That leap of faith...

[sukie175 0]

I think chemistry or whatever you would like to call it, is what attracts you to a person in the first place and true love, (not the over-used phrase) is what comes from this and it grows stronger as time goes on.

More wise words....us girlies are on fire today

[chri'stina 190]

I think chemistry or whatever you would like to call it, is what attracts you to a person in the first place and true love, (not the over-used phrase) is what comes from this and it grows stronger as time goes on.

I agree also

[crashandcari 0]

well crash and i met online in a gameroom and were great friends first... our feelings developed over time. at the time we were friends i planned to go over to england to visit (which i had always wanted to do). i booked my trip for february 2005 and in the time in between we talked more and more and more and more (helped that he worked nights and we were able to talk for hours on end)..

at some point my mom realized there was something between us and invited him for thanksgiving/my birthday... so he came to ny in november 2004 and after about 5 minutes of nervousness it was as if we had known each other forever... we just clicked..

i will offer this advice to those of you who HAVENT met your SO yet... do what we did... after i picked him up at the airport we went for a bite to eat and then walked around Target for a while... it helped break the nerves that were left over and allowed us to do something normal instead of "intimate"..

anyway when i finally went over in february 2005 he proposed that first day and the rest is history.. we married in july and hopefully he will be here by weeks end to hold me forever...

i believe as long as you have communication the rest comes easily...

Edited May 16, 2006 by crashandcari

[chri'stina 190]

I remember one day so specifically, probably in the end of 2001 or beginning of 2002, after realizing I was falling in love with someone I met online who lived soo far away..I kept telling myself I had lost it, I had gone insane, I was crazy, etc...telling myself that all day long. Then finally I felt a peace inside me that said "let go" and I did..I said ok, I know I am a level headed person, there must be a good reason this is happening, and I should just accept it and be happy and stop thinking I'm crazy since it's someone online. And I let myself fall in love more and more and felt like it was the right thing and that our future definitely belonged together.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

I have to admit I was kind of surprised when I first came on this website to see people make that leap of faith -- I couldn't (wouldn't do it myself). I've also wondered the same thing as Lisa, but didn't want to start anything. It took me 15 years to finally get to this point (marriage-phobic, moi?) so I have to admit I am kind of impressed that people do it.

[Welshcookie 17]

I didn't meet my fiance online..........but the relationship I had before him WAS a result of the internet, I wasn't 'looking' for a bloke but I got got chatting to him on a forum where I was a mod, he caught my attention cos he was from the UK and this was mainly an American site.

We had a great online relationship for a long time, then we decided to meet up (he actually didn't live all that far away) I had no idea of what he even looked like My parents blew all kinds of fuses when I told them.

Our relationship lasted about a year. It was pretty obvious to both of us that the chemistry between us 'offline' was never near as good. When it ended I didn't so much mourn him physically as much as I did the whole online relationship I missed that a great deal. (oh and parents adored him btw!!!)

And yet here I am about to marry a man I already knew for 2 years and in those years never once had any kind of romantic feelings towards.....it's a funny old life

[Reba 2]

my husband and I met on-line in September 1999. By mid-January 2000 I had told him I love him, and I didn't even know his real name yet! Honestly, it hadn't even occured to me to ask him We had been chatting every night for over a month, we were actually "dating" on-line, neither one of us was seeing anyone "in real life".

In February that year he drove up to Toronto to meet me. The ####### showed up 3 hours early without calling ahead, so that he could see me "in my natural habitat" rather than all done up and ready. I still smack him from time to time for that After I cursed him for a minute or two, I just jumped on him and hugged him and kissed him, like I said I would. Priorities And even tho we were separated by a border and several hundred miles, from that moment, we were inseparable. He proposed in June of 2001, we married in October 2001.

We hadn't planned on getting married, or rather, I hadn't. I would have preferred to just live together, but immigration doesn't really allow that. We've had our difficulties sure, what newly married couple doesn't? Some of it is me adjusting to living in the US, some of it is adjusting to living with someone again, and sharing a bed. I snore, he's got cold feet. Sometimes our political differences cause arguments, sometimes our cultural differences cause arguments. These are things that even people who met under "normal" circumstances would have to deal with. Yes, they can make or break a relationship, but really they'll only break it if both halves of the couple aren't willing to work on it.

