So I met this really great guy, I meet alot of people but he really is something special. I’m in NY, he’s in FL; so how does this work? There will be some time before I can move down and be with him, so what can I do in the meantime? I really only want to hear from people that have had successful long distance relationships because right now I need to focus on the positive.
Well, my SO and I met online in March of 2002. She lived in Boston, I live in Southern California. We lived by AIM and phone calls for the first 6 months. Then she flew out for a visit. Everything clicked, so we started meeting in different cities every several months: San Antonio, Salt Lake City, St. Louis, etc. We spent the holidays together, and I proposed last September. Due to family problems, she has been delayed moving to the West Coast, but will be here in a week. We get married in September. It is a bitch to do, but if you really want it to work, it can. Just get used to a lot of phone sex and a pretty good sized chunk of change going to Delta! 
You’ll probably have people come here and list how many Dopers carried on long distance relationships before marrying. I’m half of one of those couples. I lived in Alberta, Canada, and my husband Weirddave lived in Maryland.
Yeah, they can work. It’s frustrating, and the travel and phone bills are expensive, but it can work.
Yeah. Don’t ask about phone bills. And the plane tickets between Vancouver and Texas sure add up too. We have the fiance-visa application in, so there’s a long wait too. But we will get together!
My husband and I started off with a long distance relationship. More than anything it is expensive, I would say. He is military and we would meet each other half way for weekend trips but most of all we spent a lot of time on the phone. We eventually got married and now, we are still enduring a long distance relationship because he has been in Iraq for the last 11 months! But off and on through our entire history, we have spent significant time apart.
We try to focus on the positive. Our separations make us realize how much we mean to each other and how NOT to take each other for granted, like we see our friends do. When we were dating and apart, I had a theory that we ‘know’ each other better than a lot of couples who are together every day, because if we wanted to be ‘together’ we HAD to communicate. Constantly. Talk (or email or chat) about everything! We couldn’t just (still can’t) sit quietly at a movie next to each other.
However, it IS work. It is easy to slip into times when all you do is talk about the mundane…bills, cars breaking down, kids acting up, problems. You have to be creative in a long distance relationship for it to work. Lots of cards, photos, packages and just plain love letters mailed via snail mail really make people feel special and remind each other that you feel your relationship is worth it.
It worked for us! I was in Ontario, Canada and she was in Tallahassee. We had a long-distance relationship for two years. Been married for six. This was not an internet romance, she started out as a mail-order customer! Neither of us had a computer.
I foolishly spent so much on long distance talking to my sweetie that they restricted my calls to local for about 8 months (so she called me), and I sent them the last payment after I arrived. (aside: the exchange rate changed between the time I was billed and when the payment arrived. They wrote to tell me I owed them a dollar and change. I mailed them a two-dollar coin.) We wrote increasingly long letters to each other, like 37 pages of double-sided writings at one point! We made up for not being able to learn about each other in person by doing it in words. Thousands and thousands of them.
You may want to look into flights on charter airlines. This means you may have to fly into Orlando and have him meet you there. If you both visit each other twice a year, that is, you twice and him twice, that should be enough to find out how your chemistry works in person.
So, it works, if you make it work, but all the details must be right. Good luck!
Long distance for two years, married for one of 'em. He’s in Egypt, I’m in CT. It works, but the biggest thing is trust, patience, dedication, and a strong sense of yourself. If you’re going to be the one keeping yourself company when he’s not around, you will be better off if you really enjoy your own company.
But trust and patience, IMHO have been the two biggest keys to our successful relationship - which will likely be long distance for at least another year.
I’ve told this story here a couple times before, so I won’t go too much into it. But basically, Mr. Armadillo and I met online, spent four years living on opposite sides of the country from each other, and are getting married looks like next June. Cell phones with free long distance are your friends. And don’t even think about getting into a “relationship” long distance if you don’t completely, totally, in every single possible way trust each other.
Worked for me and the Mr. (400 miles apart off and on for 18 months or so.) Married 6 years this fall and no bloodshed yet.
