A former “teacher’s pet” who got engaged to her favourite high school teacher over a decade later says she and her fiance are targeted by trolls who disapprove of their relationship.
As reported by the New York Post, Monica Ketchum, 31, from Big Rapids, Michigan, decided to search for her favourite schoolteacher, Michelle Foster, on Facebook to see how she was.
Foster, 56, taught Ketchum’s science class when she was 13 in 2004.
“Michelle was my seventh-grade teacher and she was my favourite – I was a teacher’s pet,” Ketchum, a forklift driver and content creator, said.
“We didn’t have any relationship besides her being a good teacher – until I reached out on Facebook 16 years later.”
Ketchum got in touch after going through a rough patch with her family after coming out as gay, and remembered Foster’s class being a “safe place”.
When Foster received a message from her former “goody goody student” in April 2020, she was surprised at first. But after meeting for lunch in August 2021, the two bonded and became close friends.
“We sat and had lunch for five hours – it was great to catch up,” Ketchum said.
“We grew close and became great friends – we could talk about anything. We were both in really dark places and finding someone you can relate to and be vulnerable with felt safe.”
“I was always willing to be supportive of former students, I was very happy to reconnect,” Foster said.
The pair’s friendship kept getting closer until they ultimately realised that the connection was romantic.
“I’ve always been a huge caregiver and one day [Ketchum] said, ‘Let me take care of you’ – I can’t tell you how good that felt,” Foster said.
Foster had previously been in a relationship with a woman, while Ketchum had just come out.
In May 2022, they both ended their previous relationships so they could be together – with Foster ending her marriage with her wife and filing for divorce.
Ketchum proposed to Foster in September 2022, and Foster asked the question in return the month after.
They both have children from previous marriages and have been living together since they separated from their past partners.
But their relationship doesn’t always come so easily.
The couple is constantly the victim of trolls, with some even claiming Foster “groomed” Ketchum.
They are also mistaken for mother and daughter “several times every day” – and one person even assumed Foster was Ketchum’s grandmother.
“I’ve always been attracted to older people, so the gap wasn’t an issue for me, but Michelle worried about it at first,” Ketchum said.
“People always ask if she’s my mother – I even recently designed a T-shirt saying, ‘No, she’s not my mum’.
“I try to let it go but it does hurt – age doesn’t matter to us, so why does it matter to other people?”
Despite the hate, the couple say they no longer notice the age gap and are very happy.
“I was worried about the age gap and I was worried about how we first met, but I had to let it all go,” Foster said.
“It became clear I had to make a choice for myself, and when I did, it was the weight of the world lifted. Once I let go, it didn’t matter what anyone thought. Since I let go of that, we just flowered.”
The two have a lot in common, including music, camping, outdoor activities and locally-brewed beer.
“I realised other people can think what they think and I just have to do what I need to do to be happy. I now just think how lucky I am to have such a wonderful beautiful soul to spend the rest of my days with,” Foster said.
The couple is now planning their June wedding.
Though they have a lot of trolls on the internet, they like to share their relationship on social media to “be open in the community which needs a voice” – referring to being LGBTQ and also their age gap.
“We want to be where others come to find hope and light and safety or need a friend,” Ketchum said.
“We want to encompass everybody in a loving way and promote that love is love.”
This article originally on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission