Dolly Parton Used to Take It Personally That Her Husband Wasn’t Romantic
Dolly Parton’s public image is all rhinestoned glitz, everything her husband, Carl Dean, is not. In their private lives, Parton and Dean, who have been married since 1966, are also quite different. She said that his idea of romance used to bother her. She shared why she began to think differently about this.
Dolly Parton said her husband’s idea of romance used to bother her
In the years Parton and Dean have been married, she has realized that there are some ways in which he is not very romantic. Valentine’s Day, for example, hardly registers for him.
“Carl is not romantic in the way that some men are. Actually, he’s cheap,” she wrote in her book Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. “He’s the kind who’ll go to a drugstore on Valentine’s Day and get two boxes of candy. He’ll give one to me without a card and say, ‘Well, here.’ The other one he’ll put in the freezer for next year, just in case he might forget.”
This once bothered her, but she has learned to let go of any resentment.
“I used to take this personally,” she wrote. “But I don’t anymore.”
She explained that she realized he could be sweetly romantic in other ways.
Dolly Parton realized her husband could be incredibly romantic
While Dean doesn’t go for extravagant Valentine’s Day gifts, he proves to Parton that he’s always thinking about her.
“Carl is also the same person who will pick the first spring flowers and put them in a jar and place them in my music room with a little poem written just for me,” she wrote. “And sometimes he’ll write a song or even paint me a picture now and then. These things can make up for anything.”
He has also splashed out on expensive presents for her. Parton loves to cook, so he bought her a new stove for Christmas one year.
She shared his method of proposing to her
Dean dramatically introduced Parton to his mother as the girl he was going to marry after a very short period of dating. His method of proposing was less declarative, though.
“He was working with his father in his asphalt-paving business in South Nashville and I was living in Madison, Tennessee,” Parton wrote. “Between that and the time he spent with me, he wasn’t getting any sleep at all. Finally, one day he said, quite matter-of-factly, ‘You’re either gonna have to move to the other side of town or we’re gonna have to get married.’ That, to Carl, was a proposal.”
At this point, she said, he hadn’t even told her he loved her.
“People always want to know how he asked me to marry him, and I always have to say, ‘He didn’t exactly ask,’” she wrote. “Part of me was thrilled that he wanted to marry me, but another part was a little taken aback. That must have been the strongest part because that was the one that answered. ‘You haven’t even said you loved me.’ ‘Hell, you know I love you,’ was Carl’s answer.”
The couple married in 1966 and have been happily together ever since.