Really high phone bills, lots of time apart and lots of driving. You’re gonna wanna get either an unlimited long distance calling plan or a good prepaid phone card. (Sam’s Club has one with 1,000 minutes for $35.00.)
I strongly, strongly suggest that you do not move for this guy unless you are engaged (if in fact marriage is what you’re after). I’ve seen so many people get dumped just a month or two after they’ve made a major move for a boy/girlfriend. Moving is too expensive, stressful and too much of a headache to be doing it if you’re not pretty darn sure it’s gonna be forever.*
*Feel free to ignore if you’re not looking for “forever,” marriage, and/or you were considering moving to Florida anyway.
Worked for me - long distance between Australia and the US, we only got to be together face to face for a total of three months before I married him, and had to wait another year to get stuff sorted out for my visa (long, stupid story, lots of bad advice involved.)
It can definitely work, but it is not a particularly pleasant experience. They’d have to be very special for it to be worth all the heartache. I always said if I ever end up widowed (heaven forbid) then I would rather not date anyone who lived more than a block away, after going through that.
SuaSponte and I are another example of a Doper couple who survived a long-distance relationship. We met in NYC, then he moved to Florida. When he decided to move, our relationship was new enough that we figured we’d just break up when he left. That didn’t happen, though. We managed the distance for a year, seeing each other about once every 3-4 weeks. I moved down here last fall and we’re getting married in September. 
My boyfriend’s house used to be a 15 minute walk from mine. But 5 months into our relationship we both left for university. He is in Manchester, and I am in Lincoln. We’ve been together for over a year now, and are still very happy. So long distance relationships can work. It gets a bit expensive though as others have pointed out.
Sadly, my parents have moved since I started uni. So even when I’m home for the summer I’m not near him anymore. It’s a half an hour train journey, a 10 minuite bus ride and a 15 minute walk to see him now, which isn’t too bad. But was better when it was just a 15 minuite walk!
Good luck!
I have been apart from my girlfriend for the last year and I’m about to move even farther away. We talk on the phone every day and we have been together for a little over 2.5 years.
It takes lots of communication and trust. You can do it! Be Positive!
Another LDR Doper chiming in. Emofkuniv and I met on here, we emailed back and forth for two days before we called, we talked for 7 hours on the first phone call alone. Two weeks later, he flew over to me and, since then, Ryanair has made a mint out of us. We manage to travel to each other about once a month.
Is it worth the cost and heartache of being apart from the person you love more than life itself? Yes, because I couldn’t be without him. And I wouldn’t. He is more than worth it. And to prove that, we are getting married on 7 August this year (less than a month!) and he’s moving here permanently. We are counting the milliseconds!!! Anyone who’s seen us together, can’t but deny that we’re perfect for each other.
You have to know that it’ll be expensive (calls and travel) and that it can break your heart at times before you really get into this. I wouldn’t advise everyone to do it, some are more suited than others. However, if you really trust him (a zillion per cent), if you can’t imagine your life without him in it, if you can be honest at all times, if you can communicate totally with each other, if you’re willing to work hard at it - then you’re ready. Start saving the pennies because you’ll need em. I’m not trying to be negative, purely matter of fact. Its a hard road but one well worth taking with the right person.
God, in less than a month, we’ll be married and living together permanently!!! How bloody cool is that!
And I should mention that they can fail too, having already been in an LDR in that situation. It failed because he didn’t really give a shit but it took me a long time to work that out. However, I learnt from it, found out what I really wanted in a relationship, was honest with myself and moved on. Now I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life because of those lessons learnt the hard way.
The important thing is to be realistic about the situation and be honest with yourself. Can you do it? Do you have the temperant? Can he? Does he? Most definitely they can work, if you BOTH work at them. Get the right mix of people and its MORE than worth it.
My wife and I had a long-distance thing going for about a year and a half while we were dating. We met while I was living in her hometown (semi-rural Japan), but I found a job in Tokyo about a month later. We called and emailed pretty regularly, and I went to see her every other weekend. The travel was pretty expensive for me at the time, but the distance was never really that much of a problem. I think it helped that we were pretty solidly together when I first moved, and that she also wanted to move to Tokyo eventually.