Robert, in his early 30s, met his wife Mallory, in her late 20s, through CatholicMatch, but he never actually met her on the site.
Instead, he was matched to someone else, Bethany. “The initial match said that she liked my profile but that she thought I’d be a better match with her older sister. She asked my permission if she could have her sister email me,” Robert said.
His reply: “God works in mysterious ways, so yes, please have her email me.”
Even though they had attended the same university, their paths hadn't crossed.
Mallory had also been a CatholicMatch user, but their paths never had crossed there. They also had both gone to the same college—Regis University—but they never ran into each other there either. Robert graduated in December 2006, overlapping with Mallory’s first semester as freshman. (She graduated in May 2010.)
Soon after her sister connected them, Robert and Mallory started chatting via email, off CatholicMatch.
Within a week, they met for their first date, at a local coffee shop in the Denver area, two days before Christmas 2015.
Robert had been on-again, off-again using CatholicMatch for 10 years.
For Robert, it capped off a decade of on-again, off-again searching for someone on CatholicMatch.
“I found that when it came to online dating I had to do it in waves. I’d go through matches and then need to take a break to let everything refresh and new people come online. Kind of like seasons."
"So there would be a time where I’d talk to and meet a lot of people and then there would be times I’d let the membership expire. Then I’d come back. It was very cyclical,” Robert said.
“You just have to keep faith that things will work out and remember that you have to be active in putting yourself out there.”
It might have taken years to meet her, but Robert didn’t need much time to figure out she was the one for him.
Right away, he knew he had met someone special. The moment came when she invited him to an NFL game for their second date. “I jokingly told my parents that I’m going to marry this girl when she invited me to an NFL football game for our second date,” Robert said.
“We hit it off immediately finding similar interests in faith, football, movies, and spending time with one another,” he added. But the second date did not go smoothly. Robert said Mallory ‘froze’ during the date and spent the second half in the bathroom.
That put Robert in a bit of an awkward position. “I tried to initially go with her because I thought she was going to the concourse but when she said she was going to the bathroom, I had to go back to the seats,” he said.
“I wasn’t nervous on the date, just frozen!” Mallory explained. “We went to a very cold Broncos game and I made it as long as I could before I needed to go warm up. There was a heater in the bathroom so I hung out there for most of the second half. I had told him I was going to warm up so he knew, but it helped that he was very understanding.”
Despite the inclement weather, they hit it off and in six months they got engaged.
A year after meeting "on CatholicMatch," they were married.
“I knew pretty early on that Mallory was who I wanted to marry. Being with her is so easy and we just clicked. Plus we’d always go to Mass together and spend time with each other’s families,” Robert said. “We both agree that we were answers to each other’s prayers.”
Nearly one year later, on April 28, 2016 they were married. And, once again, the weather didn’t cooperate: it actually snowed on their wedding day.
Asked what advice he would give to other CatholicMatch users, Robert responded: “Online dating through CatholicMatch is a tool to meet people. You can’t get married behind a computer. And remember, the Lord works in mysterious ways!”
He also is grateful to Bethany, who is still single, for putting her sister’s needs above her own.
“Bethany was very gracious in recognizing that I would be a better match with her sister and then putting us in touch with one another,” Robert said. “She was very sacrificial and loyal to her sister. I think this is very relevant and definitely points out how you just never know what blessing God is going to provide!”
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