Why Meghan McCain's Husband Didn't Want To Date Her At First

Meghan McCain, despite having spent her entire life as a public figure, has opted to keep her love life private. She and conservative author Ben Domenech had been together "for years" when McCain announced on "The View" in November 2017 that they had gotten engaged in July of that year. In fact, they had also been engaged for "a while" and were even hoping to get married secretly, though the news leaked around that time. "It was a secret. I was hoping to get married and people wouldn't find out, but people talk sometimes," McCain said.

But the former "The View" co-host had good — and heartbreaking — reasons for keeping this part of her life away from the public. McCain's engagement happened fast and somewhat unexpectedly in July 2017, about four months before she publicly announced it. That's the same month her father, the late Republican U.S. Senator for Arizona John McCain, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer, according to AZ Central. Meghan McCain knew the chances of her father living long enough to walk her down the aisle were slim. 

So Domenech proposed while they were still at the Mayo Clinic. "I started screaming 'My dad's never gonna blanking see me get married. And he's never going to see me have kids,' and my now husband said 'Yes, he will,'" she said at the End Well Foundation in 2019. Given how unique their story is, it is hard to believe that, apparently, Domenech wasn't interested in dating McCain initially. Read on to learn the details.

Meghan McCain and Ben Domenech tied the knot in November 2017, just a few weeks after her engagement announcement on "The View" and less than a year before Sen. John McCain died. In September 2020, the couple welcomed their first child, a daughter named Liberty, ABC News reported. According to Meghan McCain's Instagram, she and Domenech are each other's rocks. But the co-founder of the conservative website The Federalist didn't always feel strongly about McCain. At least what's what hinted at in June 2012. 

On that occasion, Domenech shared a tweet that included a Mediaite article titled "How to score a date with 'Sexy B*tch' author Meghan McCain," which came out after Meghan published "America, You Sexy B*tch: A Love Letter to Freedom." In his retweet, Domenech wrote in all caps: "DO NOT WANT." Considering McCain said in 2017 they had been dating for many years and the tweet was from five years prior, they must have met not too long after it. 

Since neither of them has ever addressed the tweet, it is impossible to know exactly what motivated it. However, as The Washington Post noted, McCain exhibits some progressive ideals regarding, for example, LGBTQ+ rights. In fact, back in 2012, U.S. News said McCain was a "Democrat" who "just doesn't know it," before listing several of her stances on issues ranging from climate change, to same-sex marriage and reproductive rights. As Showbiz Cheat Sheet pointed out, Domenech may have taken issue with McCain's views then.

Having their engagement and wedding tied to the highly publicized terminal illness of Meghan McCain's father must have been no walk in the park. The couple moved up their wedding date to ensure that Sen. John McCain could attend, according to People. "I felt like a nuclear bomb went off in my life. I was a mess. I was barely functioning," Meghan McCain told the magazine. But they made the best of it and the higher motive for changing the wedding date made her forget about the little things that may have caused her stress during the wedding planning otherwise. "I was not really caught up in the details," she said. 

After going through a wedding, dealing with Sen. McCain's treatment and his subsequent death on August 25, 2018, the couple faced yet another hardship together. The following year, in the summer of 2019, the TV personality suffered a miscarriage. In a 2019 essay she penned for The New York Times, McCain addressed the pain it caused her to have to go through another public loss, since viewers were wondering why she was away from "The View." "This was not supposed to be public knowledge. I have had my share of public grief and public joy. I wish this grief — the grief of a little life begun and then lost — could remain private," she revealed. Since then, she has been open about her struggle in an effort to end the stigma around pregnancy loss.