From new, young love, to a couple navigating parenthood together, to a dependable relationship built over decades, generations of relationships differ drastically. Though their stories, ages and futures may be different, they’ve learned to embrace the highs and lows and the joys and sorrows of their relationships.
Finding Their Footing
Their relationship was the result of an ultimatum — Spencer had two choices. “Meet up with me, or I won’t talk to you anymore.” The options were simple: take it — or leave it.
Trenton Roeber and Spencer McAfee-Gundrum, seniors at UW-Madison, had matched on an app called “Grindr,” a mobile dating site geared towards gay and bisexual men to meet other men near their location.
“Spencer blew me off — twice,” Trenton chuckles and nudges Spencer playfully, who is seated beside him.
Spencer laughs, and attempts to defend his side of the story. “Honestly, the first time I was actually busy,” he says. “The second time I was also probably busy, I don’t remember really, it was a while ago…I had different priorities.”
The Grindr app allows the user to match with other men in their area using the geosocial network mechanism in the app. According to the Pew Research Center, more than 22 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds use mobile dating apps as a method of finding significant others — a considerable increase from only five percent in 2013.
Spencer chalks up his flakiness to being unsure about wanting a serious relationship amidst the stresses of being a senior in college.
“I liked [Trenton] a lot,” he says. “We had really good conversations and had been talking for three weeks. But it seemed like a lot of work to start seriously dating people at that point.”
After Trenton made multiple unsuccessful attempts to meet Spencer for a first date, he had had enough.
“That’s when he was like, ‘OK, you have one more chance basically, or I’m just going to assume you don’t want to talk to me anymore,’” Spencer says. “And then I panicked, because I was like, ‘this guy is great. I have to meet up with him even if it’s last minute.’”
Although their first date at Indie Coffee in Madison was supposed to be “short-ish,” according to the couple, it ended up turning into a two-hour conversation, resulting in spending that entire night together, as Spencer invited Trenton to go out with him and his friends later that evening.
Despite doubts about starting a serious relationship their senior years in college, Spencer and Trenton have managed to juggle their academics, friendships, jobs, internships and extracurriculars while maintaining a healthy, romantic relationship.
At the beginning of their relationship they laid down some ground rules — they wouldn’t allow their relationship to interfere with the many other priorities that college students must manage.
“We have a similar world view. I think we both value the same things. We both value career over most things right now. We both value friendships, and don’t want a relationship that will take us away from things that are important to us,” Spencer says. “We don’t want each other to become each other’s whole lives — but we are very important to each other.”
Trenton and Spencer attribute their similar worldviews to not only the success of their relationship, but why they were attracted to each other from the first day they met.
On their first date, Trenton was especially attracted to how ambitious and adventurous he found Spencer to be. He believes that their ambition and career-focus have actually benefitted their relationship rather than hinder it because they understand each other’s’ priorities and often spend time working on homework together.
Although their relationship is fresh — only two and a half months in, they have already been there for each other through difficult times.
“[Trenton] is honestly the funniest person I’ve ever met and been close to. He’s sort of my pick-me-up, especially with these last few weeks, with the election and things,” says Spencer, who is concerned about the uncertainty of gay marriage rights with the recent Trump election and Republican Party’s stance on the issue. “He definitely has a way of making me very happy, and part of that is through humor.”
In addition, the couple say that their similar worldview prevents most fights and disagreements — joking that the only time they’ve fought was over Trenton’s clumsiness, when he accidentally backed into a parked car.
Despite their similarities, they disagree about whether or not they would like to have children in the future.
“You know you (Spencer) don’t want kids, and I’m just indifferent about it,” Trenton says.
With their futures and career paths undetermined at this point in their relationship, Spencer and Trenton both agree that it is difficult to know where they will be in a year or even a few months from now, but that they now have one more person to factor into their future decisions.
“I was like, ‘oh it’s not going to be a big deal,’” says Trenton. “Now I’m like, ‘crap, I feel like my career is my main priority, but I’d be willing to move career spots to be with Spencer.’”
Spencer agrees that he is willing to make compromises for the sake of their relationship.
