We just celebrated our one year wedding anniversary, as part of that, I tagged eharmony on our Facebook post. They responded with, “tell us your story.” So here is what I sent them. There are many more pieces, but this is the big picture.
“I want to share our story, not because it is unique in how we found each other…eHarmony is doing that everyday…but we are unique in what we have done with our lives since.
Rich and I were matched on 12/20/08. I had been divorced after 25 years of marriage, Rich had recently become a widower after an equal 25 years of marriage. We figured we started our relationship with 50 years experience, so we knew what we wanted and more importantly what we didn’t want.
We began slowly, just as is suggested, it took us almost three months to finally meet, there were 600 miles between us, so planning was required. I was skeptical about being in a relationship and at the end of our first weekend together, I told him “Don’t do it. Don’t fall in love with me. I am trouble.” That was how I was feeling, I hadn’t done anything but hurt everyone in my way for awhile now. We continued talking and about three weeks later he sent me a text that said “ I think I am in serious like with you.” That was it for me, I was hooked.
In July 2010, we got engaged, by then Rich had moved to Idaho and we were helping to raise his infant grandson, this would be a temporary situation, but at the time, we just weren’t sure where it was going. My friends suggested I didn’t have to do that, my kids were raised, I didn’t have to take on a newborn. I told them, “I love Rich, if he comes with a child, I will take him too, this is the right thing for us to do.” And it was.
Not long after, we had four adult girls (daughters and friends) and an infant living with us, that was a challenging year, but we survived it with humor. Everyone kept asking when we were getting married, I told them, the day after the end of the world. Not that I believed the world was ending, but because the Mayan calendar was in the news and it was an easy response.
About December 12, 2012, Rich reminded me that the end of the world was next week, was I ready to be married? I asked for the opportunity to sleep on it. By this time, our lives were so intertwined, there wouldn’t be much change in our living arrangements, but the paperwork had scared me a little. The next morning, I told him I had a plan. We called our favorite local sports bar owner, arranged an End of the World party after they closed on the 21st; called a friend to have him arrange to be ordained; and sent messages to our friends that we were having an End of the World as we Know it Party. Only one couple caught on. At midnight, we quieted the room, told them since no zombies were knocking at the door, we were going to go ahead and get married. It was incredible, a great party, a fun time, the looks on my friends faces was priceless. We had pulled off a surprise wedding. (Check out Day 287 for the wedding.)
We just celebrated our 5 year anniversary from being matched and our 1 year wedding anniversary. So that is the “romantic” stuff, the stuff your commercials are made of, everyone dreams of finding the one, but we really did. Distance was overcome, baggage was thrown out, we truly are the happiest couple I know.
This is the rest of the story….
My husband is an off-road event promoter, for the ten years before we met, he put on 6 to 10 events a year, all over the country. He has friends all over the world and is an icon in his industry. I didn’t know anyone, a complete outsider, offroad was not my passion. My passion is business, no matter what the form. I had a stable, secure job as the Chief Financial Officer for a 40+ million dollar company. I loved my career, but I was changing my lifestyle after my youngest child graduated from high school, with or without a partner. I wanted adventure and travel.
As we got to know each other, we started to play to each other’s strengths, he let me take over duties in his company that were administratively oriented, he remained the people person and the visionary. In 2011, we expanded his business with an upstart racing organization, so in addition to the extreme rock crawling, we were now racing. Our test market played so well, we expanded the company to include racing all over the country and go full time in 2012. I retired from my job, we rented the 3000 sq foot house out, and moved in to a 280 sq foot RV – well kind of. We refer to our RV as a poor man’s NASCAR hauler, it is a converted semi-truck that we use as our office and our home. We travel fulltime, if we aren’t at one of our own events, we are at another offroad event. The business has taken off, we have followers, we have fans, we have friends and we have family, nationwide. We bring a family atmosphere to an intense competition, we play hard, we work hard, we are a partnership.
2014 is adding some new things to our field of play, in addition to the offroad events with vehicles, we are adding a running series. We are also working with an emmy-nominated film editor to produce a made-for-tv competition series that is being pitched to major networks. Our life is about fun and travel, love and friendship. I truly found my life’s partner and am blessed every day with an incredible life. Everyone should have it as great as we do.”
Check out our lives:
A Life Unscripted 