There has been a request for a post in which Married readers tell Searching Singles how we met our husbands. I apologize if there is already a post like this because although it is a fun idea, this is a Singles blog after all.
At parties I don't like being asked where I met my husband because both "through friends" and "over the internet" sound too vague, although both are true. I prefer to say, "I'm a writer, and Benedict Ambrose wrote to me after reading my stuff" although that sounds a bit precious.
The truth of the matter is that I was in Canada talking to Aelianus of Laodicea in England over Skype while scrolling through his Facebook friends, saying, "Come on, Aelianus, who do you got for me?" when Aelianus said, "How would you like to live in a Historical House?"
And this was the first time ever I heard about B.A. Come to think of it, that would make a nice story for strangers at parties. I don't care if they think I sold myself for Georgian architecture. Georgian architecture is very soothing to the soul.
So today the few married lady and widowed readers are encouraged to chime in and explain how and where you met your husbands. (Maybe the engaged readers could also chime in to explain how and where you met your fiances.) If it was at college, and it so often is for those who marry young, say where at college, e.g. in the chorus of "The Mikado" in the Dramatic Society or at after-Mass tea with Cath Soc.
22 comments:
Full disclosure: I am not married, but I know several good Catholic women who have married within the last five years and it's been a wonderful testament to me that I, at whatever age, could meet a man to make a good marriage with at any time. All were in [urban Northern city]. There are also probably several more engagements, but no space to list them all...
Couples 1 - 3: Scripture study at most reverent NO shrine I've ever been to (between 25-30)
Couples 4-5: Catholic Young Adult group at otherwise secular university (almost 30)
Couples 6 & 7: Wife 6 met her man on secular dating web site, and he is a really decent Catholic with sparkly blue eyes and knack for building things. So she gifts her lifetime subscription to friend, who then meets herhusband off same site. Don't recall whom she gifted her subscription to... (30+)
Couple 8: through serving on various ministries at more liberal, but definitely intellectual NO parish near "Catholic" university (30+)
Couple 9: foreign language meet-up group (language of traditionally and culturally Catholic country). Despite not being entirely active in the faith of his Baptism...he waited. (practically 40).
So rather than "when one door closes, God opens a window," I like to look at it as, "Why don't I just open all the windows and doors first" to more easily give Him access to work with me. :)
I met my husband at a Catholic university. Well, he was in law school and I was a lowly undergraduate. He read the news for the college radio station and I, being fairly hip, was friends with the station manager and various radio hangers-on. His reputation preceded him. My friends kept saying "This guy's amazing!" I think it was because he was a Southern gentleman with very formal manners, which surprised and delighted my Yankee friends (an Yankee me). Anyway, we met at lunch in the graduate dining room. He had, I believe, pizza, and I had taco salad. We were both in not so good relationships, though, so we were friends for several years. I guess you could say that we met through friends, and friends certainly helped pave the way. When he actually began pursuing me we worked together in a Catholic bookstore, and he had a weekly poker night in his apartment to which lots of people were invited. One thing led to another, and after a little while of showing interest and flirting, he asked me for a date. It was to a gun range (excellent date, by the way). the next was to a concert.
Eight years later we're married with two children. And not a single Theology of the Body discussion while we dated!
Two years ago, our church was holding its Ash Wednesday service in the evening, and I was fairly involved in the service (in a quartet which chanted the litany as well as several anthems and such). I wanted to get to a daytime service, if I could, where I could just go to the service and not have to worry about all that.
At that time I was living practically across the street from my church's sister-parish, and I knew that they had a seven am eucharist on Wednesdays. So I got up early and went, and as it happened, the handsome young man sitting directly ahead of me was the man I would later marry. After service the whole group went out for breakfast at a local diner, and we introduced ourselves on the way over.
Ash Wednesday was in early March that year. We started dating in late June, got engaged in early September, and were married by the end of March. (I was 25; he was 30)
I was reffered to this blog by a fellow parishoner and so far have loved it. The most recent couple I know who have married (early 30's) met in university during Frosh week. They were both leaders of the daytime activities. I know the CSW was saving herself I can't say for the CSM. He was interested in her and she at first wasn't to fond of him! I also know a couple (soon to be engaged) who met volunteering at our parish. It is great to see there is a place for single catholic women to bond and share experiences. I really enjoy reading all of the articles available on your blog :)
My husband and I met through a mutual friend in our first year. I could tell he was interested (or at least intrigued), but I was facing male-interest fatigue and gave him the cold shoulder. (I have never been so bombarded with messages of "you could meet your future spouse!" as I was in my first term of University. The first year pairing-off frenzy meant increased male attention... which fizzled out as everyone came back down to earth.)
