God really does work through this site. We were very unlikely to meet otherwise,
living nearly 300 miles apart.
We were both members of the site for a couple of years and
met various people through the site.
When I first joined I was reluctant to become active as I felt
embarrassed at using such at site and even signed up as 'Anne' not my real name
Angela. However after about a year I mentioned it to my mother who thought it
was an good way to met Catholic men and encouraged me to try it.
I found that this was true and enjoyed corresponding and
meeting some lovely men, it was wonderful to see so many people serious about
their faith.
But at times both Paul and I had felt discouraged and
disappointed both by the lack of people in the UK on the site (a lot are from
the US) and by meeting people who just weren't the one of us. However we both continued to log on to the
site for a couple of years.
Then one evening in November 2006 I did a search with my
usual criteria; accepts all church teaching, over a certain height and age. I looked again at Paul's profile, I had
previously browsed it and discounted him because of distance and age (he is 11
years older than me). Since then I had
seen him around a couple of times at a distance at Catholic events in the
UK; his height makes him stand out in
the crowd. This time I saw the profile
afresh and realised he had all the qualities I was looking for and I felt
prompted (I now know by God!) to get in touch.
I sent Paul a short message on the site, he took 2 weeks to
reply and then immediately asked for a photograph- under the guise of seeing if
he recognised me! We started exchanging
emails daily and just a week later Paul asked if I wanted to meet.
Our first date was about 2 weeks later on the 9th
December 2006 and we got on so well that we agreed to meet the following
day. The next time we saw each other was
straight after Christmas when I visited Paul and stayed nearby. During that holiday Paul told me he had never
felt this way about anyone before; we both knew this was special.
Although we were 300 miles apart we continued to get to know
each other through daily emails and later daily phone calls. Most weekends one of us would travel to be
with the other. We became valued
customers of Easyjet! The distance was
difficult but also gave us the opportunity to get to know each other very well
by long emails without the early days awkwardness of face to face. Paul says it was and in some ways continues
to be the cross in our relationship.
Paul proposed on his birthday in May 2007 at a Catholic
shrine in England in the middle of a
field! The same field where I remembered
our eyes meeting, years before we met, at a Catholic Youth festival. The date of his proposal, unbeknown to us at
the time, was 6 months exactly to the date he first sent me a message on CM.
We became engaged and then we married on 8th
December 2007, the feast on the Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Lady, a
year after the weekend of our first meeting.
We had a wonderful wedding day then 4 week honeymoon and are now very
happily married and we are looking forward to the rest of our lives
together.
We encourage you to keep persisting in your search and be open to meeting someone through Catholic dating channels.
