John wasn’t exactly open to the idea of long-distance when he met Krystina. Nor was he even all that open to dating in general.
He’d just relocated to Michigan, started a new job and bought a home. There was plenty of settling in to do, and he was determined not to bring dating into the equation.
The one caveat to all this was that he still had an active CatholicMatch membership and couldn’t resist the urge to see who was in his area. A little time spent online and he decided to just open up a 500-mile radius and see what the tide brought in.
The answer to that was Krystina.
He found her interesting and read her complete profile. His initial message to her won’t go in the annals of incredibly romantic greetings: “I wish you lived closer. I like everything about you, but I won’t do long distance.”
She wasn’t ready to give up so easily. A reply message came saying simply, “We will make it work. I will come to you.”
Krystina was true to her word and came to him – not just once, but twice. And John eventually returned the favor, flying to Massachusetts.
To cope with long distance, Krystina emphasized the importance of establishing rituals they would do together. They’d make a point of doing little things like brushing teeth or working out at the same time. “Sharing things like these encouraged good behavior in both of us,” John said. These are things we can count on to add stability to our day when we begin a new life together too.”
After her second visit to Michigan, Krystina again took the initiative and insisted they both close down other dating possibilities to focus on each other.
“That was hard,” John recalled. “I had not looked around locally yet, and I did not want long distance! But over the course of another month, it became clear – through prayer, and other means – that I needed to step up to the plate.”
It was after 18 months of traveling back and forth and spending a lot of money on airline tickets that John took Krystina to Mass at a shrine in Royal Oak, Mich. devoted to St. Therese of Lisieux. It was at the shrine that gave her the engagement ring and asked her to marry him.
“I expected her to need a week to think about it,” John told CatholicMatch. “But the response ‘yes’ was so certain I was stunned for a bit. And then we went to Mass, engaged.”
