By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
August 29, 1999
Sometimes love is so overpowering that the only thing you can do is break up.
This is the story of Chris and Angel Harold – engaged twice, married once.
The Northbrook couple met almost 14 years ago when Chris was 18. Angel Meints was a shy 16-year-old who had never been on a date. They lived two doors down from each other in an inner-city mission in Chicago.
“I remember the very first thing he ever said to me that made me realize that he was attracted to me,” Angel remembers. “He said, `Oh, that blue dress looks really nice.’ But he didn’t say that I looked nice in it.”
“I was trying to think of something that was acceptable to say,” says Chris.
Sure, 16 may seem positively elderly to start dating these days. But Angel had been raised in the mission since she was 6. Her parents had encouraged her not to associate with men, much less date them.
But she was exceptionally pretty, and boys took notice.
Chris’ gentle demeanor and kind heart eventually won her over. They had a lot in common besides their love for the Lord. They shared a need to help the less fortunate in their community, as well as love for running.
Soon, Chris was invited to visit with Angel under chaperoned conditions.
On her 17th birthday, they became engaged.
Seven months later, Angel broke it off.
Few adults have the wherewithal to say, “Wait, this isn’t right.” How could a couple of teens have known that the best thing they could do was split up?
“We were too focused inward,” Angel explains. “We didn’t have anything outside of us.”
“I didn’t know,” Chris admits. “I thought things were going great. We were just into each other and all we wanted to do was stare at each other. Ultimately, it was unhealthy. It was pretty painful, because we got to a place where she realized that it wasn’t going to work out and I didn’t.”
Smiling, and not without a sense of irony, Chris dramatically adds, “That began the dark night of the soul for me, which lasted about three years.”
During this time, the two continued to see each other on a daily basis . . . in the hallways, at the magazine where they both worked and at church.
Nine months after their breakup, Chris’ fear came true. Angel began dating. A friend. Of his.
Then Chris watched as the two got engaged.
“There was one point when we decided that we would all be great friends,” Chris remembers. “At first, I thought this was a good, mature idea. I figured it would be healthy and that I could just move on. But by the end of the evening, I was like, `I never want to see these two or be around them again.’ ”
About seven months into her second engagement, Angel realized that she could not marry this man the way he was.
“I grew up with an angry father and I made it clear that I wasn’t going to marry an angry man,” Angel says. “I told him that I would give him a year to change, because I can’t live like that for the rest of my life. He never got it. So I said, `I can’t marry you.’ ”
The night she broke up with him, the jilted friend went to cry on Chris’ shoulder.
“I was trying so hard not to be, like, `Yes!’ ” Chris says. “But I was happy.”
Meanwhile, Chris was casually dating another woman, but realized that it wasn’t clicking.
“I called her and said, `It’s not you, it’s me,’ ” Chris says. “But I actually meant it! I was so young. I didn’t realize that was a line.”
At 24, Chris proposed a second time to Angel.
They married on Thanksgiving of the following year. Coincidentally, Chris’ former girlfriend – “it’s not you, it’s me” – married Chris’ best friend a few months later.
This November, Chris and Angel celebrate their seventh wedding anniversary.
