It isn’t very common these days for one to hear, “Oh, we’ve been together since high school!” However, that isn’t the case for AP Psychology teacher Kelly Forshey and Biology teacher Jeff Forshey at Troy High School.
“Nobody makes me feel the way he does,” Kelly Forshey explains with affection. It all started when they first met at a high school volleyball game in the couple’s sophomore year. Kelly attended Clarkston High School, while Jeff was a student at Branden High School. The story normally would start here, but not for the Forsheys.
“But we didn’t date for another two years. We always would see each other over the two years [left of highschool] now and then, but it took two years for us to be single. And when I found out he was single, I called him and asked him out, but he rejected me,” Kelly Forshey says cheekily.
“I thought he had a great smile,” she adds. Kelly eventually talked him into a date. Soon after, their story finally began.
Many high school couples break up before college, especially due to long distance dating. However, the Forsheys made it work, dating long distance for the majority of their time in college. With only an hour of driving distance between them, they saw each other on weekends, vacations or summer break. Maintaining a long lasting relationship wasn’t easy. “Compromise, be patient. You have to communicate. But always, always have fun,” She passionately adds.
The Forshey’s did break up a few times during their seven years of dating, but Kelly firmly believes that dating other people made her realize Jeff was the one for her. What makes having a high school sweetheart so special to her is how well they’ve gotten to know each other. They’ve been through every era of their lives together, seen the good and the bad. That isn’t something you can experience with everyone. “We have so many shared memories, we’ve been together since we were eighteen, we’re in our mid-fifties now. I think it’s that I know everything about his family, he knows everything about my family,” Kelly reminisces.
As they are now teaching in the same environment they once met in, it brings back a bit of nostalgia. Most couples never have the opportunity to work with each other. However, Kelly corrects that they don’t see each other often anyway, with the science department being located on Troy High School’s third floor, and the history and social sciences department on the second floor. Kelly adds, “It’s kind of cool that we have the same students. Other than that, it’s nice to have someone to carpool with.”
For any students dating in high school right now, Kelly suggests, “I would say it’s a good thing to date other people when you’re so young, to see what other relationships will be like, and to not be with one person for so long. We were together for seven years, but we both dated other people, and then I knew this was the person I was supposed to be with. And I think you should know that you should take your time [to] learn from every relationship, even the failed ones.”