Kyle and Kristen, both in their late twenties, had each suffered from heartbreak and let down from failed relationships. Even on CatholicMatch, they weren’t finding true love. Their luck changed the day Kyle got a notice letting him know that Kristen had viewed his profile.
Serving in the Navy, Kyle was deployed to Afghanistan the summer of 2012. “Looking back on it, the deployment was actually one of the best spiritual retreats I have experienced because most of life’s distractions fade away in a place like Afghanistan. I prayed for whatever God’s plan was for me.” After that prayer, he returned to the barracks one day to find Kristen had viewed him. During his time on CatholicMatch, he never searched outside of his set boundaries of 50-100 miles from Norfolk. Kristen was from Memphis, which was hundreds of miles away. “I read a little bit about her and saw her photo. I figured, send her a message—‘Just thought I’d say hi.’ It was a good thing I did because her subscription expired just a few weeks later!”
They exchanged emails and began a long distance relationship. “It could be difficult at times, but it was nice to be essentially pen-pals for the months. Getting to know someone in this way was fundamentally different than anything I had ever experienced. I felt like I was talking to a close friend.”
Eventually, they communicated by phone and Skype—each looking forward to their next talk.
Six months after meeting online, Kyle was back in the United States. He was finally able to go out and visit Kristen for the first time for a three day weekend in Memphis. “Getting picked up at the airport felt like most of the first encounters while dating… There’s always those first jitters when you meet someone new, but it was a little more reassuring because we knew a little more about each other than typical first-time daters.”
After Kyle got checked in to his hotel, Kristen took him on a tour of downtown Memphis and then they went back to her place to cook dinner. “I quickly took over the kitchen (it’s my Italian upbringing, I guess.)” They enjoyed Kyle’s home cooked meal on the rooftop of Kristen’s apartment building. “Something I will always remember.”
The long weekend in March had been a success and it had gone by too fast for the couple. “Kristen had definitely exceeded any and all expectations I could have had. It was the happiest I had been in a while. I was already trying to figure out how I could make visiting her again work!”
God figured it out for him! A few weeks after that first weekend date, Kristen was offered a job just 10 miles from where Kyle lived. “She had been searching for almost five months for a new job with little luck, but now a company had come to her with a good paying job,” Kyle remembers. “When she told me she was thinking of taking it, she was hoping she would not scare me off.”
Kyle was overjoyed at the prospect of having her nearby. “If that is not a sign from God, I do not know what is!”
Six months later, Kyle proposed to Kristen on her doorstep. He had known on that very first meeting that he wanted to marry her. “A lot of the reason I think we so easily came together was the fact that we desired the same course in life.”
The couple was married March 15, 2014. They are expecting their first baby and putting an offer in on a house. “For all those out there in doubt about finding a relationship, God has a plan for you, but you have to be patient, find His plan for you, and do not compromise your faith. It will pay off in the end! God bless you and I pray that you will find the happiness that my wife and I share."
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