Paul Proposed Before He Met Nohemi in Person

In 2009, Paul, 57, had only really known Nohemi, 52, one month when he proposed over the phone before they even met. “It was a first marriage for both of us, and we both knew exactly what we were looking for,” says Paul, who lives in Georgia.

He Needed to Make Changes First

Rewind to the year 2006; Paul realized that he wasn’t behaving like a faithful Catholic, and he committed to make changes in life. He wasn’t going to miss Sunday Mass anymore, and he was going to make sure his lifestyle reflected his beliefs.

“I got to a point where I knew I had to turn my life and my desire to be married over to God. I said, ‘Whatever the Catholic Church says, that’s what I’m going to do. I may not agree with everything; I may not understand everything, and I may not like it, but it doesn’t matter. The Catholic Church has been around 2,000 years. They must know what they’re doing.’”

At one point, Paul had even wondered if maybe God wanted him to be a priest.

“I had just broken up with someone who I thought I was going to be engaged to. I talked to my priest and said, ‘Father, finding someone to marry just isn’t working out. Maybe God is trying to tell me something.’ Father told me, ‘Paul, that’s just not the way it works.’”

Meeting Nohemi

“Not being corny about it or anything, but I think God brought me Nohemi.  Either that or God said, ‘Oh Gosh. I can’t have him being a priest. I got to find someone for this guy or else!”

It was in February of 2009 when Paul started communicating with Nohemi by emoticons. This went on for a month until he finally purchased a one-month subscription to CatholicMatch just so he could read Nohemi’s letter. It didn’t bother him that she lived so far away in Hermosillo, Mexico. Though Paul didn’t speak Spanish, Nohemi spoke English. In March, they started corresponding through CatholicMatch, and then they exchanged emails, which lead to phone calls.

On May 16, 2009, Paul proposed over the phone, even though he had plans to visit Nohemi in Mexico in June. “She actually wanted me to propose then.”

Because of the time difference, Nohemi was used to being awakened by Paul's phone calls. After his early morning proposal, she started to wonder if she had dreamt the proposal. Nohemi recalls, "I sent him a message saying: 'I'm not sure if I dreamed it, or if you really proposed marriage to me in the early morning?'  Then, as Paul did not respond at the time, I sent another message saying: 'I think I dreamt it.'  Then I got a text from Paul saying, 'It was real, I proposed marriage to you.'"

At the airport, Paul was so eager to give Nohemi the engagement ring that he couldn’t wait for a more romantic moment. He ended up giving her the engagement ring in the parking lot. “I said ‘Oh, what the heck, this will be just as memorable.’ So I took the ring tied to my medal chain—that has a cross on it—and I gave it to her.”

Afterward, they went to visit her mother and brothers. “Nohemi, who is a lawyer, comes from a professional family; one brother is a cardiologist, one brother is an architect, and her sister-in-law’s mother is one of the most famous artists in Mexico, having painted, among others: Pope John Paul II, heads of state, and a portrait of six of the priests that were killed in the Cristero War.”

Paul, who is a CPA, hit it off with her family right away and he felt grateful to be marrying into Nohemi’s family. “One of the brothers—the doctor—said, ‘We kind of thought this was going happen, but not this fast!’ And I said, ‘Well, where I come from in Georgia, they have this saying that ‘if you can’t ask permission, then ask forgiveness.’ They all laughed.”

Roadblock For Most Relationships

At one point in their relationship, Paul worried that maybe it wouldn’t work out because he spent so much time taking care of his mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Since his father was deceased, he and his brothers were responsible for taking care of her. “I said to Nohemi, ‘I don’t think we should go on anymore. I’m taking care of my mother, and even if I were to build

a house right next to mother’s, it would be difficult taking care of two households. And she said, ‘Well, why can’t I move into your house and help you take care of your mother? And I said, ‘Really?’ At that point, I knew I had met somebody really special. A lot of women I knew in the past had tried to get me away from home as fast and as far as possible. For two years, she helped me take care of my mother who passed away on Pentecost, June 12, 2011.

Nohemi was also willing to give up her career as a lawyer—since she wasn't licensed to be a lawyer in the United States—to be with Paul. "I knew that when I married Paul, it would mean a radical change in my life," she says. "I would be leaving not only my professional work but my family, my mother, and my brothers. But I never doubted that it was the best decision."

Nohemi was confident that Paul would support her in any professional or personal development. "However, I explained to him that the most important thing for me would be attending my home as an essential part of my new life, and from that, to develop professionally as time permitted me."

Weddings

In September of 2010, they were married by a judge, which was required by law in Mexico. They wanted to get legally married as early as possible so that they could start the immigration process. “When I went back to my Church, and I told my pastor, Fr. Fischer, ‘We got married by the judge over the weekend,' and he said, 'Remember, you’re still not married.' I answered, 'We’ve got an arrangement kind of like Mary and Joseph.' And he laughed about that.”

January 9, 2010, they were married in the Church at the Church of the Espiritu Santos. Afterward, they went on a honeymoon in Cancun for a couple of weeks. From there it was back and forth between the two countries for Nohemi until September of 2010 when she became a resident of the United States.

Instant Family

Both Paul and Nohemi wanted children. On May 31 of 2013, they adopted three children—then ages 7, 9, and 15 from the same family—from Mexico. “I’m involved in all kinds of things I never thought I would—PTA, softball, soccer. I thought I had left that behind 40 years ago.”

Paul has only one regret when it comes to Noehmi. “Where was she 30 years ago? All of my friends say, ‘How did you get so lucky, Paul?’”

Nohemi says, "Paul was everything I expected from the man who would be my husband."