Would I have been as attracted to my husband if I had met him under different circumstances? Unless we've got a time machine, we'll never know. I'd like to think so tho, because we both feel that we were meant to be together, that a higher power brought us together, and that we would have met somehow regardless. It may just have taken a stronger wind to get us headed in the right direction tho.

[Fandango 1,440]

thank you all for sharing your stories, they are all so interesting!

I'd also like to hear from more men too!

Welshie, so with your ex...even though you loved him, the chemistry wasn't good?

[terri o'neale 0]

Great topic. Paul and I actually had a discussion yesterday that was similar...after what I had read happened to others. We were talking about the new UK Domestic Partner visa. I said that the paper didn't mean much to me. Having been married and living in the same house for 14 years with one man, I felt more of a partnership with Paul who is 6,000 miles away. Sweetie on the other said even if we had had that option he would have wanted the permenance of marriage. Which I thoght was sooooooooooo sweet considering he's always getting the short end of the stick in this marriage.

But yes, our first meeting was hard. We had held back those 3 little words for like 4 months. It was always a wait and see thing. Now just to be honest...I'm not a perfet size 6. I had been honest with him. Shown him pics...recent ones and everything. And my hubby is super hot in th bod btw. What is so funny is that I had gotten really comfortable with my body and basically always had the more fish in the sea attitude with men. Paul had talked up the whole 1st kiss at LAX thing. But to me...well that British stiff upper lip thing can be deceptive. And he made some off-handed comment about thinking I was taller. So I felt that despite our friendship and hours of chatting he just wasn't into me physically. And this time with this fish it bothered me. When we went to bed that night...I turned off the lights...hugged the edge of my side....and was crying as quietly as I could. Thanks goodness my hubby doesn't get rejection...he just slide over to my side and snuggled up to me...and the rest as they say is history.

As for the living together thing, we are luckier than most. In the past eighteen months we have gotten to spend about six months together. Thanks to the VWP and Paul's job that he an afford to take long periods of time off. Our roughest time was that first trip...five weeks...sometimes I wished he would just disappear...now I'm thankful he didn't. But it wasn't until I met his faily that I truly came to understand him. His dad has this vicious sense of humor. He always picks on everyone. Paul is like that too. Now I don't let it get to me anymore.

But yes...long or relatively quickly...simple or complicated...this whole process puts unnatural expectations and strains on relationships. I always say I had to look the whole world over to find the perfect man. I just wish being together was a simple as most people think it is. In the new cyber world our governments are going to have to negotiate new methods to accommodate the 100's of thousands of new couples each year.

[Welshcookie 17]

Welshie, so with your ex...even though you loved him, the chemistry wasn't good?

No, it came to ahead really when we started talking about me moving to where he lived.....I got pretty close to packing everything up and going but in the end I just couldn't see it thro....but I was lucky, I got to see him every weekend so it really wasn't the same as what ppl have gone thro' here....I just thought I would put my 2 pence worth in

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

When I met my husband there was no web, only an internet that I didn't have access to (and wouldn't have any idea how to work, even if I did). We wrote long letters and sent them in the mail. We saw each other maybe 2-3 times a year. I decided I'd gamble with my job (still didn't want marriage !) and quit and went to the UK for 6 months, then I struck gold (after reluctantly applying for the fiance visa to extend my stay) and got a work permit. then applied for ILR and citizenship and stayed in UK for 10 years -- all of the UK immigration stuff was a breeze compared to this.

[Jenn! 918]

I personally can't imagine marrying someone without having lived together first (no judgement here - just my personal feeling!), let alone having only spent a few weeks together before getting engaged.

I have to comment on this....if we all felt like this then there would be far fewer of us on VJ!!!

As I said somewhere else last week, unless you are a millionaire or student maybe and can take 3 months off from your normal life/work, the K1 process does not give you the grace of a getting to know each other in person period of time. We have no normal dating process, or living together process, we have to get engaged and then get married within 90 days of arriving.

