MARRIED POSTERS: Tell us how you and your spouse met!

[尼古拉前执事]

Married posters, I think sharing the good stories of how you met your spouse and became engaged would be a positive thing to share and something that perhaps the single folk here could learn from, so please share your stories!

[Liudmilla]

I met my husband on the internet, in what I have come to believe was a God ordained instance. We communicated daily for a number of months, before we finally decided to meet. After that things went along quite quickly, partly because we are not very young, and partly because we both "knew" almost immediately.

This is not a method I would recommend to everyone, but it was God ordained for me.

My husband and I just celebrated our second anniversary and we pray for many more together.

[Justin Kissel]

Sorry for the lengthy response!

Oddly enough, Mary and I also met on the internet. About Nov. of 2001 we were both on a small yahoo email group--one that was actually peaceful So, we sort of knew each other's name from that list, though we hadn't talked very much. Well, we both happened to be chatting at an MSN Orthodox room at about that time, and so we started talking in there. She introduced herself as "Mary Cecilia" (or some similar combination of names), to which I asked her "Which do you prefer?" She didn't care, so I chose Mary (much to the frustration of her mom, hehe).

She rather quickly started dropping hints that she was only a few hours drive away and that she was single. I didn't take the hint. So she dropped more! Eventually I understood, and agreed to drive down and meet her. If it worked out (as a date), then it worked out and we'd see how things progressed; if it didn't, at least it would be nice to meet someone in real life that you talk to online. She had hoped to be able to come to my chrismation, but wasn't able to attend (I got chrismated and became Orthodox 6 days before our first date).

I hate city driving, and had never done much of it (except to go straight through a city on a highway), so it was a bit intimidating for me trying to find her in Pittsburgh. I got lost and had to stop a number of times for directions. Eventually I did find her, though, and although we got lost a couple more times that night, I at least got her home (though I had car problems and had to sleep at a relative's in Pittsburgh while I had work done on my car). That first date was on Dec. 28th, 2001.

Things developed pretty quickly after that, with me dating her (taking her out in real life) about 1-2 times a week, and talking on the internet (using a webcam) and the phone 4+ hours a night. Around the end of February, Mary asked me to marry her. waits until people get ahold of themselves Ok, ready for me to continue? We had discussed marriage before this, but always as something that we (or at least I! ) saw as something quite a ways down the road. We loved each other, and sort of assumed that we were going to get married, but we (well, most I, lol) was being cautious.

There is a thing called love at first sight. It's a scientifically demonstratable phenomenon: when someone falls "in love at first sight" there is a definate physical change in someone's body. The question is not whether there is this first love, but whether it will develop into a lasting, true love. So I thought we were gonna wait and see. Well, one night there seemed to be something on Mary's mind, so I asked if she had something she wanted to talk about or ask me. She said that she did, but didn't really want to talk about it. Thinking that it was something "personal" from her past, I assured her that she could share anything with me.

So she asked me, "will you marry me?" I was, of course, totally in shock. After getting myself together and praying for a moment, I started questioning her about her question; I took her question very seriously, and not as something that I could just dismiss with a "we'll see in a few months". IMO, once it was "on the table," it was something that had to be discussed and considered. After a few hours time, I said yes. There were some people who were very angry with this (e.g., Mary's Spiritual Father at the time), and most people were generally negative since they thought we weren't ready. Most were negative but tried to be supportive nonetheless.

After some discussion, we eventually decided to get married after Pascha of 2003. Around the middle of November 2002, however, we hit a snag. I'd rather not go into circumstances, but both Mary and I ended up staying in an "emergency shelter" (which is a nice version of a homeless shelter). This wasn't the best situation, but it was all we could do at the time. The plan was to move out on our own: to move into an apartment together. The obvious problem with this was that, as Orthodox Christians, we certainly couldn't live together before marriage.

So, we called the Priest who was to do our wedding after Pascha, and asked him if he could do the wedding now--in Dec. 2002--instead of later. He did not think it the wisest thing (like most people, he thought that we were going to fast), but considering our situation it seemed like the only acceptable course of action (at least that's how it appeared to me, and I assume to him as well). So, Mary and I got married on Dec. 28th, 2002: the 1 year anniversary of our first date.

Marriage has not been overly difficult... or I should say, marriage has not been difficult in the way that I had imagined it would be. It's the small things that'll get you, and it's the small things that both of us are working on. I, especially, need to do a lot of work; I am just lucky that the girl I married is very meek and loving and kind and submissive. If I were married to someone that had the same attitude/personality as me, the marriage would undoubtedly fail. But as it is, her piety informs my egg-headed thinking. Her love softens my hard heart. Her meekness turns away my bursts of frustration. Her submissiveness transforms my pride into repentance. I'm very happy to be married, and though I know that I don't deserve her, I thank God that I'm with her.

[Mary Kissel]

How my husband and I first met, dated and got married.

