Kriti Mehrotra
The love story of Catherine “Catie” Norboe and Josh Atkins from TCL’s ’90 Day Fiancé’ season 12 has been one for the books, thanks to the chaos, drama, and intensity of their connection at every turn. The two are total opposites: the former is a 26-year-old, bold, energetic, and spontaneous native of Portland, Oregon, while the latter is a 30-year-old, calm, levelheaded soul from England. Nevertheless, they got along really well once they got to know each other, developing such a strong romance that they ended up planning to be together forever.
Catie and Josh Built Their Foundation on Experiences Across the Globe
Travel enthusiast and thrill seeker Catie Norboe was pet-sitting in England in the early 2020s when she first came across Josh Atkins after matching with one of his close friends on Tinder. According to her account, her date invited her to drinks at a bar where he was already meeting mates, which was perfect because she was looking to socialize. What she didn’t expect was for her date to eventually be kicked out after they kissed, her to drunkenly lock lips with another guy from the group, and then ask Josh to walk her home. By this point, he’d rejected a kiss from her since she had already made out with at least 2 of his friends, yet she admits she was really attracted to him.
Catie maintains that she’d asked Josh to walk her home because there was a creepy guy hanging around outside the bar after it closed, not because she found him hot and had set her sights on him. “He said yeah,” she revealed on the show before adding, “…I remember, we just like made out really passionately on a bench, and then he said he had to go pee… I sprinted home; I was kind of embarrassed.” This went on to become their meet-cute since they got to talking in the days to follow – one conversation turned into another, and they were soon going on dates and making their affinity official.
Catie and Josh primarily bonded over their wanderlust, so after she returned home to Portland and they became long-distance, they planned vacations to new locations to spend quality time together. Whether it be Cambridge, Florida, Greece, Germany, Scotland, or Switzerland, they have been everywhere in the past few years, with him proposing on February 27, 2024, while they were in Kalkan, Turkey. The couple subsequently decided the best thing for them would be for him to relocate to her hometown, so he secured the K-1 Fiancé visa, and thus began the rest of their loving relationship.
Catie and Josh Seem to Be Going Strong Despite Some Core Differences in Values
It wasn’t long after Catie and Josh found themselves together in Portland, Oregon, that some serious cracks in their romance began to show due to how intrinsically different they are in every sense. Her blunt personality and obsessive compulsive disorder make her a little unpredictable, whereas he prefers to have a calm routine, so friction arose from the same qualities they initially adored in one another. The differences in their religious views created a pretty big barrier between them, too, especially after she seemed to pressure him to convert his agnostic spiritual beliefs into Lutheranism for her.
Catie candidly told Josh that she wanted to raise their future children in her faith, but he wanted them to have some choice in the matter, just like he did, despite being raised Catholic. Her parents also had an opinion on the matter, but it appeared the couple managed to have some serious conversations to meet in the middle and then move forward for good. However, their biggest hurdle came after the 26-year-old drank heavily during her Bachelorette party and tried to kiss multiple male friends in front of Josh, which frustrated him.
The fact that Catie brought up possibly having an open marriage after they tied the knot also didn’t sit well with Josh because that’s not something he ever even hoped for or desired. As seen on the show, Catie told her friends that while she loved her partner, she found being intimate with him “pretty boring” and just couldn’t imagine being only with him for the rest of her life. The entire situation hurt him, but true to who they are as a couple, it seems they managed to talk about it openly before reaching a resolution that suited them both. After all, from what we can tell, they did get married on the show and have since been focusing on building a life together in Portland, Oregon – he has relocated there for good.
Related
While Catie Serves as a Pet Sitter, Josh is a Proud Web Developer
With a keen interest in biology, medicine, and technology, Catie enrolled at the University of California- Davis to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology upon graduating from high school. She completed her studies in 2020, following which she dove headfirst into a career in Business and Medical Communications, starting with a business development job at Futurity IT. She then worked as a Corporate Communications Intern at BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc., concluding her 6-month contract in November 2020.
Catie subsequently returned to Oregon and served as an Account Coordinator/Account Executive at Nucleus Global from December 2020 to December 2023. Since then, she has been focused on establishing herself as an Independent Contractor who not only offers pet-sitting for clients across the globe but also provides services such as planning and coordinating travel itineraries. Coming to Josh, from what we can tell, he is a hobbyist photographer who has managed to build quite an impressive career in Web Development, first in London, England, and now in Portland, Oregon.
