By Norris Burkes June 5 2026
I knew I was lucky that Becky accepted my marriage proposal in 1979 — especially given what I once proposed to another woman a few years before that. Becky approved my telling you the story, which was the only reason you were reading this today.
Early in our marriage, Becky and I developed a shorthand for references to past romantic relationships. We called them “Brand X” — borrowed from those old TV commercials promising that some new laundry soap was sparkling clean and far superior to the generic alternative. The nickname stuck.
The following story is about my Brand X.
It was a beautiful fall day at Baylor University. My roommate Roger Williams was chauffeuring X and me back toward campus after my oral surgery. I’d just had my wisdom teeth removed and, apparently, believed I still had plenty of wisdom left.
You’ve seen those videos of people stumbling through the fog of anesthesia, saying things they’d never say sober. This was one of those moments.
According to Roger — who retold this story with added humiliation every single year — I began painting X a vivid picture of my future. I would graduate with honors. Attend seminary. Become, and I quote, “America’s Favorite Chaplain.”
But first, I’d need a wife.
Somewhere on the road between First Baptist Church and Whataburger, I blurted it out.
“X, will you marry me?”
Roger said I gushed. X blushed. Then she said yes.
Roger, for his part, kept interrupting to say, “We need to get him back to the dorm.” Nobody listened.
The next morning, X called to wake me up. Still groggy, I pieced together something about wedding dresses. And her mother. And transferring us both out of “liberal Baylor” into a local Bible college. The conversation hit a wall when my new fiancée mentioned her mother had already located a dermatologist — to ensure a blemish-free wedding day for me.
“Let me get back to you,” I told her.
I hung up. Roger was standing there, foot tapping.
“You’ve got to stop this, Norris,” he said. “If you marry this girl, her mother will be running your life.” He suggested that contracts made under the influence were null and void. He wasn’t a pre-law major, but it sounded right.
So that’s what I told X. Remarkably, she mostly understood. Within the month, our yearlong relationship came to a quiet end.
I was grateful it was a story I could tell with affection. A fairly ordinary college romance, with an extraordinarily poor proposal.
But here’s where the story stopped being just funny.
Some of you were in relationships where “Brand X” wasn’t a punchline — it was your reality. Maybe your spouse bombarded you with daily insults or mind games. Maybe the harm went beyond words.
If that was your situation, I hoped you had someone like Roger in your life. A friend who loved you enough to say the hard thing: this isn’t right, and you deserve better.
Because you did. You are a child of God. You deserved a marriage that was safe and life-giving. If that wasn’t what you had, it may not have been a marriage at all. It may have been abuse — and abuse had a name worth calling out.
Find your Roger. Ask for help. Take the first step toward becoming the new-and-improved version of yourself — and give your partner the chance to do the same.
Roger passed away in 2020. In forty-plus years of friendship, he never let me forget that proposal — and I never wanted him to. He saved me from one bad decision. God handled the rest.
Norris Burkes is a syndicated columnist and retired Air Force chaplain. Read more columns at www.thechaplain.net. Send comments to comment@thechaplain.net or call (843) 608-9715.
