Just before Elaine’s first date with Michael, she fell during a hike and broke her wrist.
When she told a coworker about her upcoming date, she was wearing a cast and limping from a muscle cramp. “I hope he’s a doctor,” her coworker joked.
Elaine, 70, showed up outside the Massachusetts seafood restaurant to meet Michael, 80. He got out of his car and spotted her waiting outside. “She looked kind of cute waving her cast,” Michael remembers.
Elaine and Michael met on CatholicMatch two weeks earlier. She was on the site for four months. He was a member for one month. “Michael's profile had been sent to me by CatholicMatch, but I didn't respond because I thought a man like him would be too popular to be interested in me,” Elaine reveals.
“I was thrilled beyond belief when Michael wrote to me asking if I would date someone almost 10 years older.”
Both chose CatholicMatch because their faith is central to their lives. Elaine made a list of all the qualities she hoped to find in a partner. Michael had all of them. In addition to liking his photos, Elaine says she saw “an appealing openness and vulnerability” in his profile. He shared so much about himself that Elaine felt like she knew him before they met in person.
During their first date at the seafood restaurant, Michael found it easy to talk with Elaine, and his attraction for her grew stronger. After dinner, they shared coffee and dessert at another nearby eatery. Neither wanted the date to end, so they sat in Michael’s car and talked for hours. They shared their stories…
Michael was married 47 years before his wife died a year earlier. He felt lonely and was hoping to find love again. Elaine was married 36 years, then divorced, and eventually had her marriage annulled. “I wish I had gone through the annulment process much earlier than I did,” she shares.
After that first date, Michael and Elaine decided to pursue a relationship. But it wasn’t without challenges. They lived 20 miles apart, and missed each other when they weren’t together. Also, their children needed time to adjust to their new relationship, but eventually came to accept it.
Many people pressured Elaine and Michael to simply live together instead of getting married.
“Lawyers, my financial planner, some friends, and even family gave us that advice,” Elaine says. But as practicing Catholics, this was not an option for either of them.
“Living together is not a committed relationship because either party could easily walk out on the other,” Michael says. “Marriage is a committed relationship and it is also what our faith asks of us.”
Michael took Elaine ring shopping and planned to buy her one of three rings. In November 2018, just over a year after they met, they returned to the seafood restaurant from their first date. Michael was wearing a walking boot from an ankle fracture two months earlier. Undeterred, he knelt and presented Elaine with the most beautiful of the three rings they had browsed.
“I wept when he got down on one knee to propose to me, as he'd been through surgery and rehab, making this all the more difficult for him,” she recalls. A passing stranger stopped to help capture the moment on Michael's cell phone.
Soon after, Elaine and Michael married in a church ceremony. At the wedding, a friend sang Roger Copeland's “Bridal Prayer”:
”To listen when He calls us, and follow where He leads;
To be the kind of servants He needs.
Here in these sacred vows, we pledge our lives together
To love and serve in Jesus' name, Amen."
After the ceremony, they prayed to Mary and laid long-stem roses at the feet of her statue. Elaine and Michael both share a strong devotion to Mary and try to pray the Rosary daily.
After 48 years working as a nurse, Elaine is now enjoying her retirement being married.
She joined the choir at their new church, where Michael is a Eucharistic minister and serves on the liturgical committee. An artist, Michael is also busy working on a new piece for a restaurant.
Elaine admits it was difficult to downsize and leave her own church, choir, friends, and neighbors behind. But she wouldn’t trade it for the new life she shares with Michael. “I love Michael so much and I want to be with him through whatever lies ahead for both of us.”
The newlyweds enjoy going to church, cooking and shopping together, laughing together, and planning their honeymoon to Sicily for later in 2019. Michael says he most appreciates that everyday life is so easy with Elaine.
Elaine acknowledges that people may wonder how a 70-year-old woman decided to marry an 80-year-old man.
She is a Dynamic Catholic Ambassador and receives daily emails from the ministry. Four of those reflections from author Matthew Kelly strongly influenced her decision to marry later in life:
1. "God wants us to be happy even more than we want to be happy ourselves."
2. "Life is about saying yes to the things that help you become the-best-version-of-yourself and no to the things that don't."
3. "Great relationships magnify the good things that happen to us and make the unpleasant things bearable."
4. "It is our spirituality that gives us the courage to step boldly into the uncertain future, hoping for good things."
Elaine and Michael decided to step boldly into that future, and they’re both glad they did. “I knew that Michael was helping to me become the best version of myself in my quest to serve the Lord,” Elaine says.
“I had all but given up on having a loving relationship in this life,” she admits. Now she’s happy their story is already encouraging others. At their wedding, the photographer overheard someone in the back of the church say: "Maybe there's hope for me too."