We kept in vague contact through the very occasional times where we bumped into each other on campus and a little bit through Facebook (which was just becoming a thing). And then in my last year, we both happened to attend a Ceilidh at the same time. I'd been going fairly regularly with friends and I think he was going only occasionally. He came right over and re-introduced himself to me and a few of my friends that he knew through swing dancing. And later in the evening, he asked me to dance the waltz. Then he joined our group on the bus home and walked with me (in that group) until our paths split. I started going to swing dancing and we saw each other there occasionally. He started attending an evening church service that he knew I went to regularly. He asked me to lunch, and then lunch again, and dinner several times, and invited me to a couple of parties he hosted... And then he moved across the country for a term, but kept in touch with me... And then he came back and the rest is history. He really did take the lead as we dated, got engaged, married, etc. :)
A lot of my protestant friends met their husbands/wives working as camp counselors at christian camps in their early 20s. They all love kids and the close working conditions and separation from other friends and their families didn't hurt either.
I met my husband when we were both in divinity school. We were in class together for the first time and I had also started attending a midday prayer group of which he was a part. I was intrigued, but he initiated the conversation. We started having coffees and long talks about theology (not of the body--although we did meet in a class about 'sexuality: theology, ethics, and pastoral practice'). I realized right away that I had better call off a coffee date I had agreed to with someone else. Then we started going on dates, i.e., dinner, church/lunch, a few movies, going to gym, etc. To be honest, though, we mostly hung out and studied together. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this for younger women (i.e., college), as it could be ambiguous, although it wasn't for us.
I met my husband on match.com of all places. I know it sounds unromantic, and even un-Catholic, but it was the loveliest way to meet in so many ways. I look back on it and am so grateful for the way that my husband and I met. I was fed up with meeting men with all kinds of issues at Catholic events. It was so discouraging. I felt like it would take a miracle to ever get me to the altar. A friend of mine (who married a little later in life as I did, in her mid to late 30's) said something to me that really made me think. All my life I had thought that God would just provide a spouse, that I wouldn't have to do anything. My friend said to me that God helps those who help themselves, and then she explained that that is why she had joined a dating agency in the early 90s (before internet dating was available). Ultimately she met her husband through ordinary means (a friend set her up at a barbeque party). But what she told me really resonated with me. Those words were meant for me! And so in 2001 I joined Match.com. I had just bought my first laptop computer, and Match.com was just becoming known. I did not want to join Ave Maria as I was running away from that circle of people, which even though I lived in a major city, was still very small since I wanted to date locally (I was definitely not running away from my faith though). I perused the men on Match.com and I found one that seemed appealing. He said that he was Catholic, and that he was a nice guy that liked to mow his lawn. I thought that was so funny! I sent a short sweet message that said something like "you do seem like a nice guy, and we have a lot in common". Honestly I was not expecting much, but he wrote back, and we corresponded for a month. I love to write, and so this was perfect for me. We did not talk on the phone, we just wrote back and forth. He was not over-eager, but he was so sweet. He would wait about two days to write back, which was great. I did not feel smothered. I could tell he really liked me. As for me, I was corresponding with multiple other men, and so I was not too caught up in our budding relationship. Finally we met for drinks and appetizers one Friday Night. It was the Friday after Christmas. Again it was clear to me that he reallly liked me! I was not sure how I felt, but he was so very sweet. He was such a gentleman. I decided to give him a chance. Eventually I realized he was a keeper, and the rest is history. I don't know what Match.com is like these days, but my husband is a faithful Catholic. He is a good man and I really feel blessed. We have two daughters; I wish with all my heart that we had one more, but I am grateful and accepting of what God has chosen for me. I would not have met my husband in any other way. We lived an hour apart, and he was very busy working long hours as an attorney and trying to establish his practice. He had already bought a house, before he even knew me, in the hopes of having a family in that town. I hope my story gives all of you hope. I still to this day look back and think it is a miracle that I got married. I am eternally grateful for the gift of marriage, and there is every reason for all of you to have hope. If God places that desire in your heart, it is there for a reason. - Lisa -
As a matter of fact, I think anyone in the English-speaking world has as reasonable (if not better)chance of meeting a nice Catholic guy on a local, big-name dating site as on any of the Catholic ones. I have occasionally reflected that if I were living in Britain, and hadn't met B.A., and wanted to be that proactive, I would give the ginger (redhead) website a try.
I met my fiance at a Communion and Liberation meeting, but there was a story behind this:
1. In high school I started a Catholic blog (Basia Me, Catholica Sum).
2. Some guy left an obnoxious comment on the blog.
3. Eventually we became internet friends, and exchanged many letters about literature and the writing life.
4. He told me he had some friends in my city, and encouraged my interest in them (and in the C&L movement). I went to a C&L meeting, and met my fiance, who had been friends with my internet pal since high school. He asked me on a date, and behold, we will be married in April.
