Author Jill Lien’s journey to Wyoming

An author of several recently published books, Jill Lien’s own story is remarkable. A native of Bath, England, west of London, the certified relationship coach had been widowed for some time when, while working in Prague, Czech Republic, on Valentine’s Day of 2016, she realized that she had coached clients to take action with their lives but was not following her own advice.

“I sat there in Prague, this romantic city, on my own, and I was just thinking, ‘Is this it? I’m 57, for gosh sake, do I hang up my hope of having a life partner?’ So anyway, I’d had a glass of wine or tea -- I don’t think this would have happened if I hadn’t -- and I thought, well, you know, this ain’t gonna fix itself. I say that to enough clients, how to change something. Gonna change something? Nothing changes. So I Googled how to find a husband.”

She posted a profile on Cupid International, joking that she had “exhausted the local supply” introduced by friends and neighbors. Her profile stated that she wanted a husband who has family values and would provide service to his community.

Among about 75 “very dodgy emails, with people saying very dodgy things, sending pictures of very dodgy things -- I don’t know what is wrong with people” was a very sincere reply from Mike Lien of Alaska, who had just joined Cupid International the day before, too.

Something about the sincerity of his posting struck Jill, so she started a correspondence and three days later he phoned her at home, sensing that she wasn’t all right.

“I was at home, back in England. The house was full of family, and he phoned me and said, ‘I hope you don’t mind me phoning you, but I’ve got this feeling that you’re not all right.’ And he said, ‘It’s so strong. I hope you don’t mind me picking up the phone.’

“I looked around the house, and I wasn’t all right, actually. I was with all these people that hadn’t noticed. And I thought, ‘Here’s my family. They haven’t noticed that I’m grieving today, that I’m struggling today, and then this total stranger from Alaska somehow got this impression that I wasn’t all right.’ That really affected me.”

The two kept corresponding, and a few weeks later, Jill flew to Alaska to meet Mike.

“My family was totally freaking out about it, and my daughter was like, ‘What are you going to do when he’s, like, not what you think he is?’”

She replied that she’ll simply enjoy a trip to Alaska and joked that her biggest worry really was that “he might slurp his soup or something.”

When she arrived at the airport, Mike was exactly who he purported to be. The pair hit it off and were married five days later in Las Vegas. They spent time in Alaska, then traveled in Europe while Mike recovered from a stroke, with Lien noting that she “got chucked out of the country (USA)” due to a green card snafu in 2017.

By 2019 the green card issue had been resolved, and the couple returned to Alaska. Jill wanted to explore her new country but reasoned that it would be difficult to do from distant Alaska. So the Liens traveled in the West, Mike having worked in Wyoming a few years earlier.

They visited his family in Utah, but Mike told her, “I want to show you Wyoming, because it’s incredible.” The pair rented a car and looked at houses in Buffalo and Thermopolis, and while driving through Lovell on the way to Cody, they were tired and decided to get a motel. That evening they walked by a house with a For Sale sign, and Mike said, “We have to buy that house.” He just had a feeling about it.

The Liens bought the house and moved to Lovell in September of 2020, with some 30 people showing up to help them move in.

“The welcome was incredibly warm,” Lien said, “and we love it here. I think we live in the safest place in the world. I love the people. I love Lovell. And I do believe that we were meant to be here. Well, certainly, Mike. I was overwhelmed with that feeling. And I think over the time here, I’ve realized that this is where I should be, too.

“It’s a great place to live, and you can get anywhere you want from it, which I do. I’ve spoken at conferences in Florida and Vegas and Chicago and Nashville and Seattle, but it’s easy, Billings and out. So that’s how we ended up here.”