STRANGELY ENOUGH, IT WAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE TO ANOTHER WOMAN THAT BROUGHT DOREEN AND DENNIS SHEEHAN TOGETHER.
The GemLife Pacific Paradise couple first met in 1966 and recently celebrated 55 years of marriage and declared that they are more in love than ever.
“I was at a coffee shop proposing to another girl when I first saw Doreen,” said Dennis. “This other girl and I had been going steady for three years and we were saving to buy a block of land. When I proposed, she asked if she could think about it while she went to New Zealand. I was blindsided, I had no idea that she was planning to go!”
Before Dennis left the cafe, he spotted the fiancee of his best friend having coffee with another girl.
Dennis describes the moment: “Light streamed down on where she was sitting, and I felt like I’d just met Miss World.”
As fate would have it, Doreen was contemplating her romantic future at that very moment.
“I’d been seeing this boy for about three years, and he’d just told me about his plans to go to New Zealand,” she said.
“I should point out though, that Dennis’ girlfriend and my boyfriend didn’t go to New Zealand together!”
As far as Dennis was concerned, meeting Doreen that day was love at first sight.
“Our first date was going out dancing and I was a very good ballroom dancer,” he said. “I proposed to Doreen three months after that first date, and we were married after 12 months.
“At first people tried to talk us out of it, saying that we were in a rebound relationship but here we are, married for 55 years with three children and eight grandchildren.”
Living at GemLife Pacific Paradise on the Sunshine Coast has brought the couple closer together with great friends and always something to do right on their doorstep.
“Every day is like paradise,” says Dennis. Doreen chimes in, “Our daughter can’t believe where we live. She’s just turned 51 and travels a lot for her work and she’s said, ‘mum, somewhere like here would be perfect for me, perhaps I should move in too!’.”
One of the secrets to their successful marriage is giving each other space to do things separately as well as together.
“Although Doreen is a very good dancer, she wasn’t as passionate about it as I was, but that’s quite okay,” he said.
And it wasn’t quite ‘love all’ at tennis either.
“That’s my sport. Dennis is not-so keen,” said Doreen. “I would go away for a few days with some girlfriends and played at White City Tennis after the Australian Open and the children would come along too. My daughter, in particular, was a very good player.”
One sport our lovebirds do bond over is golf.
“When we were younger, we would play off a handicap, but now we do it just for fun,” says Doreen. “We are very different personalities in many ways. Dennis is outgoing and the life and soul of the party where I’m less so.
“You could say we’re yin and yang, and we’ve made it work for us.”
Dennis says acknowledging and respecting each other’s differences is important, as is looking for opportunities to spoil one another.
“My wife is a beautiful woman who loves to look after her hair, make-up and clothes and I’m quite happy to indulge her,” says Dennis. “And Doreen is a wonderful cook and a marvellous wife, mother and grandmother and I know I’m blessed.
“And she doesn’t mind when I go out to play poker,” he adds cheekily.