“I have 15 siblings, and no my parents aren’t crazy,” was the first line of Mary’s profile. It was the hook that caught Sean’s attention. Coming from a family of 11 kids, Sean wasn’t put off by huge families.
“My goal in life was—is—to have 12 kids, so when my dad gives me grief, I’ll say, 'Dad, you don’t understand. You just won’t understand until you have 12 kids.'”
The family joke is that Sean’s dad would often use the excuse, “You don’t understand because you haven’t had 11 kids.”
Sean comes from a family who loves to tease. Therefore, he’s always had plans to one-up his dad.
Once upon a time...
It all started in 2003 when Sean and Mary messaged back and forth for a year on CatholicMatch before meeting up. Both of them were interested in other CatholicMatch members, but they remained in contact during that time.
It took a while for Sean, 26, to consider Mary a possibility because she was only 19 years old when they met online.
“Her age made me hesitate, but I was like, 'What’s the deal with this girl? Her mindset [love of large families] is exactly like mine.'”
Sean blended with Mary's family and she was able to hang with his.
Sean drove four-and-half hours from Cedar Rapids, IA, to Mary’s family home located south of Green Bay, WI. As soon as he walked in the door, Mary knew he was 'the one' because he immediately blended in with all of her siblings and started playing ping pong.
Mary’s family teased her about meeting Sean online because the internet dating was somewhat new in 2004. But their teasing was nothing next to the good-natured harassment she received from Sean’s younger brother Shea.
“Shea would openly call Mary ‘the weird internet girl,’” Sean recalls. “He loves harassing and teasing people—though he never comes off as a bully.”
Mary not getting ruffled over the ‘weird internet girl’ joke made her popular with Shea and the other siblings. “It was almost a test,” Sean says.
Later, the opportunity would arise for Sean to turn the joke back on his brother.
“My second life’s mission is to get Shea without him being able to turn it back on me. That happened on the day I uncharacteristically sat down to use my parent's computer.
When I logged into Google, Shea’s account—though he doesn’t live there—popped up and there were 1000 emails from CatholicMatch! He had secretly signed up.”
[Shea ended up meeting his wife, Emily, on CatholicMatch.]
Even though Sean had been dragging his feet to propose, Mary knew they were meant to be.
Mary’s family loved Sean and could see that he would make a good match for her. However, after over a year of dating, Sean—who tends to overthink things—was dragging his feet. Mary’s family was beginning to get frustrated with him. They thought it was time that he proposed.
Even after Sean purchased the engagement ring, it took him four months to get up the courage to pop the question.
Finally, in January 2006, he made up an excuse as to why he couldn’t visit Mary that weekend, so he could surprise her with a ring.
Mary, though disappointed, took Sean's not coming as an opportunity to let her hair down and lounge in her pajamas and eat some ice cream. She was surprised when Sean ended up on her doorstep, but she knew right away when she saw him that he intended to propose. “I thought I was all sneaky but she was on to me,” he laughs.
Sean may have taken too long to propose, but he didn’t drag his feet on the wedding. “My brother-in-law was going to be deployed, so we rushed the wedding,” he explains.
In May of 2006, the couple was joined in Holy Matrimony. A month after they wed, the couple was pregnant with their first child.
Big family living
Sean and Mary currently have eight children under the age of eleven. They say that there’s never a dull moment. To illustrate his point, Sean shared with me a recent funny story about his second and third youngest children: Claire, 3, and Augie, 2, who are best friends and often get into mischief together.
He explains that when Claire and Augie are too quiet, he and Mary frantically start yelling the duos names and racing around to find them. On this particular day, Sean discovered the two troublemakers had dumped six jars of parmesan cheese on the kitchen floor!
Days before this incident, Claire had only been gone a minute, but she had had time to cover her face with nail polish.
Life can be messy with a big family, but Sean and Mary love it. Sean looks forward to the day he can pull out the much-awaited retort: “You just won’t understand until you have 12 kids.”
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