- Nicole Fallon-Peak met her current husband, Sean, while on a business trip to Boston in 2017.
- After his previous marriage ended, Fallon Peake and Sean began a long-distance relationship.
- After he moved to live with her, they quit their jobs and started their own business together.
This told essay is based on a conversation with Nicole Fallon-Peek, co-CEO of Lighting Media Partners. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I met my now husband, Sean, in 2017 while working at the same digital publishing company.
I worked as a managing editor in the New York office, and Sean worked as an associate editor in the Ogden, Utah, office. I was on the same level as his boss, but we didn't collaborate directly or work for each other.
There was a flash of inspiration the moment we met
We met during a business trip to the Boston office. It was my first business trip and I was excited to connect with new people. I had no idea that one of them would later become my husband.
I knew Sean from attending a virtual conference before, but we had never spoken. When we met in her office that morning, we both realized we had a connection. We joke that our first handshake was love.
He was one of the nicest, most charming people I've ever met. He was very polite, but he wasn't afraid of a little self-deprecating humor.
We went to the hotel bar with colleagues every night and were flirting with each other the whole time. We are big foodies, so when we went out for team dinner, I asked him if I could eat something from his plate.
Even though I was married to someone else at the time, it felt so natural to talk and laugh with Sean and I didn't feel guilty as if we had known each other forever even though we had just met.
The breakup on that trip was awkward. When I went down to the hotel lobby to check out, I saw him sitting there waiting for an Uber to the airport. We made eye contact and smiled, but he was already gone by the time I checked out, so I didn't get a chance to say goodbye.
We found ways to spend more time together virtually during work hours
Sean and I emailed after the trip to exchange phone numbers because it felt silly to ask each other directly. We tried to be professional and toe the line. If we're talking about work, we communicate on our work platforms, but I would sometimes talk personal things to Sean in side text while I was at work.
We found an excuse to schedule a one-on-one conference call to discuss a project one of our mutual colleagues was working on. We talked about the actual business purpose of the call and then talked about personal things for another 30 minutes.
That phone call was for me. I thought. “This could definitely be real.”
Meeting Sean was the confirmation I needed to end my marriage.
Before I met Sean, I had already moved on from my previous marriage, but meeting him was the catalyst for my eventual decision to leave.
It took me less than two weeks to realize that I was crazy about Sean. He said he didn't want me to be the only reason for ending the marriage, but he ended it because I wasn't happy.
My ex-spouse sensed my unhappiness and was not surprised when I shared that feeling, but was definitely shocked and hurt that I realized it by meeting someone else. It seems so.
I am truly sorry for the emotional pain I caused them, but we told each other and our family and friends that it was better for us to separate. It probably would have happened at some point whether Sean was in the picture or not.
I was nervous to tell my coworkers that I was leaving my marriage for someone at work.
I was a little nervous to tell him that I was out of a marriage and that I was dating someone who worked in an office in Utah. Sean and I also didn't know about the policy as we had no reason to watch it before. Neither of us expected to meet our soul mates at work.
After the business trip, we continued our discussions and decided to make a formal decision. Two months later, we told her boss about it. I didn't want people at work to know about company gossip.
I sat my boss down and said, “Hey, I'd like to tell you that we're in a long-distance relationship. I hope it won't be a problem. I haven't, so I thought maybe it would be.'' It's okay. ”
My boss was very happy for me. She said, “I knew it! You guys are great. This is fine. Just do your job. You'll be fine.” Everyone in the office was happy that I was happy. They knew I had struggled in previous relationships.
My boss helped Sean transfer to New York.
My boss helped Sean get an opportunity with another team in the New York office a few months later. At that time, I was also looking for a place to live, so I told him that I wanted to move in with him as our relationship was progressing in a good direction, albeit in the near future. he agreed.
We found a place and started going to the office together, spending as much time as possible to make up for not seeing each other every day during the four months of distance.
we decided to start our own venture
In the end, we both felt stuck in our jobs and didn't see opportunities for growth. We have similar skills and thought we could work together. And they were already talking about getting married and starting a family. So we decided to start our own business. We quit together in 2018.
Our decision to launch Lighting Media Partners has paid off in a big way. We had some business friction early on. I'm a “jump first, ask questions later” type and Sean is the opposite, but we've gotten through it.
We got married in November 2019 and currently have a 10-month-old daughter.
If you meet your soulmate at work, good luck
If you met your soulmate at work and you're both serious about the relationship, just move on. Jobs come and go. If you have to choose between work and the love of your life, choose love.
That's the hopeless romantic in me, but I don't regret a single decision I've made since meeting Sean. My career and personal life are better because of it.
