Michael's family cooked up a plan to find him a girlfriend. "My niece, Missy, was pregnant with triplets and was put on bed rest, so my sister Lori moved back to Boise to become my niece’s nanny. So as you would expect, the two of them took it upon themselves to help me find a girlfriend while they were stuck in the hospital.”
Initially, they had Michael try out some other online dating sites, but he had little luck. “In late November 2013, they convinced me to try CatholicMatch," Michael says. They showed him a few members with a quick search, and he was convinced to give it a shot.
One of those members that he saw in his first search was Sabrina, 38.
Michael remembers thinking Sabrina wouldn't want to go out with someone five years older than her, but he checked out her profile anyways.
“She was very thorough with her introduction. I found out she was a nurse who worked at St. Luke’s, which is the same hospital I worked at. She loved animals, especially her dog Ivan, and she seemed to be very funny.” Still, Michael didn’t message her because he knew that she wasn’t a full member.
After Sabrina decided to subscribe, she noticed that Michael had looked at her profile and she sent him a message.
When she looked at Michael’s profile, Sabrina was attracted to him because he appeared to be a funny guy. “He wrote something about his dance abilities—about ‘not being able to dance, but it never stopped him from going out on the dance floor’— and I remember laughing out loud, so I sent him a smile. After talking a bit online we discovered we had many similarities.”
“From that simple smile, our whole relationship began,” says Michael.
First Date
After corresponding for three weeks, on January 10, 2014, Sabrina and Michael met for their first date at Kona Grill. The couple shared that they were both nervous. Sabrina was running late and Michael arrived early, so he ordered a drink and waited anxiously for her to arrive.
“We had emailed each other twice a day for almost three weeks. I was concerned that we had talked about everything in our emails and wouldn’t have anything to say, but to my amazement, we talked and talked,” Michael recalls. He might have been concerned that their frequent correspondence would’ve left them nothing to talk about, but Sabrina says those emails made her feel like she had known him for years.
After their date, which started at 6pm, the couple sat outside by space heaters at the Village, a local mall, and talked. “We got lost in conversation and really talked to one another on a different level. We discussed our divorces—how they were similar and how we were both very much hurt and affected by it,” says Sabrina. After talking for five hours, Sabrina looked at the clock and realized that it was 1:30am. She said she had to get home because she was hosting a baby shower in the morning, so Michael walked her to her car.
“We were in such a rush that I forgot to ask her out on a second date! So when I got home, I sent her an email through CatholicMatch and told her how wonderful she was and that if she would like to go on a second date, maybe we could go to a movie next time. To my relief she said yes,” exclaims Michael.
Bonding Over Shared Struggles
Sabrina was divorced in 2012 before converting to Catholicism. “I felt like God had guided me home. I took the RCIA classes and began my transformation. One of the things I had to do was get my previous marriage annulled. This was a long process that unfortunately took a year and four months to get done. I was able to finally convert in November of 2013. The process itself was a little surreal since I knew I had been married before and I thought that an annulment meant it never happened. I talked to my deacon and he went over everything and explained what it actually meant. I was very thankful for the explanation, and it was a healing process for me,” shares Sabrina.
Michael, who was also previously married, found the same healing in the annulment process. “I was married to my high school sweetheart for nearly 20 years before she decided to tell me that she no longer loved me and wanted to leave. I was very bitter about the whole thing, especially since I never knew she was so unhappy. Going over my previous marriage in detail helped me realize some of the mistakes that were made, not only by my first wife, but also by me.”
Proposal
On December 27, 2014, a little less than a year after their first date, Michael proposed to Sabrina in Sedona, Arizona. Michael had been planning the proposal since September of 2014.
“I met with a jeweler and told her what I wanted to have the ring look like. She started working on it and I picked it up in late October.” He decided that he would take Sabrina out of town for the proposal because she had been very busy with work and returning to school to get her bachelors degree in nursing.
After they arrived in Sedona, Michael suggested that they hike to Cathedral Rock. “Half way around the rock on a ledge, he started asking me to get on the ledge for a photo opportunity. Since we had been hiking, I felt dirty and I didn't want to, so I kept refusing,” says Sabrina. Finally, Michael was able to convince her to join him on the ledge for a picture. While he was helping her up, Michael gave her a little push up so he would have time to kneel down and get the ring out.
“As she turned, she was
going to jokingly give me the “What For” for pushing her up the last little bit. When she turned and saw me on my knee, she was so shocked. I had this whole speech in my head that I was going to tell her, and all that came out was ‘Will you marry me?!’ She kept looking at me, then the ring, then back at me. I finally said, ‘I think I asked you a question?’”
“After I composed myself, I jumped into his arms and said, ‘Yes! A hundred times yes!’ It was one of the best days of my life,” says Sabrina.
“So I hiked up Cathedral Rock with my girlfriend and came back down with my fiancé,” exclaims Michael.
Wedding
Michael and Sabrina were married at St. John's Cathedral in Boise, Idaho on May 16, 2015.
“It was the best day of my life. I tell Michael I am a firm believer that God sent him to me. He is the most amazing man I have ever met, and I am the luckiest woman alive,” gushes Sabrina.
Michael agrees with his bride, “It really was incredible to find someone who essentially had the same story as I did and fall in love with her. She is truly my best friend and my soul mate.”
