The unlikely love story between a 27-year-old woman and an 83-year-old famous shaman in Indonesia’s Central Java province has been making headlines in the Asian country for the past week. Despite the controversy regarding the age difference between them, the young woman claims she fell in love with her new husband the moment she saw him.

27-year-old Nuraeni first met 83-year-old Sudirgo in July, when the girl accompanied her parents to the famous shaman’s house in Desa Jatilaba, to seek his advice. It was then and there that the young woman says she fell in love with Nuraeni, and even though she left with her family, she kept finding excuses to visit the grandfather of eight. She even asked him to visit her at her family’s home, and even though the signs were pretty clear, the 83-year-old says he didn’t even consider a romantic relationship because of his advanced age. However, he could only resist love so long, and after confessing his feeling to Nuraeni and asking her to marry him, she accepted.

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Before the unlikely couple could get married, they needed to get the blessing of their families. While Nuraeni’s family agreed to the union faster than the girl had expected, Sudirgo’s children, the oldest of which is old enough to be Nuraeni’s father (51-years-old) took a bit more convincing. The thing they wanted to know most was why the 27-year-old didn’t find a husband closer to her own age.

“Yes, actually my husband’s children have asked many times why I did not look for a partner the same age as me, but I just love my grandfather,” Nuraeni told Tribun Jateng.

Tarti, one of Surdigo’s daughters, told reporters that she herself asked Nuraeni to find a partner closer to her own age, but the girl insisted that Surdigo was the only one for her. After seeing her determination to become Surdigo’s life partner, and seeing as this was what he wanted, Tarti and her siblings gave the couple their blessing.

Nuraeni and Surdigo were married on August 18, in front of their families and dozens of villagers. This was the girl’s first marriage, and Surdigo’s fourth. Despite the controversy regarding the 56-year age difference between them, Surdigo’s children claim that their new step-mother is truly in love with the 83-year-old man, and did not marry him for fame and fortune.

“Yes, it’s true that many heads of neighboring village visit my father to ask for prayer, tut that does not mean Nuraeni fell in love with my father because of that,” Tarti, an elementary school teacher, said.

This news story reminds me of another controversial union that took Indonesia by storm a couple of years ago. Back in July of 2017 we wrote about a 16-year-old boy who married a 71-year-old woman after allegedly falling in love with her.