 McCain and his wife Carol had been briefly separated soon after returning to Washington, but then reunited and remained married.In April 1979, while attending a military reception for senators in Hawaii, McCain met Cindy Lou Hensley, eighteen years his junior, a teacher from Phoenix, Arizona, and the daughter of James Willis Hensley, a wealthy Anheuser-Busch beer distributor, and Marguerite "Smitty" Hensley.They began dating, travelling between Arizona and Washington to see each other, and John McCain urged his wife Carol to accept a divorce.