicer.

Speaker 11 (09:36):
Oh my god. No, it depends on your parents. That's
really so specific to your parents.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
God would be fantastic picking at.

Speaker 7 (09:43):
Your absolutely not. I love that man. He is the
best father in the entire world.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
I know. No, Nicole, what's up?

Speaker 6 (09:52):
Hey?

Speaker 1 (09:52):
How are you good? What's going on?

Speaker 9 (09:55):
I just wanted to call and say that I'm forty
three years old and still the black sheeps in my
family because I refused to find the contract that all
of my sisters, cousins, friends, everyone signed with their dads,
basically saying that they wouldn't date anyone that didn't come

(10:15):
to him first. If anyone ever showed an interest, they
had to go and after it just to date. And
then once you were like entered into that what they
called it courtship, you were basically kind of promised to
be engaged or married or whatever like the Duggers.

Speaker 5 (10:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, do you is there a stigma for
being unmarried still?

Speaker 9 (10:42):
Well?

Speaker 7 (10:43):
Is there a stigma in the culture for being unmarried?

Speaker 6 (10:45):
Still?

Speaker 10 (10:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (10:48):
I would say I think probably the biggest problem is that,
for the most part, women are raised to be married
and to have a family. So if that doesn't happen,
what else do you do with your life?

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Well, and then the people. I've noticed this with Mi
Caldan friends. If there's a woman who's not married and she's,
you know, in her forties, people look at you like, oh,
what was she doing or what was going on? And honestly,
it's very very sad that people do that.

Speaker 6 (11:19):
I think I'm getting into right now.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
What you mean why because you're only twenty.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
I'm twenty six, said, but all my cousins who are
younger than twenty six, except for one or two, have
on their person and are engaged or married.

Speaker 9 (11:30):
Please do not reach me the longest. I didn't get
married until I was almost thirty, and it was everybody
else was married in their early twenties, and I was saying,
oh no, what did I do? I made the right choice.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
One of our sales reps who singles, just sent me
a text message and says, someone needs to promise me already.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
We should do by the.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Way, we should do a ceremony and we'll promise Lydia
to to one of our Kaldian guy listeners that listening.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
Political now.

Speaker 6 (12:09):
All right, only if you do that one sound that
you do.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
I've already tried to promise you to my luke.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
One of Luke and my buddies Noble but he's got
a girlfriend, so unfortunately, well or fortunately friend Jane Lyddy,
I know right, you.

Speaker 6 (12:27):
Want to know what I'm gooding for Christmas?

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Fat. I'm getting fat.

Speaker 4 (12:31):
Merry Christmas from Mojo in the morning.