He and I were at the time both members of an Orthodox mailing list (which as he's stated was pretty peaceful for an Orthodox mailing list) and we started talking together in an Orthodox chatroom on MSN. Eventually we began talking more via AIM. I had constantly dropped hints to him that I liked him as a friend and that I was single and Orthodox and that I was interested in meeting him in person. When he finally got the hint and asked me out and he took me out on Dec. 28, 2001. He came to my house that day and we went out for lunch at Olive Garden (an Italian resturaunt) and then went to the theater to see the first Lord of the Rings movie. Despite his car problems I had a great time and was hoping to see him again. When we didn't get to go out together(since I was in Pittsburgh and he was living in the Altoona area and he detested city driving) we would talk online and talk on the phone for hours. I even talked to him at work during my lunch breaks. I knew from the first date that I loved him, and when he had to go home, I wished I could have went with him because I always enjoyed being with him.

One night during our late night conversation on ICQ he had asked me (like he usually did) if I had any questions for him, or anything that I wanted to talk about. I suddenly got brave and I told him that I actually did have a question for him but I was kind of afraid to ask it because I wasn't sure how he'd react. He told me to go ahead and ask and as he said he never expected at all what came next. On Feb. 25/26 around 130 in the morning I asked him to marry me. I was just as shocked as he was when I asked the question and realized that I really did ask it. He asked me if I was really serious about this and I said yes, I did mean it, that I wanted to be married. (As he's stated we did talk about marriage casually before all this,but never planned on marrying this soon) After he thought about it for awhile he said that yes, he would marry me. I was so very happy that he said yes to me! I was afraid that he would say no and say that we need to wait for a while, that I was going to fast. I had asked him to marry me because I loved him a lot and I knew he was the man I wanted to spend my life with, have a family with and grow old with. I knew he was the man I wanted to be a father to our future children.

We decided together which priest we would want to marry us and talked to him about the date to get married. As he's said, a lot of people thought we were going too fast, including my spiritual father and the priest who was to marry us. I think a lot were afraid that our marriage wouldn't last if we got married too soon. We took marriage classes together to prepare us for marriage and so that we could ask any questions we might have and discuss things with the priest. I am happy that we took those classes because I did learn some things that I wasn't aware of beforehand.

In the beginning of November of 2002 due to circumstances that I'd rather not get into, we ended up staying together in an Emergency shelter (a.k.a. homeless shelter). We wanted to live together after we got out of the shelter and got our own apartment, but obviously we couldn't do that without being married first. We talked to the priest who was to marry us and explained our situation. Even though he didn't think it was wise to marry this soon he said that he would marry us and we set the date for December 28, 2002. He thought that this was a better idea to marry so soon instead of us living together without being married first(this is how we took it at least).
Even though we may have some small disagreements, I am very happy to be married and I love him with all my heart and I would never leave him or even think of divorcing him. I know that we are still young and many may still say "You should have waited til you were older." but, the truth is, that we were in love and are in love and are now married and I know I will never regret being married already and I look forward to having a family with him.

In Christ,
Mrs. MaryCecilia K

[Natasha]

Ok, my story is unique to say the least. My husband and I met briefly when we were very young. Many years passed, and by chance we started writing each other about 5 years ago, like pen pals. He lived in Moscow and I was here in the states. As soon as we started corresponding, I KNEW I was going to marry him (which is very strange-but it’s the truth). At first, I thought it was just a crazy idea, mainly because we were so far apart, so spent all my time trying to persuade him to find a nice girl over there! I kept thinking about how wonderful he was and how lucky a girl would be to have him. Finally, one day I just told myself, forget fixing him up with a girl in Moscow, I am going to go to Moscow myself! So after about a year of saving for the trip, my family and I visited him and his family in Russia. After about a week together, during a ballet performance at the Bolshoi, I brought up marriage. He admitted he wanted to ask me to marry him, but he felt like he could not offer me anything, after all he lived in Russia, he still had a year to go until he finished graduate school. I told him that it didn’t matter and we would find a way. So, I went back to the states and I worked 2 jobs in order to save money to go back to Russia and get married. Almost exactly a year later we were married. We were married in church first, then in Zagz (Zagz is like the courthouse where you get your marriage license. Loud dance music plays there and you can have a civil ceremony. It was creepy.) The Priest wasn’t supposed to allow us to get married until after the Zagz paperwork, but that would have put us into Lent, so he allowed us to have our church wedding first. I lived in Moscow for a few months and wrestled with the immigration process. It is very embarrassing to have to try to prove the validity of your relationship to an INS worker.
I went back home to the states and got a full-time job and saved to get an apartment for us. After 6 more months he visited me here for Christmas (which was good because we thought that we were going to be apart for another year!), but he had to go back again and finish school and his mandatory army service. 3 months after that, he came here to live. That was about 3 years ago! Now our lives have settled a bit and we have a house and our jobs (hopefully a family in the future). We went through many struggles to get to this point, but I am glad that we made it work!

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

Those are some very wonderful stories! I had no idea Mary and Justin were husband and wife - now I have to look back on the posts and see if they were ganging up on me.

I will just say that my wife is the most fantastic person - I have no doubt that God's hand was at work. She has naturally what I have been struggling for for years, and will likely struggle for all my life, an Orthodox disposition. She is naturally patient, caring and loving for everyone around her, little concern for money, and no anamosity toward anyone.

We have been married several years and now have two boys and most recently (Feb 10), a newly baptized (June 8th) baby girl. Their names are Adam, Alexander, and Sophia. How many more, who knows. :shock: