Love stories come in a myriad of forms all across the world. Some couples were the first to fall in love with one another, while others had a period of time apart before reuniting.
Yolly Santiago and Joe Sullenger are two of the latter.
After losing touch for 48 years, Filipina Yolly Santiago and her American ex-boyfriend Joe Sullenger got back in touch and got married, making a beautifully unique love story.
How it all started
Filipino Yolly Santiago was working at a club when she and American citizen Joe Sullenger met. She was only 17 years old and he was 21, when they became lovers.
Joe Sullenger was sent to Japan in 1974. Yolly Santiago claims that initially, they corresponded via letters but they eventually fell apart. She believes that one of the two possibilities is that either he or she did not receive his letter.
Yolly then married another man, with whom she had seven (7) children. But in 2000, following 26 years of marriage, she and her spouse parted ways.
Finding her man again
Yolly stated that in 2019, some 20 years after she and her husband separated, she made the decision to check up on Joe on Facebook, where she came across Joe's name. She found out that after being married, he had two children, yet his wife passed away in 2018.
The Filipina made contact with her American ex-boyfriend again. The then-ex-couple decided to remain friends, seeing how much they had been through.
In 2019, Joe spent Christmas in the Philippines. They even stayed in an apartment for holidays, but Yolly insisted that it was only as friends.
She wasn't expecting him to call and ask her to marry him a week after returning to the States. She said "yes," but because they had to wait for her marriage to dissolve, it took them a while to tie the knot.
In 2022, Yolly Santiago and Joe Sullenger exchanged vows. Currently, the pair lives in Missouri, USA, on a farm.
