Ben had read the testimonials about others meeting on CatholicMatch but he was skeptical.
“That’s never going to happen to me,” the England native thought to himself.
Across the Atlantic, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Emily, now 24, wasn’t much more optimistic. “When I noticed he lived in the UK I had no intention of messaging him,” she said.
Ben, now 27, said he had checked out CatholicMatch just to see what kinds of people were using it. Emily had turned to the site because, as she puts it, she “didn’t seem to be meeting many Catholic men in my area.”
After reading Ben’s profile, she changed her mind about messaging him and sent him a Christmas emoticon.
Two days later, he replied and they started corresponding.
Their biggest challenge initially wasn’t so much the distance itself as the five-hour time difference, according to Emily.
“So talking during the week was tricky or impossible as when I was returning from work Ben was often already in bed. We had to be very intentional about our communication. There were a few times one of us felt the other was ignoring or avoiding the other when in reality life was just busy and preventing regular communication,” Emily said.
Struggling with long distance
It was frustrating to not be able to do the simple things—like walking or see a film. Without many common experiences to share, they found they had only so much to talk about, Emily said. They combated this problem by praying the rosary or evening prayer.
Emily and Ben may have had to sacrifice in missing out on simple things that many take for granted in a relationship. But the location for their first date sure beat a walk or movie: Paris.
Emily had been planning a trip to Europe with her twin brother, which would begin in Germany and wind its way to Paris, eventually ending up in England to meet Ben. But Ben was able to get a few days off of work. So instead they finally met each other in Paris—six months after their first online contact. “Meeting in Paris also gave us an easygoing group setting to meet in person for the first time, which really helped ‘break the ice,’” Emily said.
“After we met and spent time together, which went really well, we continued to communicate as before via WhatsApp, Skype, and letters. We pretty quickly realized that we loved each other and wanted to make our relationship work,” Emily said.
The next Christmas, Ben traveled to Michigan to spend it with Emily and her family. “He was able to meet most of my family and my parents loved him,” Emily said.
Meeting the Pope
About four months later, they got engaged. And, on October 1, 2016—after spending just two months together in person—they got married.
“I’ve heard a lot of people say ‘when you know, you know’ in terms of who you marry. I know for me that was definitely the case. When I tell people the basic outline of our relationship they’re usually surprised at how quickly we decided to get married,” Emily said.
She said it was their faith—particularly
the way that their faith shaped their understanding of marriage—that helped them overcome the limits of time and distance. “Our unified, Catholic understanding of marriage and our very intentional relationship made it easy to know quickly if God was calling us to marry each other,” Emily said.
For their honeymoon, it would have been hard to top Paris, but Emily and Ben found a way; not only did they go to Rome and Florence, but they had their marriage blessed by Pope Francis at the Sposi Novelli ceremony.
After their wedding, they moved to England and are now expecting their first child. Emily said she was sad to leave her job as a teacher and a household full of “strong Catholic women” in the United States. But she said they both felt like it was God’s plan for them. (Ben is a doctor in the process of choosing a specialty, which will require more training, according to Emily.)
Looking back, Emily marvels at how they both thought they would never marry someone from another country.
“I would encourage anyone who is thinking of using CatholicMatch to go ahead and not be afraid, you may meet the love of your life,” she said.
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