EVERYDAY HEROES Series DIVORCE RECOVERY
“Heartbreak Turns a Romantic to Love Coaching”
Passionate and tastefully dolled-up, LeeAnn Williams of Plymouth, Minnesota admits she’s always been a hopeless romantic.
But never was that more apparent than when she turned her life’s greatest heartbreak – the loss of a 13-year marriage – into a one-of-a-kind business outfitting couples for sustainable love.
“I wasn’t the coolest kid in school, but I dreamed of an amazing relationship with a happily-ever-after ending. I was lucky. Except for one or two toads, I dated guys that treated me like a princess,” she said with an infectious glow.
Williams is not talking about exotic or erotic shows of affection, she said, just intentional love – more walk than talk, and a little bit of planning, thank you.
A hard-working farm girl who grew up just south of Rochester, MN, Williams is not given to flights of fancy. She knows that you get out of something what you put into it, and love relationships are no different. So a date to see a movie, in an age of screen-watching passivity, is pretty much a “cop out” in her book.
Early on in their relationship, her future husband really “got it.” He met her as she got off work from Cub Foods at midnight, for example, and drove her into the country on snowy back roads, then performed an original love rap song by the light of the silvery moon.
He outdid himself with his marriage proposal, she explained. “I came home from college to find three presents on the table, one with a poem that instructed me to be blindfolded. As I sat in silence, he got dressed in a knight’s costume.”
The poem’s next clue led them for a drive to the top of a snowy hill. “Hopping on an orange sled, we slid downhill and stopped at another clue sticking out of the ground.”
At the last stop in their hunt, “I found a shovel and had to dig up my treasure. By then it was dark, so we took it back to the car where I found a huge scroll which he read to me in the headlights. It listed all the qualities he saw in me and wanted in a wife.”
Finally she opened the treasure box “and there was a diamond ring,” she said, recounting the moment with delight. Williams accepted his proposal and the two were married in the early 90’s.
Times were very tight for Williams and her new hubby. He still had several years of school to finish and she earned about $13,000 a year producing the morning news for a small TV station. The two could barely afford to keep the heat at 60 degrees in their tiny 1-bedroom apartment.
By the late ‘90’s, her husband owned and operated a successful health services business. In 2000, their first child was born, and instead of going back to a market research job, Williams joined the business. Life was busy, but they enjoyed their partnership, until the business became all-consuming.
“We continued having our date nights, but something important was missing. From the outside looking in, we seemed to be the perfect family, but the effort to grow our marriage wasn’t there.”
“Love is a commitment,” said Williams, “but if you’re committed, you’ll invest in it the same way you invest time to become a better athlete or employee or parent.”
“If later in marriage you don’t feel madly in love, I think that’s the norm,” she said. “But if you’re committed to the person, you can weather that storm and eventually set the stage again for love. Then the butterfly feelings can return.”
If you stop investing in a love relationship, it will atrophy, stop growing, or become boring, she said, “What happened to us was a tragedy that may have been prevented if not quite so many things became more important than our marriage.”
The divorce was the darkest season of Williams’ life, she said. “I didn’t eat or sleep for many weeks. I took five showers a day just to try and cope with the loss.”
But it was also a moment of truth and transformation. She prayed for humility, she said, and though she lost her husband and job in a single day, she eventually felt “a personal intimacy with God that I had never had.”
Through a season of soul-searching and healing she became an even more passionate advocate of the art of loving well, starting a business called Out of the Box Dates (www.outoftheboxdates.com).
Out of the Box Dates are meant to inspire couples of all ages and stages to be more intentional and creative “in the love part of their relationship.”
Resources range from love conversation cards for a mere $5 to romantic games from $10-30 to planned adventures throughout the Twin Cities for more than $50.
Let the Games Begin, “an opportunity to be silly,” has five destinations across the northern suburbs, said Williams. Something’s Cookin’ focuses on emotional intimacy, and Pieces of Surprise on physical intimacy.
Boxes may include everything from massage oil and a satin scarf to a beautiful ostrich feather — don’t worry, she’ll tell you what to do with it! – and may give you a flash back to the scandalous days of spin the bottle.
The creative fun of William’s Love Pops and Kiss Cards leave French kissing in the dust. Be ready for a full menu of 12 lip applications!
Williams has not stopped
A member of Plymouth Covenant, Williams is not shy about her message even in church where she serves on its Marriage Ministry team at. She is currently coordinating ballroom dancing as a fundraiser for the church’s benevolence fund.
She is fully aware that sex has often been a taboo in churches and that even dancing is suspect among some conservatives. But she is undaunted.
“We are told not to have sex so many times before marriage that we’ve lost sight of the gift of intimacy that we’re called to grow. There’s such a confused message out there and many married couples don’t talk about it. We need a message and model with a positive view so we learn how to have successful love relationships.”
As Williams has managed to raise the romance bar even higher, one wonders how anyone could fulfill her expectations. But she is again happily married.
“It’s not about making grandiose gestures, like buying the airplane ticket or a dozen roses. It’s more important to find simple ways to remind a loved one what you like or appreciate about them.”
One of the things she finds most romantic that doesn’t cost a thing, she says, is that her current husband nearly always opens the door for her. It shows he’s thinking of her in the simplest moments, something they are both careful to do in their blended marriage.
“Our goal is to be and remain the best of friends, to respect each other and always love to be together,” she said.
Whatever else happens, Williams said, “the happily-ever-after part of a love relationship is a dream that can be nurtured and protected through the more-mundane aspects of life.”
— Todd Svanoe can be reached at toddsvanoe@gmail.com or by calling at 612-578-2292. 2020 (c) Note: Reproduction of this copyrighted material is prohibited
