Joe Smith admitted that during his nearly 50-year marriage to Claranel Smith, who died in January 2017, he had been seeing another woman — his psychologist.
“Throughout my entire marriage, my entire life, really, I knew I was gay,” said Mr. Smith, 76, a retired associate district court judge who lived in Des Moines before moving with his wife to Tucson, Ariz., in July 2013.
“Ever since I was a little boy, I loved the idea of being part of a family, and with Claranel, who already had four children when I married her, I had an instant family,” said Mr. Smith, who graduated from the University of Colorado, and also received a master’s degree in theater from the University of Texas at El Paso, a Ph.D. in theater history from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Drake University.
“She was a wonderful wife who gave me everything I ever wanted, including a biological child of our own,” Mr. Smith said. “Despite the fact that I often struggled with my own identity, I stayed with my wife out of love and respect.”
Nine months after his wife died, Mr. Smith was perusing the web when he came across a dating site, Compatible Partners. He was soon staring at the profile of Robert Steinborn, now 67, a semiretired optician who learned the trade while serving in the Army during the Vietnam War.
“He seemed like the nicest guy,” Mr. Smith said.
Mr. Smith and Mr. Steinborn, whose partner, Michael James Phu, died in 2014 from a massive stroke, decided to meet for dinner in October 2017.
Mr. Smith drove from his Tucson home to Mr. Steinborn’s home in Chandler, Ariz.
“We talked, went to dinner, returned to his place and talked some more,” Mr. Smith said. “We really had a great time and when that first get-together was over, I made my way back to my car, feeling pretty confident that Bob would call me back soon after to make plans to see each other again.”
As it turned out, Mr. Steinborn called Mr. Smith back sooner than he expected. “I was just getting into my car when Bob called out and waved me back over to the porch to ask if I would like to join him and two friends at his timeshare in Puerto Vallarta for Christmas,” Mr. Smith said. “He knew that this would be my first Christmas without my wife.”
Mr. Smith accepted the invitation, and booked a ticket on Mr. Steinborn’s flight. “The flight was largely booked,” he said. “But midway through the cabin, the middle seat next to Bob’s was vacant on both outbound and return flights, and we took that as a sign of the universe’s blessing of our plan.”
Many more trips followed, including cruises to Alaska, the Panama Canal, Hungary, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic.
In August 2018, Mr. Smith moved in with Mr. Steinborn and they eventually began talking marriage.
Their original plan was to marry in a self-uniting ceremony on the Fourth of July on the grounds of the Union Printers Home overlooking Memorial Park in Colorado Springs. But the venue became unavailable because of the coronavirus, so they selected the Craftwood Inn, in Manitou Springs, Colo., the same town where Mr. Steinborn lived throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Their 100-person guest list was also cut in half.
Their wedding trip to China and Tibet, which had been booked for Sept. 1, disappeared as well. (Four months earlier, the virus caused the couple to be stranded for eight days in Peru after its president closed the borders.)
“Despite the setbacks, we will wear our Fourth of July theme vests and Levi shorts as befits the day and our picnic theme,” said Mr. Steinborn, who accepted Mr. Smith’s marriage proposal last Fourth of July while they were in a neighbor’s pool in Chandler.
“When I lost my partner six years ago, I never thought I’d find true love again,” Mr. Steinborn said. “Then along came Joe, a wonderful, intelligent, loving man who has turned my life around for the better.”