Our Love Story - I found love later in life
Mel and Pieter with their daughters, who were all part of their wedding day earlier this year
As the Ed Sheeran ballad goes: “People fall in love in mysterious ways”…
From a chance meeting at a party, to a casual foray into the daunting world of online dating, sometimes love abounds at the most unexpected of times.
Darwin business owner Mel Secondis, 51, tells Her Territory that finding someone to share her life with in her late 40s had been an unexpected and beautiful blessing.
A blessing that culminated in a picturesque wedding earlier this year.
Here is Mel’s story.
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Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would find love in my late 40’s!
Pete and I actually met online. Hard to believe and it took a lot of courage to put myself on there in the first place.
But I had found joy and happiness within myself, so I approached online dating casually - as a way of learning how to date and getting to know people.
Younger people don’t think twice about going online, but for us Gen X’ers, it is a difficult thing to get your head around. But I thought to myself – I will not meet anyone at a BBQ, or at the supermarket so I will have to put myself out there somehow.
Not knowing how the online dating really worked I saw Pete and connected with him and only then found out that he was from Melbourne, here for an exam. I thought, great, I will go and practice all this dating a little, at least if it goes really bad I would never bump into the guys again.
Well, we met and he always says he knew right there and then.
We hit it off on that first date - it was like a movie right from the start – never did I think something like that could happen in real life – let alone to me!
Funny enough I had to tell him my online ‘name’ wasn’t real (I had invented one for online dating), and he said to me ‘well .. i’m actually 49 not 43” … so it was quite the hilarious way to start off our foray into online dating and meeting each other!
I did know he was something special but I just enjoyed it without thinking too much ahead – we both just went with the flow, trying not to over complicate things by thinking what are we going to do as he has a business, children and his entire life in Melbourne and I have mine here in Darwin.
We started a long distance relationship and things were fun and easy. When he was here on one of his visits for the weekend, Covid hit Melbourne and he never left from then.
It was extremely difficult (and still is) to have his children so far away (he has a son 22 and a daughter 20), but we have been super lucky of how accepting our children have been of this relationship. There are 5 kids between us and they get along super great! Our three girls call themselves sisters and we have a lot of fun together. I adore his kids and have spent a lot of time with his daughter especially (whom I adore) as she came to stay here for a few months during covid and we have had a few trips together as a family.
Pete is a beautiful dad and such a great role model, and has taken on a role as a mentor and sounding board for all my kids and a fierce table tennis and tennis opponent to my son. It’s great to see them all together.
Our wedding day was incredible!
Mel and Pieter were married in Adelaide
We wanted to get married as to us it feels like a deeper commitment and we wanted to celebrate (rather than elope or just have a small quiet wedding) as we feel it was the most beautiful opportunity to bring together our two lives and the people we love most in this world into one room and have them witness our love and life together. We decided to get married in Adelaide (Pete’s hometown) and we could not have been happier with the location and the day itself. We had a few lead up events which made for a fun week of celebrations! The day was everything we had hoped for – a fun party vibe with lots of love, emotion and laughter!
My advice to women in their 30’s, 40’s or 50’s is to first work on being the best version of yourself – take time and really work out what is important to you, in your life and then what you are looking for. I feel I was so happy on my own doing what I was doing, healing, growing and having fun – asking myself questions as to what really is important to me – what makes me smile and how to fill my own cup) and so when Pete came along, he was like the icing on the cake – the cherry on top.
Be open, have fun with dating and I would definitely recommend going online. Don’t look for ‘the one’ but see it as an opportunity to learn and grow. I never in a million years thought I would find a guy as amazing as Pete online but here you are – they are out there.
