PLANO, Texas — Laura Lee Estes always dreamed of a fairy tale life and when she married her college sweetheart in 1980 that’s exactly what she got.
Or so she thought.
“I thought it was gong to be Cinderella and you kissed and everything worked out magically,” Estes said. “And that didn’t quite work out.”
Estes’ fairy tale lasted just four years. She says they were just too young to make a marriage work.
After just four years, they agreed to go their separate ways.
Her ex-husband, Paul Mattingly, moved to Alabama, had a daughter and went through a second divorce.
Meanwhile, Estes moved to Plano and became a school counselor.
She never remarried.
However, she also never gave up hope she’d find her prince charming, but it never happened. Until a few years ago, she was traveling out of town and along the way, she reached out to Mattingly and asked if he wanted to catch up.
“I don’t know about love at first sight with someone you’ve never met before,” Mattingly said. “But I know that it was love at the second sight for this one.”
After four decades apart, Estes and Mattingly got to have an I-do-over. They married each other again last year.
“It was wonderful,” Mattingly said.
“And is wonderful,” Estes added.
They say this time, their marriage is built to last.
Estes says she only wishes this would’ve happened sooner, because it’s all she ever wanted.
“It is like the fairy tale,” she said. “It is that prince and it is that dream working out.”
And it’s a chance for two hearts to finally live happily ever after.