“Let’s say I had two really good options for a job or school, and one was close to where [Trenton] had a good option, I would obviously take the one that’s closer to him,” says Spencer, who is applying to portfolio school and advertising jobs across the country from Los Angeles and San Francisco, to Boston and Chicago.
Although neither were expecting it, their “I’s,” became “We’s.”
Going the Distance
It was a whirlwind romance. In 2007, after months of being coworkers at Mason Street Grill in Milwaukee, Jay Culp and Courtney Koeneke suddenly found their friendship blossoming into a relationship.
“I was basically just living at his house because we would always go there after work and then I just ended up staying there, and I stayed there the next night, and all of a sudden I had a ton of clothes over there, and then I was like are we dating?” Courtney says. “I felt like I loved him really soon after that happened.”
But just two months into the relationship, it seemed it would all come to a screeching halt. Courtney was accepted to Miami Ad School in San Francisco and decided to pack up her belongings, which had slowly encroached on Jay’s house, to move across the country.
Despite this, Jay wasn’t ready to do long distance or let Courtney go, so instead, he uprooted his life to follow Courtney to San Francisco. It was this act of devotion only two months into the relationship that sealed the deal for Courtney. This was it, this was love.
“It sounds so crazy looking back on it but at the time it didn’t seem crazy, it really didn’t seem crazy at all,” Courtney says.
“When you feel it you feel it, there’s no doubt about it,” Jay assuredly responds.
And Jay’s feeling was right. Three years later, on Sept. 4, 2010, Courtney and Jay were married.
It has been six years since they said “I do,” and Courtney, 32, and Jay, 33, are now the parents to two beautiful daughters. After starting their family in California, the couple decided to travel back to their Milwaukee roots to raise their toddlers.
Sona, 2, and Lyla, who turns 1 on Dec. 7, have changed everything. The Culps have said goodbye to the carefree days of going out with friends and only caring for one another. There are two more young, impressionable lives in the picture now. Although Courtney says raising the children makes them more tired, leaving them to lash out over the smallest things due to exhaustion and stress, their love has only continued to grow. This family is what they’ve always wanted.
“I wouldn’t say [it’s] completely different, it just, it’s grown to a new level … Definitely in a good way,” Courtney says. “There’s times when you look back and it was so simple but I’m glad we are where we are now. This is definitely forward progress.”
It seems the Culps have always taken big steps to continually move forward. After Courtney graduated from Miami Ad School-San Francisco, the couple relocated to Los Angeles, where their two daughters were born. But after Lyla’s birth on Dec. 7, 2015, they realized that in order to raise their children how they had always envisioned, they would have to move back to Milwaukee. Family comes first, and Courtney says she and Jay both grew up with grandparents in their lives. With both of their families based in Milwaukee, the dairy state’s appeal grew. With more than 2,000 miles separating the growing Culp family and their relatives, combined with the sky-high prices of housing and child-care services burdening their reality, the Culps packed their bags and moved back to Milwaukee in March 2016.
These constant changes haven’t always been easy. From moving, to having children, to looking to buy a new house, Jay says the way they remain strong together is with the constant reminder that they are a team. And although they both agree that they have never truly questioned their relationship, they have faced rough patches. But after years of facing these challenges head on, Courtney and Jay know exactly how to navigate them: together.
“Any big change has been hard, moving to California, moving down to L.A., having kids, it just adds a new dynamic to your relationship, and I think the best way we have gotten through it is just understanding that we are going through this together instead of taking out our frustrations on each other,” Courtney says. “Just knowing that at the end of the day we are on the same team and coming from the same place and trying to be there for one another instead of going against each other.”
We have all heard “it’s the little things” before, but Jay and Courtney stand by that mantra. After almost a decade together and amid the chaos of raising two young children, the Culps look to the small moments for reassurance.
“Now, especially since we don’t have that much time together with Courtney working and with our schedules, it’s just when we have that moment,” Jay says. ”Just giving her a big hug and kiss–”
“— I was just going to say that. That’s so weird,” Courtney chimes in. “Jay will all of a sudden come up and give me a big hug, and like he will do that every day, and you can tell he just truly means it.”
