No matter how you slice it, divorce sucks. (Seriously, it makes my heart ache to just look at Bethenny Frankel right now.) But every now and then you hear a story of how ending a marriage ended up leading two people to the love of their lives. Or leading them back to the love of their lives ... Such was the case for high school sweethearts Laine Thompson and Lucas Blum.
The couple met in choir class in 1989 and were instantly inseparable. Lucas would even sketch Laine (a la Jack and Rose in Titanic?!) while she was doing her homework. Aww. Laine says she saved those drawings for years -- years after she moved from their hometown of Freeport, Illinois to SoCal. 'Course the couple ended up breaking up for the same reason many high school sweethearts do -- it was just too hard to keep things going with miles between them. They married other people and only saw one another once again at a mutual friend's wedding in '01. But apparently, they still carried a torch for one another ...
Laine told HuffPo:
I thought about him constantly and often compared my husband to him, wondering why he wasn't as attentive or sensitive or thoughtful as Lucas was.
Sheesh, that's intense! So it obviously wasn't just a case of first love ... There was a lot more between these two. So I guess it shouldn't come as that big a surprise that they ended up getting divorced/separated from their respective spouses and finding one another again ... via Facebok (because how else?!). One thing led to the other, and before you knew it, they were meeting on a bridge in a park in Freeport.
More from The Stir: 15 Amazing Things About Marrying Your Childhood Sweetheart
Thompson shares:
It was as though there was no one else in the park that day. It was magic. We held each other and kissed and cried. We walked through the park, but I had to keep sitting because I was so overwhelmed.
Six months later they moved in together, and last month, they got engaged. And while this is an incredibly romantic, adorable story, I have to say I'm happy that it's not all that extraordinary. Thanks to the power of the Internet, people are finding love more easily ... or reuniting with long-lost loves. And when you hear a story like this, you can't help but realize the web -- and Facebook specifically -- really has changed so many people's lives in an amazing, dare I say ... magical way.
How sweet is this? Do you know any lovebirds who reunited as a result of Facebook?
Image via Tela Chhe/Flickr
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Comments 14
Sweet?! No, this is a story of a home-wrecker and should not be touted as romantic. Reconnecting with someone from your carefree youth is appealing when dealing with some of the drudgery of pesky real life, but what happens when the previously absent obligations show up and pops that teeny-bopper bliss bubble?
I was married to my ex-wife for 20 years. We have three wonderful kids. two of them are under 12 years old. Two years before she asked for a divorce she started hunting her old high school sweetheart on the internet. All the places he lived all his family members and last names. To make a long story short, she left me for a jerk that didn't want anything to do with my step daughter when she was 4 years old. I raised her as my own. There is a reason we break up with our high school sweethearts. The make the story shorter, her new boyfriend dropped her after a couple of months. She is the unhappiest woman I know. I feel for this woman's husband who could never measure up to a fantasy she had created in her head. No one can compete against that! I was villified so that she could have an excuse to do what she did. I'm a great dad. hands on. Coached and played everyday with the kids. Now I see them 50 days a year and they live five miles from me. The pain is indescrivable. I am happily married to a nice woman now that I love very much and she's my true soul mate. But the pain of the betrayal and most importantly the loss of all the time with my children hurt me down to my soul. You think this story is romantic, but all I see is two adults that broke their vows for fantasies. Teen fantasies and two other peopl and possibly children that were hurt. By the way, I was a damned good husband too!
*serious than a middle school romance since we were older but it was still like we just picked up right where we left off. We have been happily married for 4 years now :)
I'll share my story because it is what this story should have been. I was married for 27 years when my husband decided he didn't love me anymore and wanted a divorce. I won't go until all the marriage/divorce details because that's a whole other story and bottom line he didn't love me anymore. After we were divorced I reconnected with the guy who took me to senior prom. He had actually become friends with my ex as they were in the same class so I'd seen him off and on over the years but there was NOTHING between us. He never married. We started dating and fast forward 3 and 1/2 years and we just got engaged at Christmas.