Joe's Driving Distance Requirement Proved To Be Flexible
Joe & Kim were both young, each 26-years-old, attractive and in position to have their world at their fingertips. But that would belie the reality that when each came to CatholicMatch, they were struggling in their own way.
He was a quiet homebody and putting himself in situations to meet the right person was a challenge. Kim had been through consecutive relationships that didn’t go well and was determined to find a more faithful Catholic. Those struggles created the common ground on which they met through CatholicMatch.
When they first met online it began as friendship. Joe’s profile clearly noted that he only wanted a relationship within driving distance. Since he lived in Wisconsin, while Kim was in Ontario—a good five hundred miles apart—there was no reason to think it would be anything more.
But as they shared online communication, the connection grew deeper. The skepticism Kim felt was slowly disappearing. And then she find out that “within driving distance” is a loose term—a twelve-hour drive across the border apparently met Joe’s criteria.
Kim could see that Joe's faith and love for family made him different from those who'd hurt her in the past.
“He told me he wanted to deactivate his CatholicMatch profile because, despite his concern about the distance,” Kim recalled. “He strongly believed that he wanted to meet in.” Ironically, as the relationship grew and Kim expressed frustration with the distance, it’s Joe that she credits with encouraging her to keep up the commitment.
Joe recognized the importance of demonstrating to Kim that he was different from those that hurt her in the past. His steady focus on faith and family shone through for her. “I knew he was a quiet, down-to-earth man whose focus was on God and the simple things in life,” she recalled. “His family…meant the world to him.”
But in spite of his strong faith and flourishing family life, which includes an extended network of aunts, uncles and cousins, Joe wanted to build his own niche. “He was keen on finding the right woman, getting married, starting a family, and raising Catholic children,” Kim told CatholicMatch. “And I sought the same in a man.”
Joe and Kim continued to put forth the effort the long-distance relationship entailed and on Holy Saturday 2011, he proposed and she accepted.
We’d like to say that everything went smoothly, but more obstacles lay ahead. The hoped-for wedding in November 2011 didn’t work out because longer-than-expected wait times at immigration delayed Kim’s arrival in the United States.
Nothing came easy for Joe & Kim, but now they can look forward to a lifetime together.
Then the couple had another snag at the border when a typo on Kim’s fiancée’ visa—the fault of USCIS—prevented her from crossing with Joe. Consequently they had to drive to Montreal twice in order to fix the problem.
“Joe drove a total of about 60 hours from Wisconsin, to Ontario, to Quebec, to Ontario, then back to Quebec, and he eventually made it back to Wisconsin, with me by his side,” Kim recalled. “Talk about dedication.”
Dedication is exactly what it was and this past June, Kim arrived in America for good and the wedding took place in August. They have settled near Joe’s family in Wisconsin. He works for a bank—ironically one just acquired by a Canadian bank, and Kim is also in banking and awaiting eligibility for employment in the United States.
Joe and Kim both held to their convictions in what they wanted in a spouse and then put forth all the effort needed to make it work once they got to each other.