Courtney says it’s not the cards or the gifts that keep their love alive but these small moments that others may overlook. She says that Jay goes out of his way to make her days easier, whether it be with a hug or cooking dinner ahead of time when she has a busy day so she doesn’t have to come home after work and settle for a bowl of cereal.
“It’s things like that that make me stay in love with him from day-to-day,” Courtney says.
This it what Courtney loves most about Jay — he always puts her and their daughters first. The love for their daughters is something that unites them both as taking care of their girls is now a huge part of their ever-evolving relationship. Jay too says that the nurturing side of Courtney is what he loves most now that they have children, although he loves many things about her.
As their daughters grow older, Jay says his main dating advice would be for them to remain strong women who know what they want and are their own people. Love is going to hurt, but Jay and Courtney say that raising their daughters to be confident and strong will be the best way to prepare them for when they enter the dating scene.
And Sona and Lyla have a great model of a relationship. While others may obsess over divorce rates, Courtney and Jay know they are in it for the long haul. Their exchange of “I do” was not a temporary agreement, but a life-long commitment.
“It’s always just been the two of us, and we are going to make this work together,” Courtney says. “We have to remember that we are going to have those bad days and bad moments, but the only way to get through this is to work together, and there is no other option for that.”
Made to Last
In January 1970, UW-Madison junior Lan Waddell walked into biochemistry 210 with a mission: he would find a wife this year. At the time, 210 was biochemistry for nurses, and Lan heard it was an ideal place to meet women. Gail was one of them.
“When I started school my junior year, I had kind of made a decision I was going to go back home and farm with my dad and brother,” Lan says. “And I thought, ‘You’d better find a wife while you’re at school, because once you get out you’ll be busy, and there’s not too many single girls around the farm. So I kind of put some energy into it that year.”
At the time, Gail was a sophomore, on track to her nursing degree. There was just one problem: she was already dating someone else. But after meeting in class as well as through mutual acquaintances, the other person Gail was seeing was no longer an issue, and Lan and Gail were together by March. A little less than a year later, they would be married at semester break, when Lan was a senior and Gail a junior, in the winter of 1971.
Even back then, they knew the rest was history.
Fast-forward to November 2016. Lan, 67 and Gail, 66, will celebrate their 46th anniversary in January, raised three children, and are now grandparents to three grandchildren. That’s no surprise to the still-happy couple, though. They knew what they were looking for from the moment they said “I do”: a life-long partner.
“What do you expect? The odds are pretty high you’ll find what you’re looking for,” Lan says. “If you’re looking to be married for 60 years, that’s probably what you’ll find. If you’re [in a situation of], ‘We’ll give it a shot as long as it’s convenient and easy,’ well, that’s probably what you’ll find.”
Gail agrees, saying an important part of a relationship that lasts a lifetime happens before a couple walks down the aisle.
“I think when you get married that you have to have that mindset that you’re going to stay married,” Gail says. “Is it easy? Not always. But you work at it.”
Lan and Gail both say they were lucky to have long-lasting, dedicated relationships as models while they were growing up. Gail’s parents were married for 64 years, and Lan’s parents were together for 58 years until his mother’s death. Seeing people close to them maintain successful relationships instilled in the to-be-Waddells that when they found their partner, they’d find someone for life.
That’s not to say the Waddells’ marriage has been entirely smooth-sailing; challenges to their relationship have sprung up, but Lan and Gail have always made it to the other side stronger. Lan dairy farmed for 15 years after they were married, and Gail says she felt trapped at times with all of the responsibilities that come with maintaining a farm. And when Lan decided to go to law school at Marquette University, Gail stayed home with their three children — Lan left for Milwaukee every Sunday night and returned home on Friday night.
“Our daughter was in high school and the two boys were in elementary school, and I was ready for him to be done,” Gail says. But even the rough patches were important to Lan and Gail’s relationship.
“I think you go in knowing it’s never easy to maintain a relationship,” Gail says. “As things happen and you make it through that period, you kind of feel good about yourself that you gave that chance to grow and your partner to grow.” It’s these trials that have made the relationship ironclad and reassured them time and time again that Lan and Gail Waddell are built to last.
