The Forums Gave Meg Hope, And Led Her to Jim

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In November 2012, after the end of her 24-year marriage, Meg joined

 in the future should I get the annulment," says the 58-year-old from Kansas City, MO. “I wanted to believe that there were good men out there, but I didn’t know where else to find them.”

Meg became active in the forums, and she made many friends, both male and female. “Those people on the forums are people I have never met or talked to on the phone, but I will love and cherish them forever. The gentlemen on there renewed my faith in males. They gave me hope. I could see the possibility of good marriage for me in the future.”

First, comes the forums...

In May of 2015, Meg discovered that a gentleman named Jim—who wrote such interesting posts on the forums—was the very same person who had earlier liked several of her photos.  She sent him a short message. “From there, the conversation took off and I don’t think we have ever stopped talking,” she says. “We’re both into psychology, behavior, and self-improvement, so we talked for hours about emotion and feelings.”

At first, Meg only considered Jim a friend whom she had great conversations with. She hadn’t realized how attached she was becoming until one morning Jim failed to send her a message.  “I would get up every morning and the first thing I would do was to look for the morning message from him.  It was that constancy that I began to rely on; it was so reassuring.

One morning, he didn’t message me for some reason. I remember being so upset; I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, there goes another one. I can’t depend on men.’ He messaged that afternoon and from then on, he has never missed a morning message.  I started to realize that I really looked forward to our conversations and that I liked him as more than just a friend.”

Then (eventually) comes the meeting

Though Meg and Jim met online in May of 2015, they didn’t end up seeing each other in person until August of that year because Meg spent most of the summer at the bedside of her dying mother. It was during this time that Meg and Jim really bonded. “Jim is a widower, so our friendship took off with talking about my mother and his experiences with taking care of his ailing wife for years.  He was a super good friend as I was going through the emotions of watching my mother pass away.”

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Jim began his CatholicMatch journey in November of 2013. “sometime after my dear wife went home to Jesus, it became apparent to me that I wanted to be married again. It was important to me that she be Catholic,” explains the 61-year-old from Cincinnati, Ohio.

Despite their very different personalities, Jim found himself extremely attracted to Meg because of her strong lifelong faith, her desire to grow in holiness, her upbeat way of looking at things, and of course her smile.

“Plus it became obvious to both of us that we could share pretty much anything with the other. There was an almost instant ease and connection. I have to say that I wasn't necessarily looking for fireworks and such, but just a good solid companion to share my life with,” he says.

“If you've ever seen the movie Up, Meg is sort of an 'Ellie'—the adventurer—where I am more of a 'Carl', a bit shy etc. Meg's exuberance catches me up and carries me with it sometimes. Other times I just smile listening to her share and dream—like Carl lying on the hilltop.”

First touch at the Sign of Peace

They decided that they would meet halfway in St. Louis, MO, on Friday, August 14th, 2015 at a noon Mass at St. Joseph’s Church. Both of them had a strong devotion to St. Joseph, so it seems perfect that their first meeting would be at a Catholic Church bearing his name.

There was a little anxiety beforehand because they had waited so long to meet in person. Meg especially worried about what would happen if they discovered, when they met, that there wasn’t any chemistry.  They had already invested so much time and emotion in their relationship. “For example, in July, we talked for 14 hours straight on the phone. We just loved to talk to each other,” she says.

Jim had told Meg that he would arrive early and that he would sit on the right side of the church in the front. “I walked in and I saw him leaning over his missal getting ready for Mass. I genuflected, and then I went into the pew. I’ll never forget the enquiring look he gave me. He had this little smile, and he nodded his head. I remember shaking during all of Mass. Here was this very dear friend, and I was finally seeing him in person,” she recalls.

At the Sign of Peace they hugged. “I felt a big whoosh; my heart felt so good. By this point, I already had a crush on him.”

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Jim hadn’t expected fireworks, but he got them! After Mass, they went to a restaurant and talked for a couple of hours and then went for a walk. In the evening, they got ready to go dancing. A pretty gutsy thing for Jim to do considering Meg is a ballroom dancer who practices over 16 hours a week. “It was a bit tough on me—knowing only one kind of dance and her knowing so much more—but we had a good time.”

They spent the rest of the weekend sightseeing, and they closed their stay by attending Mass at the Shrine of St Joseph again before parting ways. “I think pretty much from that point on I knew that I wanted to marry her—if she would have me,” recalls Jim.

When they parted, it was somewhat traumatic for Meg. "That weekend was kind of surreal. After I got back to KC, I thought maybe I made all of this up." Luckily, Meg could talk about her fears and concerns with Jim, and he was able to help her through them. "I stopped looking for the smoking gun," she recalls.

Jim was willing to move for Meg

Meg and Jim would see each other every three to four weeks, and the relationship was getting serious. The problem was that they lived over nine hours apart, and they knew that one of them would have to move.

“When I joined CatholicMatch, I put on my profile that I was willing to relocate, but I hadn’t really considered that statement. I had built a wonderful life in KC before we started dating. I didn’t want to move,” Meg recalls.

Moving wouldn’t be easy for Jim either, so when Meg expressed concerns over moving away from KC, he had do some soul searching. “The idea of packing up a house I had lived in for 15 years was quite a challenge for me.”

Even so, he decided he was willing to move from the home. “I desired to move on from my grief. The house, while a fine house that held many memories, wasn't a home anymore—just a place I slept. Should I let the house stand in the way of a happy and blessed life with a wonderful woman? So after much careful thought and prayer, I decided that, yes, I was willing—the relationship was too good not to.”

Meg said no to the first proposal

Jim ended up proposing twice, because the first time he asked, Meg said she wasn’t ready. “When I asked her during a visit to Cincinnati in September, she said she needed a bit more time. She told me, a few days later, that if I had asked her again, she would say yes. With that knowledge, I got the ring, and when she came back to Cincinnati for my niece's wedding in October, I asked her to practice some dances with me (I had been practicing alone mostly). After a couple of dances, I put on a waltz—Anne Murray's Can I Have This Dance—and at the end, I dropped to my knee and asked her again.”

Meg knew that he would be proposing again, but Jim still managed to surprise her. However, she had an even bigger surprise in store for Jim.

A surprising ending

As more time went by, it became apparent to Meg that she should be the one to move. “I could see that it was overwhelming for Jim to list his home and get everything packed up. All of his family is from Cincinnati, and he has never really lived anywhere else. Also, his career in engineering is so specialized that he was concerned whether he would be able to stay in that line of work, so he was considering other jobs.”

When Meg discovered that her company had a big office that was located only 20 miles from Jim’s house, she looked into getting transferred. “He was shocked when I said I would move. I had thought about it for some weeks. I wanted to make sure that I was positive that I could do that before I brought it up,” she says.

Jim had never once asked her to move. “I’m of the philosophy if you keep doing your best and doors shut or if you have to really kick them to get them open, then maybe that’s not God’s will. We both had the mindset that we were dumping the pieces of our lives into God’s lap to sort them out,” she says.

In March of 2016, Meg moved to Ohio to start her new job and to be near Jim. They had a small morning wedding on June 4th, 2016 at St. Andrew's Catholic Church in Kansas City.

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