How I met my husband, found love, and built a life without compromise
I met my ex-husband in 2010 during graduate school, and we separated about ten years later. Before that, I had met people through mutual friends, at bars, or in school. When I became single at 32 with three boys under three, I had never once dated online. I was also newly sober—new to sobriety, online dating, and dating as a single mom.
When I first started talking to my (now) husband, I had no intention whatsoever of finding another husband. But he was so sweet, so kind, and so genuine that I couldn’t help but think, My God, I have to warn him.
“Oh, you sweet lamb,” I said to him. “It’s the Wild West out here. They’re going to eat you alive.”
We started talking and never stopped. Just a few months later, we were married.
While curating my online dating profile, I was early in sobriety and still amazed at how blue my eyes looked. I had just had my hair done when I took this picture, so I was very, very blonde. During a bored, sober doomscroll, I’d been bamboozled into taking a skin quiz on Facebook—and discovered a foundation I still love to this day (Il Makiage).
One thing I made very clear: my sobriety.
In my early days on the dating app, I didn’t list a response to the drinking question. As I recall, the options were something like: never, sometimes, frequently, or sober.
People would still ask, “You want to get a drink?” And in those early days of sobriety, my internal response was something like: No. But also yes. Terribly yes. More than anything. But no, really. I want to live, and so I choose not to drink.
The longer I stayed on the dating app (though I often downloaded and deleted it), I started responding like this: “No, I don’t drink at all. I’m an alcoholic. But, you know, the fun kind—the kind in recovery.”
I also listed my kids’ ages upfront, since that was always the first question, and I wanted to cut down on unnecessary conversation. I even mentioned the IUD, anticipating the common refrain I’d hear when I explained that my twins and my baby were only 15 months apart.
“You know how this happens, right?” people would say to me on the street—while I was still married and pregnant, no less.
By and large, the key was this: cut things off at the pass. Lead with your red flags.
This isn’t Instagram or Facebook—it’s not the place to put on airs. At least, that’s what I believe. To genuinely get to know another human, you should put your best foot forward, but also your most genuine one. Like-minded, genuine people looking for real connection will appreciate that.
I’m not for everyone—that’s for damn sure. And the primary goal of my profile was to weed out as many of those people as possible right from the start.
What my profile didn’t eliminate, I figured, would be handled by asking for their birth time and location to look up their birth chart—and by making it clear that I would never be drinking. Not once, not ever.
The other honest truth was this: I put my sobriety first so I could be the mom I wanted to be, and I was the mom I wanted to be because I put my kids first.
But when it came to putting my sobriety first, I had to face the fact that someone who came home and cracked a beer every day after work—or began peeling an orange for their old fashioned—wasn’t going to work for me at that point in my life.
I was looking for a man who believed in putting his kids first, too. A man without children just couldn’t understand what I did. A man with only one child—or even two—didn’t really get it.
People thought we were crazy to blend our families—my three and his four—and even crazier to have another child. But our family means everything to both of us. The line of Billy’s that won me over was this: “I’m over here slinging juice boxes and wiping butts.”
I wanted an involved man, a good father, and, of course, someone who shared my number-one value: humor—both the high and low forms. Also, good stories. A must.
And more seriously: John Gottman. Billy and I had both read The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman while attempting to salvage our past marriages. We had filled out the pages. For the most part, our former spouses had not. They might have thumbed through it.
But when I met Billy for the first time (at my house, no less—further illustrating our naiveté about dating on the internet), and he carried a copy of John Gottman’s 8 Dates, I thought, I have truly never met a man like this.
The most important thing about finding my husband was practicing a well-known recovery principle: rigorous honesty.
I was Kristen—unabashedly, 100 percent, fully exactly who I was. I knew who I was, what I wanted, and I wasn’t going to settle for anything less than perfect.
I had my whole life set up: I had a job, I paid my bills, I worked my program well, and I was the healthiest I had ever been.
What my husband and I have been called to walk through in the almost two years we’ve known each other is beyond me. What we’ve had to walk through would have tested any blended family, to be sure. Our responses to the shitshow we’ve endured have been similar because we share core values, but it has not been easy.
But really, that’s it—it’s the hardest and simplest thing: just tell the truth. Know your truth. Know your core values, what you’re looking for, and what you want.
Be honest. Be you. Be fully who you are, and you will attract what best serves you.
Welcome joy and honesty in 2025. Pluto has fully moved into Aquarius, where it will stay for the next 16 years or so. Hard-earned lessons have been won over the last 16 years.
The new chapter is here, and god, do I welcome it.
How about you?
We’d love for you to share in the comments:
- If you’ve used dating apps while sober, do you share that you’re sober in your profile? Why or why not?
- How important is it for you to find a partner who shares your commitment to sobriety?
- Has being sober influenced the type of person you’re attracted to? If so, how?
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