“We were lucky enough that we were friends when we were dating, and we continue to be best friends,” Gail says. “We know that we will always have one person in our corner.”
“It’s an ‘always there for you’ sort of thing,” Lan says. “And even if you’ve screwed up royally, having someone still there for you.”
Lan and Gail have figured out their own special equation for long-lasting love, but do they impart any of their wisdom to their own children?
“Not seriously,” Gail says.
“Not in the slightest,” Lan chimes in, laughing.
“Because they can figure it out,” Gail continues. “If they ask something with seriousness I think we would certainly give them our best guess, but when they are just nonchalantly talking about something that happened last week, I’m not looking to put my two cents in … I think it’s much harder now to stay married than it was when we started. And they don’t need interfering from their parents.”
It’s not just that Lan and Gail are humble; relationships have changed drastically since they began seeing each other, and the Waddells see how their children’s marriages naturally run a different course than theirs has.
“I can count the number of diapers that Lan changed, where my boys both are very much involved parents and have been from the start,” Gail says. “I think they’re very much more involved in their kids’ lives than Lan was … I don’t know if it would have worked for us, but it worked for them.”
Lan says the culture, stigmas and expectations surrounding relationships and marriage has changed drastically, too. A year ago, his two female secretaries in his law office were both divorced women, something unfathomable 50 years ago. Back then, many people stayed in unhappy, abusive or less-than-perfect marriages because the social or professional repercussions of a divorce were so damaging.
Now, Lan thinks attitudes — and therefore actions — have evolved.
“People see people get divorced and remarried and remarried well,” Lan says. “The world doesn’t end if they get divorced.”
Despite a culture more tolerant of divorce, Lan and Gail will be sticking to their original plan of spending the rest of their lives together. Whether they’re hiking to their favorite waterfall while holding hands, auditing classes at their alma mater or having the whole family over for holiday cookie baking, Lan and Gail know their love is built to last. Since that one biochemistry class, they’ve found what works for them and hope to lead by example for their children and grandchildren through actions, not just words.
“Looking back now, I think as we watch our own kids and their relationships, we gave them an example of what to do,” Gail says. “We keep just plugging along.”
The Badger Tradition
The Fons family has been going to school at UW – Madison for three generations. Though their time in college is separated by many years, the family shares similar positive experiences on campus.
Kate Jungers
Kate is a lover of politics, current events and foreign policy. You can find Kate watching Real Time with Bill Maher, reading Buzzfeed and doing headstands at your local yoga studio. While finishing her senior year at UW-Madison as an intern at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Kate is in the process of applying to law schools which she hopes to attend in the fall.
Madeline Makoul
Since she was young, Madeline has been infatuated with the written word. After a childhood where her head was always buried in a book, Madeline decided to become a storyteller herself. She obsesses over current events, pop culture, old Youtube videos of Chelsea Lately, fashion, but most importantly, bagels. As a Chicago native, Madeline is ready to journey outside of the Midwest to pursue an editorial position at a major publication in New York City.
Mia Sato
Mia is a senior studying journalism, political science and Japanese. Notoriously bad at writing bios and meeting deadlines, she fittingly put writing this off until the last possible moment. Her reporting interests center around inequities and social justice topics, politics and the occasional One Direction think-piece, but any good story will do. A passionate non-chef and viewer of Chopped, Mia hopes to go into nonprofit work after graduation, but magazine reporting was pretty cool too, so the Atlantic should feel free to hit her up. Future ambitions include bringing the Oxford comma back to AP Style and not crying so much. Potential employers: just kidding about the deadlines thing. I try.
Melissa Behling
A native Wisconsinite hailing from Racine, Melissa will pursue a career in documentary production after graduating from UW-Madison. She believes videojournalism has the capability to inspire positive change and to give a voice to historically underrepresented communities. When she is not filming, editing or eating ice cream, Melissa loves playing the snare drum and does so professionally for the Milwaukee Bucks and Green Bay Packers.