World’s First Married Couple With Down Syndrome Still Madly in Love After 27 Years

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From the archives: This story was last updated in October 2019.

Twenty-seven years after tying the knot, the world’s first married couple with Down syndrome are still as happy as ever.

Gareth and Deana Tobias first locked eyes across a crowded room at their local community center in Cumbria, England. It was 1981. According to Metro, Gareth was just 17; Deana was two years his senior.

How It All Began

Gareth claimed to have been quite the ladies’ man when he first met his future wife. “Before I met Deana, I had three girlfriends,” Gareth admitted, adding, “I chose the right one, and that’s Deana.”

For Deana, it was a no-brainer. “I thought, ‘he’s ginger,’” Deana shared. “I like gingers! He had a beard at the time as well, a red one.”

Deana, also a redhead, had found a kindred spirit. But the couple’s romantic relationship blossomed slowly.

Gareth and Deana initially spent time together as friends, and it wasn’t until 1991 that their respective families realized quite how serious they had become about one another.

“We didn’t know an awful lot about their relationship until they started talking about getting married,” Gareth’s mother, Anne, 80, revealed.

“We went away on holiday in Blackpool and got engaged down there,” Gareth added. It was Deana’s birthday. She said yes.

Wedding Bells

On July 4, 1992, 11 years after meeting for the very first time, the two sweethearts tied the knot in front of 40 friends and family. To date, Gareth and Deana’s is the longest known marriage between any couple with Down syndrome.

“It was so lovely,” Anne recalled of her son’s wedding day. Both Gareth and Deana had been preparing for the big day for months, so much so that they both knew their vows off by heart.

“The vicar started to say the vows and they didn’t have to repeat them,” Anne said. “They both just spouted them out.”

The church wedding was followed by a reception at a café in the couple’s hometown and a party in the evening attended by additional guests. “They thought it was magical,” said Anne.

Not wishing to be wallflowers on their special day, Gareth and Deana even prepared a dance to the iconic theme song from the hit 80s movie “Dirty Dancing,” “Time of My Life.”

“Deana ran towards Gareth and he lifted her up,” Anne regaled. “Then everybody got up and sang ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone.’”

Looking to the Future

Since marrying the love of his life, Gareth, 55, has maintained a steady three-day-a-week job at British supermarket Morrisons. Musing on the secret to the couple’s longevity, Gareth ventured: “I put up with Deana, and she puts up with me!”

“I still love him,” Deana responded, joking fondly. “Look at him now, he’s like an old man.”

While the now-middle-aged couple is having to become increasingly mindful of health and mobility, they took vacations together every single year for as long as they could. “They went all over the place,” Anne recalled, “usually to Butlins or Pontins or somewhere like that.”

Preferring holiday camps for their summertime getaways, the couple stayed in the caravan park, went dancing in the evenings, and always insisted upon taking care of themselves.

Today, neighbors of the happy couple are likely to spot Gareth and Deana enjoying their social life a little closer to home, with a quiet drink and a chat in their local pub.

Paul and Kris Scharoun-DeForge

Another long-term married couple who both had Down syndrome, Paul and Kris Scharoun-DeForge, from Liverpool in upstate New York, celebrated 25 years of wedded bliss. Their story was cut short, however, when Paul passed away in April of 2019.

Paul lost his battle with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. He was just 56 years old.

Sadly, the life expectancy for people with Down syndrome is significantly lower than the average Western population. According to the Global Down Syndrome Foundation, that life expectancy is around 60 years of age.

The Scharoun-DeForges first met at a social function for people with disabilities during the 1980s. It was another case of love at first sight.

Unlike the Tobiases, the couple had traversed one particularly huge obstacle in their quest for happiness; both Paul and Kris’s parents had been advised by doctors to place them in institutions at birth. Luckily, their families refused; otherwise, they might never have met.

The couple received ample love and support, got married, and lived happily together in a state-supported apartment community for people with disabilities.

In 2018, however, Paul began to exhibit signs of dementia. The disease affects more than half of all people with Down syndrome over the age of 50.

Kris’s older sister, Susan Scharoun, told The Washington Post that despite his illness, her brother-in-law never once forgot his wife. “When he would see Kris, he would just look at her,” she recalled. “You knew there was that recognition.”

Kris, 59, drew a butterfly for her husband shortly before his death. “I was very, very upset,” she shared. “I gave [the picture] to my sweetheart and he loved it. I think of Paul flying up in the air, and being free.”

Perhaps the answer to a long and happy marriage is as simple as unconditional love. The purity and longevity of both marriages—Gareth and Deana’s, Paul and Kris’s—continue to inspire the families, friends, and communities of both couples around the world.