Will you still need me, Will you still feed me, When I’m 64? - The Beatles
For Marlene, 66, who had been a widow for years, the question had become different: “Can somebody START loving me at that age, and can I love him?” she wondered.
She found her answer when she met Paul, 69, on CatholicMatch. “I already had 40 years of married experience, but I still had a lot of love left to give,” Marlene says. She admits she was somewhat shy about trying online dating. “But I also have an adventurous streak.”
You don't have to marry 'em just because you messaged 'em.
Still, she had to convince her widowed friends it was a good idea. “Just chatting with a person online does not mean you have to go out with them, let alone get married,” she assured them.
Paul, a widower, saw it a bit differently. He began talking about the possibility of marriage right away. “I remember that he spoke of marriage from the very first day we met,” Marlene recalls. “He was quite certain it was necessary.”
Initially, this caught Marlene off guard. Still, she liked Paul and they had much in common. They both enjoyed travel, kayaking, and tennis. Marlene also liked Paul’s values, his commitment to family, and his openness to new experiences.
“However, I did not like his politics!” she laughs.
Early in their relationship, they shared stories about their late spouses, which helped them both to grieve their losses. They were also struck by certain similarities. Marlene’s late husband was an engineer, and Paul is a former engineer. Marlene and Paul also shared similar ethnic backgrounds to each other’s late spouses. They both found these coincidences hard to ignore. But Marlene was still cautious.
Because she wasn't quite sure, Marlene turned to God. And there she found consolation and confirmation.
“I turned to my faith deeply at that time, to discern whether marriage was God’s will for me,” she reveals.
“During that time, Proverbs 3:5-6 became my constant companion: ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.’”
In time, Marlene’s resistance melted. A year and a half after meeting on CatholicMatch, Paul and Marlene married in a small summer chapel at her parish in Maine, with just their immediate family members in attendance.
“The deacon preached a beautiful homily about how our relationship had always been a foursome—Paul and me, and our late spouses of more than 40 years.”
The deacon also noted that few people have had so much married experience between them—for Paul and Marlene, over 80 years combined.
Enjoying a whole new life together, even though they live apart some of the time.
As a married couple, they enjoy hiking trails, seeing new movies, and eating out. They also enjoy their faith together, including regular Mass, spiritual retreats, and parish events.
The biggest challenge has been how to combine their residences. “Paul lives in New Hampshire and I live in Maine, two hours away from each other,” Marlene says. They have periods of being apart, but they also spend much time together at each other’s places, usually centered around family and church. Shared activities bring them closer, along with doing projects with and for each other, and helping their adult children with their needs.
Early on, a few of Marlene’s friends suggested it was not necessary to get married again at her age. They were a bit surprised at her decision, but they did not judge her.
How does Marlene see it? Was it worth it?
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained!” she says. She’s glad she gave online dating a chance. “Communicating online is easy, and it doesn’t have to lead to marriage,” she shares. Whatever the outcome, she suggests keeping an open mind. “Plus, if you know that the other person shares the same Christian values, that’s 90 percent of a good relationship,” she says. “At least it was in our case!”
