Gwen and Jerome had each known the pain of seeing their first marriages end, and were determined that the next time would be different. Gwen had gone through life changes that included a conversion to the Catholic Church. “I wanted someone who enjoyed his relationship with Christ as much as I do,” she said.
The 51-year-old woman from Kansas had something else that can be important to developing a solid romance and that’s a willingness to walk away if it wasn’t she wanted. “I almost had decided that perhaps I was destined to have the vocation of loving the Lord as a single woman,” she told CatholicMatch.
Jerome was searching as well. While Gwen had gone into the message forums to help her both meet people, and clarify her own priorities, Jerome had used a different approach to outreach. He tried a novel keyword in the CatholicMatch search engine. “He searched photos under the word ‘horse’, Gwen recalled. “My profile popped up with my teen daughter riding her horse.”
Suffice it to say, the 47-year-old from neighboring Missouri loved horses. Even though Gwen never owned one, she was open to the idea, and liked the idea of being a “cougar”, four years older than her prospective love interest. So after seeing that he had viewed her profile, she reached out to him.
It might have been a horse that was on Jerome’s mind, but Faith was in his heart. A strong commitment to Christ and the Catholic Church was the cornerstone of his own desires for a future marriage.
Jerome and Gwen made the connection with each other, and even though they live in different states, the mileage is only a little over thirty miles. “I was not in his matches because I was older, he was not in my matches as he was younger,” Gwen noted ironically. But the horse brought them together.
