BY DANI TIETZ
dani@sjodaily.com
“Do you want fast or forever?”
When Shawn Skinner and Kelly Miller joined dating sites in 2006, they weren’t sure they were looking for either.
In fact, Shawn, who was recently divorced didn’t even want to join a dating site.
“One of my best friends decided that he was tired of me sitting in my house all alone, watching sports,” Shawn said. “So he bought me a membership to E-Harmony. He forced me to get on and that that was how I ended up there.
“I was not looking to get in a relationship at all.”
Shawn was a busy man, at the time.
The father of three sons all under the age of eight, Shawn also taught at Westville High School and coached three sports.
But even though he was working almost sun-up to sun-down, his friends could see that he would benefit from a little something more.
Reluctantly, Shawn went through the lengthy and thorough process of setting up his E-Harmony account, making sure that the only potential women he would meet would not live nearby.
“I was not searching for local people, but far enough away that I could travel and visit,” he said.
Kelly, a recently widowed woman with two children under the age of five was looking for something similar.
“My mom thought that I needed to date, and get out into the world,” Kelly said. “So, online dating sounded like the best bet.
“I was not looking for a committed relationship.
“It was really appealing to kind of look outside of my immediate town because I wanted to have my life, and then I wanted to have something on the side but not interfere with my regular life.”
While both Kelly and Shawn were looking for something casual, they both knew that their values and priorities were foundational in any relationship they entered into.
The rigorous process E-Harmony puts its registrants through helped both of them know that their matches had to be in it for something more than a hook-up.
“It was a lot about personality tests,” Kelly said. “It was more like core components and personality.
“It was really neat because you could really specify and really lock into certain values or religion or any of that stuff, whatever you believed in and valued, it was going to come through,” Shawn said.
“They matched you with other people that were compatible with you,” Kelly said. “But unlike other online dating sites, they wouldn’t show you a picture first, they would just show you areas that you were compatible.”
After going through the process, Shawn believed that whomever he was matched with would be telling the truth because E-Harmony put him through so much.
“I don’t know why you would have ever paid and not been honest for that service,” he said.
Once matched, the individuals have to go through a series of interactions before they could share their picture.
Shawn said his pickiness gave him the results he expected.
“I had like four matches in the world,” he said.
One of those matches was Kelly, but he didn’t pick her first. Kelly was 75 miles away from Westville in Plainfield, Ind. So, he chose someone closer.
When that didn’t work, he responded to Kelly.
“My buddy would check-in, ‘Did you email that girl’s today?’” he said.
Shawn would tell him yes, but he really didn’t engage in the conversation until they started talking about music.
“Music is really big to me,” he said. “I am an eclectic music person. I like everything.
“I was throwing out some randomness, and she knew the stuff.”
Kelly also knew a thing about football.
It was the middle of football season for Westville High School, and Kelly asked a random football question.
“Either she did a lot of googling or she really did like football,” Shawn said.
When Shawn replied, he also asked if she liked football.
“That’s when the floodgates opened because she was a Colts’ season ticket holder,” Shawn said.
Not only that, but Kelly had lived in Green Bay when the Packers won the Super Bowl and she lived in Pittsburgh when the Steelers, who Shawn loves, went to the playoffs. And she grew up in Philadephia and was an Eagles fan.
“She could quote all these players from the Steelers’ history.”
Shawn figured that if she was a football fan and had Colts’ season tickets, “it might not hurt to meet her,” he said.
Of course, he had to report back to his buddy.
“I was like, ‘She’s a Colt season ticket holder.’ And he just said, ‘Well, it’s been nice having you as a friend.’”
At this point, Kelly had seen a picture of Shawn, but Shawn did not give her a good picture of himself.
“It was him coaching softball,” Kelly remembered. “It was an overcast day, he had lost like 100 pounds, and so he was in that transition, but he had these big huge baggy clothes and a hat that covered up most of his face.
“It really wasn’t an attractive picture at all, but I really like his personality, so I thought that I was being very benevolent; looks don’t matter. I will be a bigger person. I don’t make judgements on appearance.”
