Meghann, 20, had experienced a bad relationship with someone she met on CatholicMatch, but she didn’t give up. In fact, living in Maryland—where there is a big Catholic population—she had the opportunity to meet several CatholicMatch members, but none of those dates had worked out for her either.
In August of 2011, she was planning on going on an extended mission trip to North Dakota, so she messaged Jason, 24, who was from Grand Forks, ND.
Jason wasn't used to women reaching out to him first. “I was like: ‘Hey, this girl just talked to me!” But right then and there, he purchased a full subscription, so he could communicate with Meghann.
Friend-Zoned First Date
It just so happened that Jason was in Virginia doing job training, so he contacted Meghann for a first date. “I told her: ‘Hey, I am actually kind of close to you.” The very next day, Meghan drove down to his training center. They went out to eat at a 50s style diner and then bowling.
“She was younger than me, so I thought, ‘I am just going to approach this very friendly-like,'" he remembers. Even so from the start, Jason felt a connection with Meghann
However, she didn’t reciprocate his feelings. Meghann was a little put off because he had done some things that she didn’t like. “He stole food off my plate. I was like, ‘Well, that was weird. I don’t know you and you are eating my food?'”
She also thought that he had friend-zoned her. “On our first date, we had been driving around and during a conversation, he said, ‘We can be friends.’ So, I figured that he didn’t really like me.”
A few days after their date, Jason texted Meghann. “He said I was cute. I was surprised that he actually liked me. I hadn’t gotten that vibe when we first met."
Jason Was Different Than Other Guys
Jason and Meghann continued to chat long distance until September of 2011, Meghann arrived in Belcourt, ND—about three hours away from where Jason lived. “Once I got out there, I started to see sides of Jason that I hadn’t seen in a lot of guys. He cared about more serious things. He genuinely wanted to get to know me—and he wanted to get to know my family. I discovered that he was a lot like my dad, and I have always been a daddy’s girl. It was really appealing to me that he could get along really well with my family. I was impressed that he wanted to talk about religion. He also wanted to know about my life. It wasn’t just. ‘You’re really pretty.’ He wanted to know the real me.”
At the end of November, she left North Dakota to go to Maryland. Their relationship had always been long distance, but now there would many more miles between them.
Indecision
In December of 2011, they got engaged, but the engagement didn’t last long. Meghann gave the ring back because she had so many things she needed to work through, and she didn't feel ready. Because of past relationships, she had many doubts about her self-worth. “If past boyfriends can treat me like that, then I guess I am that. I needed to discover that I have unbelievable worth. I have come such a long way. I don’t mind telling people what I had to go through to get there.”
She no longer had a ring on her finger, but they were still in a relationship and she felt confident enough to hop on a plane, in May of 2012, to visit Jason. On that trip, she decided that she would stay. “I wanted a fresh start, and I wanted to get to know Jason and his friends and family better.”
Her parents were at peace with her decision because they trusted Jason and they were hoping that this would be a good change for their daughter.
Fighting Against Temptation
Moving to North Dakota allowed her the chance to really get to know Jason. Meghann moved into Jason’s parents' basement. Jason was also living in his parent’s home, but he traveled often for his work.
“With Jason, compared to other guys I had dated, we wanted to do what God had intended for us. The more we dated, the more we wanted to be involved with the Church,” she says.
However, there was one problem. Even though Jason was often gone, living in the same house when he was home made it difficult for them to maintain a chaste relationship. Though they fought against temptation and often succeeded, they sometimes failed.
“I am surprised how much we were able to control ourselves considering the living situation. There were times that we didn’t. We had to learn to pick ourselves back up from failure and start over again—to keep going and to work towards something better.”
After Jason proposed again in January of 2013, they started pre-Cana and their priest said they could not live together in the same house. “We realized that but I didn’t know where I would go,” she says.
Their priest insisted that they had to figure out something. So even though Meghann did not have a stable job situation, she moved into an apartment with some girls that had advertised for a roommate. “That didn’t work out so well, so Jason opted to buy a house. I lived there and he continued to live with his parents until we got married."
“Our priest was exactly the kind of priest we needed. He was very stern about what people should and shouldn’t be doing, but he also conveyed it in a very gentle way. When we would slip-up, I felt almost obligated to go to confession to him just so he would know what was going on. I didn’t want to lie to him. I didn’t want to be hiding something from him on the day I went to the altar before God.”
Their priest told Meghann in confession: “You need to talk to Jason about why these things are happening, so they don’t happen again.”
Meghann found that the more she and Jason communicated about why they were slipping into sexual sin, the more those things didn’t happen. They began to set boundaries to avoid these problems. When Jason would visit her at the home he bought, he would always be sure to leave early, so things wouldn’t escalate. If they traveled, they stayed in separate hotel rooms.
Learning to Love and to Overcome Doubt
All along, Meghann had struggled with doubts. "I thought, ‘If I am in love with Jason, then I
should always feel that way.'” Sometimes she didn’t have those warm fuzzy feelings for him, so this confused her and caused her to doubt.
It was in pre-Cana that she really started to understand the meaning of love. “I learned that true love isn’t always a feeling. I began to understand in marriage prep that love is really a choice. I don’t think I understood what love entailed until I met Jason. He stuck by me through it all. I thought he must really love me even though at times he was angry with me.”
Wedding Jitters
Even though she wanted to marry Jason, Meghan was afraid that she might be assailed with doubts at the altar. “I had heard stories from people who had gotten divorced. They said they had gotten to the altar and thought to themselves: ‘Man I shouldn’t be doing this, but I can’t really back out now.' I was afraid that was going to be me.”
Her fears were for nothing though because when it came time to walk down the aisle on November 16, 2013, she had to stop herself from running to Jason. “I was so excited to marry him. I wasn’t even thinking of everything I had worried about. I was smiling the whole time. I also remember the priest looking at us and smiling because after having gone though PreCana with us, he had gotten to know us so well.”
They had a small, simple wedding at St. Michael’s in Grand Forks. “We were very focused on the sacrament aspect of the wedding, so we were less concerned with the superficial details,” she says.
They got married on a Saturday and they didn't go on a honeymoon, so the next day, when they were at Mass, their priest was tickled to see them. “He told us that he never gets to see couples right after they get married because they go on honeymoons."
She adds, "It was so nice to be at Mass with my husband. There was this overwhelming feeling—like angels are singing. Marriage isn’t always like that, but when moments like that happen there is such an overwhelming sense of peace.”
On August 18, 2014, Meghann and Jason welcomed a beautiful baby girl, named Bailey, into their lives. In November, they are expecting a baby boy.
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