Seraphic, Elizabeth Bennett didn't fall in love with her man till she saw his house . . . just sayin'. :D
Ladies, thank you all for sharing your stories with us. It was such a joy to read them and has given me a great boost of hope. I especially like the way so many people were simply living out their faith when they met their future spouse.
To add another secondhand story, my flatmate just married a lovely Catholic, family man in October. He was a longtime friend of a work colleague and they met when she joined colleagues for a drink after work on a Friday night.
If I could hit 'Like' on healthily sanguine's 21:48 comment, I would.
My husband and I met at work.
He was the only Catholic among many Protestants, one of whom was me. The electricity got knocked out by an immense windstorm one afternoon, leaving the entire operation sitting around waiting for the computers to come back on. I summoned up my courage, marched over to his desk, plopped myself down on it, and asked him to explain Catholicism to me.
I had some little hope that the pickup line might be successful. My own conversion was much more than I'd bargained for, however. ;)
I met my husband in college in a class on 20th Century Catholic thinkers. (Yes, we talked a lot about the Theology of the Body in the class.) One day I made a comment critical to homeschooling (I was homeschooled) and he emailed me saying that he'd always wondered about that danger of homeschooling. We started emailing about class and I suggested that we study Latin together after the semester was over because I didn't want to lose contact with him. About a year after we met, we started dating officially.
Both my recently married friends found their husbands on E-Harmony. The Catholic found a fellow Catholic and the mainstream Protestant found another mainstream Protestant.
Here is the story of how I met my fiance-we will be married in June. We have a dinner group that meets a different peoples houses every few weeks. It is mostly Catholic or otherwise like-minded people getting together. That fateful day we were having dinner at my house and he was delivering furniture with a friend of mine for the Saint Vincent de Paul society at their parish to someone in need. After they made the delivery, my friend invited him to join us for dinner, and so he showed up on my door step and I didn't even see it coming. Waited for years (I am 35) and God did bring him to me.
Catholic Pen, that is a particularly beautiful story! Sometimes Mr Right just arrives on one's doorstep. And that's sort of how my dad met my mum.
I met my husband at a Catholic college (seriously, a great place to meet a spouse! the downside being that you will both have so much debt and so few marketable skills that you will be poor forever). We were both early birds at the poorly-attended dining-hall breakfast. I found him interesting and followed him to his next class to talk to him a bit more. Took years to get much further than that, but I did.
Ironically, he no longer eats breakfast and I no longer rise before eight if I have a choice. Luckily we had many other things in common besides that.
My husband and I were at the end of our senior year of high school, both still 17. We happened to both get invited to a scholarship competition at a particular Catholic university. We happened to approach the same presenter the first night to ask questions and ended up talking to each other, and then the next day we were placed in the same small group for both group activities, even though the rest of the people in each small group were different.
He thought I talked too much. I thought he was really weird but also funny. (The only thing I remember is a funny anecdote he shared about his brother, which sounds a little weird now that I think about it. For the record, I'm not the least bit attracted to his brother, though I still find him hilarious.)
That fall, one of our mutual acquaintances from the competition arranged a "reunion" of the scholarship competitors who had gone on to actually attend the college. The three of us (two girls, one guy) ended up being the only ones there. We talked for several hours. A few weeks later, university admins arranged an official reunion. More people came to that, but the three of us aforementioned somehow ended up breaking off together and talking outside the girls dorm until midnight.
After that, Future Husband and I were actually friends. We started dating a little more than a year after we met, got engaged a little more than 3 years after that (we were students; do we get a dispensation?) and got married 5.5 months after we got engaged. Mutual Scholarship Friend flew from California to Ohio to attend our wedding.
I probably lose points in the "encouraging older singles" category for getting married at 22, but you did say we could chime in.
Thanks Seraphic! Also thanks for the invitation to write it down. Somehow putting the story of how we met into words helped me see God's hand in it even more clearly :) In addition, the following months after we met, I did follow much of your advice leading into the start of our relationship. I was not much of a "dater" before him, and it helped to have a little wise guidance along the road to marrying Mr. Right.
Thank you, Ladies! I love hearing about how people have met! I have been debating going on a dating website and just might change my mind...
I was working a summer job and getting hit on by an annoying fellow employee (11 years my senior, which is a rather big deal when you are 17 and fresh out of high school). To avoid his phone calls (no cell phones in those olden days), I accepted my older brother's invitation to "come over to my friend's house and watch the football game." My future husband was the friend. We've been married 26 years.
Thanks, annoying elderly co-worker!
Another blog I read has an ongoing guest post series called "This is How We Met" that might be of interest to some of you: www.leighkramer.com/blog/2012/01/this-is-how-we-met-a-new-series.html
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