Their regular phone calls turned into frequent phone calls, reaching a point where they talked on the phone almost every night.
Within a month, Kelly asked Shawn if he’d like to go to a Sunday afternoon Colts game with her.
The plan was for Shawn and Kelly to meet for brunch, go to the game, then that would be it.
Both had an ‘out’ though. Shawn’s buddy and mom, Martha, knew when to call and what to say in case things fell south. Kelly also had people lined up to check in on her throughout the day.
As Shawn arrived nervously for breakfast, he knew what Kelly looked like and who he was looking for.
“I could tell by her picture that she was beautiful, but that didn’t really matter to me,” he said.
Uncharacteristically, Kelly arrived to brunch early to wait for Shawn.
“Remember I’m going to be the bigger person; I really like this guy, but I’m not really sure how he looks. And so I’m sitting in the restaurant, and he walks in and to me, he was super cute and super hot. And I was like, ‘thank you.’”
They were almost immediately smitten.
Still, friends and parents called almost every hour to make sure everything was okay.
“I had legitimate outs,” Shawn said. “I think she had people concerned, but this was so far out of the norm for me.”
His best friend called 40 minutes after the game, as planned. But Shawn wasn’t ready to leave. They both wanted to get dinner. And then they wanted to take a walk. And then they wanted to make out.
By this time, Shawn’s mom was legitimately worried not because her son wasn’t having fun, but because he had to teach in the morning.
The work week went by, and the following weekend, Kelly and Shawn met up again in Crawfordsville.
“We kind of had the discussion there,” Shawn said. “What are we going to do with this?”
They decided that they weren’t ready to introduce each other to their kids, so when Shawn’s ex-wife had the boys, they would hang out.
By the time Kelly went on the second date with Shawn, she new something was there.
“I dated multiple other people, but he was the first person that I had been really interested in after my first husband died,” she said. “And I don’t know that I was ready to be in love or in a committed relationship, but there was definitely an attraction.”
Kelly decided to take a leap. She asked Shawn to go to a wedding with her.
That prompted a December discussion of how they were serious about being in the relationship.
“I think we both kind of agreed that we’re, I don’t know that I would call it soulmates, but I think we’re meant for each other,” she said. “I think we complement each other. I think we’re just really good together.”
Shawn said neither he nor Kelly regret their first marriage.
“We are sorry for they way they ended,” he said. “Obviously, neither one of them ended the way you would want a marriage to end.
“The decision to go into a second marriage for both of us was not going to be something that was done, even if it feels right, it wasn’t going to be something that was done lightly.”
Both attribute the process E-Harmony put them through to their compatibility.
“If I didn’t believe that she supported me 100-percent, if she didn’t know how much I believe in and was committed to her, then this wasn’t gonna work,” he continued.
“We have super strong values and self awareness about the kind of people that we are and what we want out of the world and what we want out of life,” Kelly said.
Their previous circumstances led the couple to talking honestly about what might work and what wouldn’t.
“If I’m going to take this step with you, then you got to know this about me and you got to know this is how I’m going to be and this is what I’m going to do and this is what I believe in,” Shawn said. “If you can’t, if you can’t get on board with that, then that’s fine.”
Every time Shawn revealed something to Kelly that he thought might be a deal-breaker, Kelly said she agreed or felt the same way. Every time Kelly told something to Shawn that she thought would turn him the other way, he responded with affirmation.
“Then it got to the point where you don’t want to be disagreement, you don’t want to disagree,” Shawn said.
By May, they were engaged.
“She didn’t know that I bought a ring,” Shawn said. “But I was at a softball game in Milford, and I texted her and I told her to meet me. And she’s like, ‘Where?’ and I said ‘You know where.’”
They met in the same spot as their first date ended in Downtown Indianapolis.
“I asked her on that Friday to marry me,” he said.
And by September the answer to E-Harmony’s question became that they wanted fast and forever.
Looking back, the Skinners admit that maybe getting married in September at the height of the IHSA football season wasn’t the best idea.
The year was also 2007, and the beginning of the real estate collapse and a recession. Kelly still owned her home in Plainfield, and Shawn still owned his home in Westville, so for the first year of their marriage, they lived apart.
