She Liked Him Better Online!
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Mary's mom and dad had a 14-year age difference. Despite them having a happy marriage, Mary had no intention of marrying an older man. So, when she learned that Thomas was ten years older than her, it gave her pause.
"I was in middle school or high school when he was in law school!" she exclaims.
She forgot about the other conversations...
Seeing Mary, 27, in his matches, Thomas, 37, clicked on her profile. He liked that they both were fans of Notre Dame football, so he messaged Mary.
"I grew up in South Bend, Indiana, and Thomas attended law school at Notre Dame," she shares.
When the two of them connected on CatholicMatch, both lived in Ohio—she in Columbus and he in Akron. The two clicked right off and made plans to meet the following weekend. The week before their first date, they exchanged lengthy messages.
"I found myself constantly logging on checking to see if Tom emailed me back. I stopped caring about the other conversations I was having simultaneously," she recalls.
So, they had some coffee and pizza.
In October 2015, Thomas drove the two hours to Columbus to meet Mary at a coffee shop in the
German village, located on the west side of Columbus. They got coffee walked around the neighborhood park and then got some pizza. They had so much to talk about that the date lasted four hours. Thomas left the date filled with optimism.
She was disappointed!
Mary enjoyed talking with Thomas, but he didn't meet her expectations in person. She had painted a picture of him from their emails, and that image didn't line up with reality. Mary didn't like Thomas's little quirks, and she also thought some of the conversations were off the wall.
"He talked about some weird business ideas. And so, I wondered, 'Is this the same person?'"
Even though she left the date disappointed, she wanted to give Thomas another chance because they connected so well online.
"If we did not have the emails leading up to it, I still probably would have given him a second chance, but I might have been more hesitant," she shares.
Up and down...
Mary couldn't decide if Thomas suited her, but she kept saying "yes" when he asked her out. Fortunately, the second date went much better for her, but then the third flopped. Her girlfriends encouraged her to continue dating Thomas. They liked him because he was solidly Catholic, a genuine person, and he had a good sense of humor.
"I brought him over to play Euchre [card game] at my apartment with some friends, and they all found him hilarious. And they thought we clicked," she recalls.
It was good for Mary to have her friends' perspectives. It wasn't just her trying to figure out if they were a good fit; her friends validated Thomas. By the fifth or sixth date, she realized that she really liked him.
"I just think it illustrates that you can't expect things to always go smoothly out of the gate," she says.
Mary also realized that she was too picky. She'd wanted to get married for almost ten years, so she had built this unrealistic list of what an ideal husband should embody.
"I had just made a specific list of what I was looking for, and I was too picky in ways that were silly," she explains.
After four months, they finally had a serious relationship.
By January 2016, Thomas considered renting a place in Columbus for half the week so that he could live near Mary. Since he's self-employed, he had flexibility in where he could live and work. Then reality set in, and he thought, "I have to use my head and like discern."
"Thomas felt ready and then not ready and then I'm ready again," she recalls.
Meantime, Mary—because of some stressful situations in her life—experienced some doubts about the relationship, but Thomas gave her space to figure out what she wanted. She quickly realized that she didn't want time away, she wanted Thomas.
After six months, Mary couldn't wait for Thomas to propose, but she had to wait a bit longer. During this time, Thomas drove to and from Columbus every Tuesday, and she saw him on the weekend, staying with his parents.
It was a wonderful Tuesday in November!
A little more than a year after their first date, Thomas visited Mary on their usual Tuesday. They ate dinner together, and then he asked her if she wanted to go on a rosary walk. Their walk ended at the parish Mary attends. In front of the church's little grotto, Thomas knelt on two knees, not one, and asked her to marry him.
"I felt shocked. I was not expecting it at all!" Mary remembers.
They had a wonderful seven-month engagement.
In June 2017, the couple joined their lives in holy matrimony in South Bend, Indiana, where Mary grew up. The wedding felt joyous for the couple and all of their guests. "Excited for Thomas and me, everybody showed their approval, which made us feel like they were rooting for us."
She adds, "His aunts told me, 'You're the answer to our prayers.' They thought so highly of Tom, and they had waited so long for him to find someone."
Ten months later...they have a brand new baby!
After ten months, the honeymooners welcomed their first child, then another, and now they are expecting their third child. Any worries Mary had felt about the age difference never came to fruition. Age became irrelevant. "It's more about the stage of life that we are in, which, for us, is parents with toddlers."