We are 52 & 50 and had been married 29 and 28 years before. He was divorced & I was widowed. He had experienced some really bad encounters from secular online dating sites and so he had joined Christian Mingle with hopes of finding a higher level of honesty and integrity and a true Christian rather than one who only spoke the right words.
I had almost married a man from Canada whom I met on another Christian site 1 1/2 years ago, but in reality, we never even met, and it left me wary of allowing myself to get so emotionally involved before actually meeting someone.
Therefore, I had kept my searches close to home, although in my rural area, I never even found anyone closer than 4 hours away! I had considered moving back to OK where my family is, so one day I did a search in that area, and read Steve’s profile, but didn’t contact him because of the distance. A couple days later he messaged me, and after 3 months I had a notebook 3″ thick full of emails. For a full 2 months there was almost no romantic exchange between us at all. It was just getting acquainted, sharing what was important to us, establishing common foundations and beliefs and most of all our faith in God, and even sharing the mundane details of our everyday lives.
One day I re-read Steve’s profile and discovered he had added a line about just being at Christian Mingle for friendship but that he wasn’t looking for a romantic connection. I was surprised to discover I felt crushed and terribly disappointed. I wrote him a note and told him I was a little embarrassed and felt a little foolish because I had been analyzing our exchanges thinking that we were working toward the possibility of something more than friendship. I told him I really didn’t have time for pen-pals, so I was going to bow out and say good-bye before I made a bigger fool of myself. I thanked him for blessing my life and hoped I had blessed his, as well, and told him I’d check up on him at the message board where he was a regular contributor.
The next day I got a 1-line response: “I wrote what I did in my profile BECAUSE I was talking with you and wished no other person to talk to.”
That little exchange made us both realize just how much we had come to like the other and how much we would hate to lose that relationship. For the next 6 weeks, the relationship progressed quickly, and even though we were separated by 1145 miles, we both felt that we had found the love of our lives.
We talked about marriage, emotions, and the future in somewhat abstract terms because we knew there must be a face-to-face confirmation of all we were feeling before those emotions could be fully released. We had told very few people about our relationship because of the possibility of disappointment and of pressure from others.
Steve’s schedule finally allowed him a window of one week to make the 25-hour drive to meet me, and when he arrived at midnight after 48 hours without sleep, I met him at the motel where I had arranged for him to stay, and we stood holding each other at arms length just looking into each other’s eyes for a full minute or more, and then hugged for another 5 minutes or so, saying, “you’re real”, “you really are real”, and we both knew we had the confirmation from God that we needed.
I had to work the next day, but that night we went dancing (at the Sr.Center!!) and while we were dancing, Steve asked me to marry him. I said, “Excuse me?”, but when he repeated the question a second time, I didn’t hesitate to answer “Yes.” The next day we took a hike at the Black Canyon and talked about plans, dreams, goals, children, logistics, etc. The third day we went to the courthouse and got married! Impulsive? Yes, I suppose, and rather out of character for me, but we were both so certain that we saw no reason to wait.
We had one day to celebrate being married and then Steve was going to have to return to Missouri, and my work schedule wouldn’t allow me to take time off for a few weeks. However, the morning he was to leave, he came by the office and we dropped the bombshell on my co-workers that this was my new husband! Shocked would be an understatement! But one of the ladies, whose vacation started the next day, asked if I would like to have her week of vacation so we could go meet each other’s families and have a little honeymoon! There could be no greater wedding gift! We then had 10 days to do just that and all the meetings went really well.
We will have a brief separation now as we tie up some loose ends, but then Steve will join me here in CO until we can sell my house, and then we’ll be moving to his new mountain property in SW Missouri.
Having been married 28 years, the whole thought of dating again was more than a little intimidating, and Christian Mingle gave me the safe place to get acquainted and establish foundations and common ground with a man before the face-to-face chemistry could get in the way of clear thinking.
Yes, chemistry is still VERY much alive and well for us ‘older’ folks, too, and when Steve & I met, the fireworks were there!