Shawn also wasn’t able to find a job in Indiana, so Kelly began talking to her employer about working from home, and traveling to Indiana a couple days a week.
The couple bought a home in St. Joseph. Because Shawn was still working and coaching three sports in Westville, and because Kelly was in Indiana Tuesday and Wednesday, they hired a nanny to help with the five kids and two dogs after school. They were also lucky enough to have grandparents nearby.
“I don’t know how we did it,” Shawn said.
“Strength of will,” Kelly replied.
“I mean it was the Brady Bunch,” he said.
“Without Alice,” Kelly replied.
“There were times that we would throw ourselves on the floor and act like two-year-olds, but we did it with a lot of love and support,” Kelly said.
Kelly added that because of their “committed” personalities, there has never been a moment of “let’s quit” for either of them.
“We both have an optimistic sense of the world,” Kelly said. “Even when things are bad, we try to lift each other up and always try to make each other better.”
As the oldest kids got into junior high, the demand for nanny care subsided a bit, but with extra-curriculars and kids needing to be here or there, the dynamic changed. Shawn gave up some coaching responsibilities while still teaching in Westville.
By 2012, he was brought into the St. Joseph-Ogden football program as an assistant. When he got a teaching job at St. Joseph-Ogden High School in 2016, he also became the head coach of the football program.
Like with nearly any family with children, the Skinner’s kids had times when they struggled, but blending the families together was something that both Shawn and Kelly now see the fruits of.
“They really care for each other,” Shawn said.
“We’ve been really lucky,” Kelly said. “They’re good kids.”
Bringing Kelly and Shawn’s parents on board was fairly easy, too.
“They just saw how natural it was and they saw the true love that was between us,” Shawn said. “And once they saw that, it was easy to embrace and get behind and support.”
“When you have a blended family. It’s not just us, and the way that we parent, there’s another parent involved, there’s other family members involved there’s other influences on the kids lives that sometimes run counter to the things that we believe and the things that we value,” Kelly said.
“So the hardest part for me was negotiating that, mitigating it or managing it. It’s not just two, it’s three and four and five and six perspectives.”
The perspectives that Kelly and Shawn have brought to each other is what will help their whirlwind romance last forever, though.
Shawn, a very structured and regimented man said that Kelly has helped him expand his view of self, others and the world.
“It’s opened up my eyes to realize that there’s not just my way or it can’t be done,” Shawn said. “That has manifested itself and everything: my parenting style, how I teach or how I coach, how I cook, how I eat, some of my political and religious views.
“She’s just really good at opening up my world, and I’m a better person for that. I’m a better person, because she pushes me to be better. And she has from the very beginning.”
Kelly loves the support system that the two of them have created for each other.
With a new business, Soul Care, Kelly is putting her world view and experiences into practice and giving others the opportunity to connect with their spirituality, too.
“I just have the most wonderful supportive partner who does believe in me and believes in everything I am, and has helped me have a really safe space to become the person that I’m meant to be,” she said. “Whether it’s learning better ways to communicate, or learning how to speak up, or learning to be vulnerable or learning to get rid of perfectionism … it would have been a whole lot harder to do those things without Shawn by my side.”
The Skinners don’t know what the next steps are. With just one of the five children still at home, they are adjusting to the reality that in a couple years they will be empty nesters.
“I think we’re in a transition stage,” Shawn said. “This is a new.
“She’s a business owner and she’ll be working,” he continued. “I mean that’s that’s a 24/7 gig for her that’s a new experience for her and she loves it. It’s good.”
Shawn said soon, for the first time in his life, he will be blessed with some free time.
“Right now, I love what I do. I get to teach I get to coach. You know football coaching can go year-round if it needs to.
“If she calls me and says she needs help doing something at Soul Care, I can help.”
Kelly said that because they have had so much change in their lives they usually don’t look farther down the road than three to six months.
But with friends getting ready to retire, she likes to dream about what retirement with Shawn will be like.
“Come back and interview us when we’re 100,” she said.