Understood. I just meant for myself personally. I suppose we can never know how we would really react to a situation unless we're in it. But for me, I don't see myself ever having used a K1 visa if I hadn't already been living abroad with my fiance (ie. if we had met online and done a long-distance thing.). I would have seen it as way too risky and not have entered into the relationship in the first place I think.

Don't worry, I've been flamed many a time by friends of mine who are happily married after having met their husband online, so I know how strongly people feel about it. Just not for me, that's all.

Edited May 16, 2006 by jenn3539

[Cassie 8]

Before I met Jerry, I had dated other men that I had met online, some from the same province as where I lived, and one from overseas. It was fun, but it made me kind of jaded because a lot of the time, expectations were way too high for the first meeting and either one of us would come away from it a bit disappointed. Sometimes, the dating continued afterward, sometimes it didn't.

So when Jerry came into the picture, I was extremely cautious -- no expressions of love, no entertaining of the idea of anything more until we met in person, focus on getting to know him really instead of projecting on him, etc etc. And this time....it was right. We clicked immediately in person, because I feel we took the time to truely know each other and not get caught up in the stars and great feelings of possibly falling in love.

I can't tell anybody what to do or what not to do, all I can do is offer my experiences, which showed me that you need to meet in person in order to get a true sense of a person you've met online. Just my two cents.

[Ephesia 0]

Lisa

The very first moment Brandon and I met, I felt very happy and unsure at the same time. We had been talking online for a little over 6 months before I took the first trip. He was more terrified about my visit than I was. According to him, I had broken all the 'safety codes' in his life by venturing out to meet him.

We got along just fine in that trip, although sparks didn't fly outta our ears the way they do in some movies. We didn't exactly run into each other's arms at the airport, mostly because I had arrived in Indiana after a 25-hour long flight and I felt doggone tired. I also didn't see the exit that would take me right into the waiting area, and I didn't see him stifling a laugh watching me try to figure where the hell the exit was. It was all very unromantic.

At the end of that trip, though, I knew I'd want to see him again. I cried like hell when I returned to Singapore. But he remained unsure about the future of our friendship for the next 5 months (which incidentally made me cry even more). It took another visit later that same year, and then two three-month trips the next year before we both comfortably felt we were on the same page in the relationship.

I think by that time, we both knew that marriage would be an extension of how our friendship and relationship had grown. It took us SO MUCH time and commitment to build our love over the Internet, the phone, and e-mails. We learned very quickly and early on the value of not taking each other for granted, simply because a 12- or 13-hour difference just did not allow for that to happen. When we agreed to marry each other, we both knew immediately we would continue on with the same level of time and commitment.

People now still ask us how married life feels, and we always answer in near unison: "It feels the same, except we are together physically at last."

You are aware of the challenges Brandon and I have faced in our first year of marriage so far. His health issues sure threw us right into the deep end of the "in sickness and in health" part of the vow! But we have grown even closer than we ever thought possible because of our deep love for each other and commitment. And I felt it was a great compliment when his mom casually commented during lunch on Sat when I had detected snot in Brandon's right nostril and reached across to clean it: "Oh boy, you are already behaving like an old married couple."

I like so much how you have entitled this thread: That leap of faith. It certainly has been one HUGE leap for Brandon and me. And it continues to be a life of faith for both of us. A challenging but good one at that.

Always,

Elen

[rebeccajo 14]

We called the first phone calls the 'leap of faith' - after that everything else just seemed like it HAD to happen.....

Lisa, I'm going to give you something really wild to think about here. For me, I thank the Lord I met him on the web and not in person first. The reality of us is that had I first met Wes like at a party or a pub, I probably wouldn't have been attracted to him. I never thought I was physically attracted to a certain 'type' of man or that I judged someone by their mannerisms or body language, but apparently I do! Also, had we met like that, he would probably have been too shy to approach me - I'm a bit flashy, you know....

If someone had introduced us, or I had gotten to know him at work or in some similar situation, and I could have gotten to know his mind, then that would have worked. But if I had passed him on the street, he would not have gotten my second glance.

So...what does that tell you about chemistry? About the beauty of knowing the mind first, the soul secondly, and lastly seeing your love returned in someones eyes?