Just curious to know, as single sitters, how did the couples on THS meet, if you were single when you started sitting?
And if one wasn’t so keen, how did you persuade them to join you?
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Hi @cath_the_explorer such an interesting topic. Hubby & I were already together when we started sitting but there is another thread on here which I have attached by @Lulubelle who had a sit cancelled for legitimate reasons, anyway to cut a long story short, she changed her itinerary and ended up acquiring a new boyfriend! So at least not a total loss 
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We are more than 4000 miles apart. He visited in October for a week and is arriving again Sunday for Thanksgiving. I’m visiting him in January.
I did have a friend involved in making this happen. She’s a bit of a matchmaker. I was heading to Alaska and she called him even though he lives 10 hours from where I was going to be. He drove down to take me fishing and left the next day. Three days later he drove all of the way back down to spend my last couple of days with me.
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and hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving together 
Love this 
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Thank You! He’s bold to come to my extended family Thanksgiving. There will be a lot of interest and inquiry. He’ll meet all of my family at once.
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We met while volunteering for the Sierra Club, an organization in the US that is focused on the environment. We were on a week long service trip doing trail work at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania. I had been divorced for quite a while and I remember my very proper mother telling me I should go on a cruise otherwise I was never going to meet anyone! I wasn’t looking to meet anyone but that’s usually when it happens.
After a few years of a long distance relationship, Detroit for me and Chicago for him, he moved to Detroit and we married in 2013.
That’s when he suggested we leave our jobs and travel around the world. He thought I’d say no, I’ve always been a very responsible, follow the rules sort but, I was frustrated with work and thought, why not?
So, in the midst of planning a trip around the world I discovered THS and found our first sit in Scotland. It was a lovely setting with a couple really good dogs. In addition to housesitting, we worked on a farm in the Czech Republic, harvested saffron in Italy and olives in Spain. (workaway) It was the trip of a lifetime.
I can still see my mom shaking her head saying, you should go on a cruise!
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It has been nice. We speak every day. We’re very different but we’re older and these surface differences matter less and less.
We haven’t been on a sit together yet. I’m not able to sit atm. But we plan to add him to my profile and have him vetted so that we can meet in the middle somewhere.
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Wonderful story! We are just starting the long distance commuting relationship. I believe it will work itself out over time as we are both at a stage of life where we can expect a lot of changes in the next couple of years. We are already discussing where we might like to spend 6 months outside of the US together.
Detroit to Chicago isn’t so bad. I can tell you that Raleigh to Fairbanks is difficult!
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Were you of retirement age or WFH when you started traveling together?
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Raleigh to Fairbanks is most certainly long distance! I’m sure you will make the time that you spend together special. We also had quick daily phone calls just to chat about our days. It was a great way to learn about each other.
One of our favorite things was to watch Amazing Race “together” and call each other during commercials. This was in the “Olden days” before streaming became popular!
You can make the long distance thing work, if there’s a will there’s a way!
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We need to make our phone calls shorter! I’m falling behind on things here at home. The time zone difference makes even phone calls a challenge. Someone has to stop in the middle of their day.
It is not my first long distance relationship but it is his. It doesn’t bother me a bit. I have a direct flight to SEA so I can get there and he here with one connection.
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I was 51 and he was 60. We dipped into savings and had a very strict budget. When we returned we both found jobs and worked for a while before we took another big trip.
I was finally able to collect my pension last year, and we also sold our house and are living at our cottage in northern Michigan, so we can now travel more.
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Thank you. It brings back good travel memories. We’ve always talked about going back to hawk mountain, maybe I should search for a housesit in that area!
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He is already collecting his, I am 58 but retired due to health issues that are currently giving me fits. I sold my house in May and am living in an urban townhouse now. He loves his home (a huge former mining lodge) and hasn’t gotten to the point of wanting to downsize yet. I have an elderly parent here.
He’s fluent in Spanish. We’re talking about places we might like to spend 6 months in together. For me remote areas of Scotland. For him Latin America.
These are all things which are likely to change over the next couple of years. Nothing is constant but change. I love your story and it gives me hope that we may find our path forward too.
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@cath_the_explorer
This is such a fun thread! Thanks for asking!
Nate and I met in salsa dancing class about 1.5 years before we were on here, but I had been sitting privately in South Jersey for 4+ years, so sitting was definitely already a big piece of my way of life. We were just dance friends for a long time and then began dating early 2023.
He is an animal guy (lives with 2 cats) and my clients were always comfortable with me having guests visit, so little by little I was able to bring Nate to visit me on my sits, introduce him to the pets and he also got to meet a bunch of my private clients.
I began TH last May when I went full digital nomad first as a solo sitter, but with each sit, I would ask if Nate could visit for a weekend. All the HOs were fine with that. We went on this way the first 4-5 months, until one HO suggested that we sit as a couple and just be front facing about it. Even though Nate is not sitting with me full time (b/c his job keeps him anchored to South Jersey most of the week), the HO suggested that adding him would be an advantage as many HOs prefer couples, and he has skill sets that I don’t have (he’s an IT guy and grew up doing house construction with his dad, so he knows all those things.) And I thought that was a really great idea, so we switched to a couples profile and have been very happy with that decision ever since!
And we still dance every chance we get!
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