It took over five years, but Elizabeth and Charles have come around to telling their success story.
It’s a success that had the way paved for it by a family member; Elizabeth’s sister found her husband on CatholicMatch and encouraged her to go the same route.
It was a path Elizabeth was prepared to try; she’d given Match.com a fair shake, but to her dismay, most of the men she encountered weren’t exactly of the value system she was looking for. "Most guys there just wanted one thing...if you know what I mean.”
She found the polar opposite on CM, which in a way aroused her skepticism even more. “Being a city girl, I was always skeptical,” the Chicago native recalled.
Elizabeth’s first matches on CM did not meet with instant success. Potential relationships fell by the wayside due to misunderstandings about the faith. "I found that I did not know my faith the way these guys expected me to," Elizabeth recalled. "I didn't know what NFP [natural family planning] was and I ended relationships thinking they wanted me to be some sort of baby maker. So right when I was going to give up...I read and asked my sister about NFP. It all became more clear.”
Elizabeth came to see the beauty of NFP and the respect it pays to both wife and husband. A wise lesson to all about not judging a situation or person too quickly.
A long-distance search yielded results. Elizabeth tried a California search shortly after having her misunderstandings of Catholic teaching regarding NFP and on that search she found Charles. For the next three months they spent time via e-mail and the phone getting to know each other, when it was deemed time to take the leap and meet in person. He came to the Windy City, and it was after a good time together that Elizabeth suspected she’d found her true soul mate. It wasn’t anything earth-shattering that tipped her off, but rather the simple: “When it was over, I didn’t want him to leave.”
Because of the distance between them, they made the most of their visits to see one another. “They were really more like short vacations,” Elizabeth said. And they produced their share of humorous stories. Charles’ brother composed a humorous song about them on his guitar. On Elizabeth’s first visit west, his father candidly asked her when she was going to bear his son’s children.
Today Elizabeth and Charles live in California, have wed and have two small children, 3-year-old Berandette and 1-year-old Vincent. “Don't assume that everyone is clear on the teaching of the Catholic faith just because they are on CM," Elizabeth reminds other members. Be open minded about each others' Catholic upbringing and help each other become better at living the faith.”
Elizabeth’s story is dedicated to her sister, whose own anniversary falls on the Feast of the Sacred Heart Jesus and whose success set the path for the happiness that Elizabeth and Charles found and the happiness their children will bring into the world.
Continue Reading
