(I’ve posted all this a couple of times, but since Rhino’s Honey asked…
My husband and I met in a chatroom on a BBS. I am enormously glad that we got to know each other through the written word before deciding to even talk by phone. And I knew him well! Chat rooms were new back then and people didn’t even understand how someone could meet on a computer. Those who did understand cautioned me against meeting him. We have been married for 17 years. Maybe they were right.
The voice is not as good an indicator as the written word. I have been told many times that I have a terrific phone voice – but I’m really quite ordinary.
my wife and i met on a ‘wheel of time’ series bbs and chat about 5 years ago. she lived in arkansas, i lived in Pennsylvania. we were both in college (me at UPenn, her at ASU)…i was sort of out of the market for a while, she had just gotten separated from her husband of 7 years…
anyway, we chatted about the books that we loved to read, then about our hobbies, then about her kids, our past relationships, and then one night, it just got out of hand (or in hand, if you know what i mean).
after that, we conversed every spare moment, over phone, icq, or on the chat…i flew down to meet her irl after 4 months during the holidays…i proposed to her in bed 3 days later.
i had to go back to philly to finish school (i was only in my 2nd year)…it was 2 years later that we were finally married and i moved down to Ar. the wedding was actually the weekend between her graduation and mine.
been married for 3 years in may. in addition to my two wonderful stepsons, she and i have a 1 year old son together. she teaches 1st grade at a local district, and i am an administrator at the local college (her alma mater)…very suburban lifestyle. not at all what i imagined for myself 5 years ago…but i’ve never been happier…and i hope that she can say the same. if she gets a chance, i’ll have her chime in here later.
as for advice…all i can say is that you can’t expect it to be easy or falkl together naturally. it is very hard to do…but it has its advantages. problems that irl get band-aids put on them through physical contact have to get talked out when all you have is a phone or e-mail. if you can make it work, though, then its a good bet that you’ll have a best friend in addition to a lover. just the nature of the beast- shallow relationships don’t make it very far.
I have read some of your’s and your wife’s posts and thought you both a very nice couple (I mean nice in a good way, not in that derogatory way some people can assume from it btw). I didn’t realise you were long distance though - thats pretty cool.
There are a lot of success stories here huh? Thats very nice to see and bears out a lot of my own experiences (I have a lot of friends who are long distance too and have seen the heartache and joy that can come from it).
I agree with you that you learn excellent communication skills when you are long distance - if we couldn’t communicate with each other, there is no way we’d have lasted this long already. We have been through many situations where we’ve had to adjust our schedules or the amount we talk and even had to put back meeting - all of these situations were unavoidable and, I think, a less strong couple would have collapsed under the strain. Yet I really feel that we became stronger - because we weathered the storms together, because we worked as a team, because we listened to each other and heard each other and because we made decisions, not on the basis of his good or my good, but for OUR good.
I also agree about the best friend thing - I really do believe he is my best friend and he is the person I am 100% honest with - I have told him things that I never told another person in my whole life and, for me, that’s really meant so much that I can’t even put it into words.
Hmm… seems as though there are too many people responding who’ve had things work out for the best, gosh darnit. What about those of us who aren’t so lucky?
It’s interesting to me that most of the examples given so far were relationships that started out long distance, as opposed to mine, which started out, and lasted for a quite a long time, in person. It seems there are probably some major differences between the two - ::trying to end this thought with something deep and thoughtful, but failing::
I agree that communication is key (well, for me, a key failure, but key nonetheless). I don’t think we had really discussed what was going to happen to us before we found ourselves so far apart. Graduating, interviews, accepting a job offer - it all happened so fast that I never actually thought of the impact my choices in the “professional” arena would have on my relationship. I guess I thought we were strong enough to make it no matter what. I just should have relayed that info to my partner, I suppose. I never was good at foreseeing potential problems like that. Now there is quite a divide between us after 8 months. The funny thing is, we’re still best friends when it comes to anything except talking about “us” - that’s where all the tension lies. We talk about anything else and it’s like nothing ever changed.
I guess it’s all in the past now though. It’s odd timing that my “LDR” (that sounds like a medical condition or something) is ending just as this thread appears with all these wonderful success stories… hmm… maybe it’s a big conspiracy or something. Or maybe it’s just time to start doing other things!
I am sorry about the timing of this thread and if it caused you any hurt - apologies :(.
Also, I should say that I know of a number of LDR’s that haven’t survived - I won’t lie and say they are wonderful, everything works out and they are all successes. They are not - they are bloody hard and frustrating and annoying and can make me cry buckets at times… and sometimes, they don’t work out. Just like any kind of relationship - sometimes it wasn’t meant to be.
But I sincerely believe that if it wasn’t meant to be, there’s a reason for that - that there is someone out there for you who is “the one”. And maybe having this relationship has taught you what you want and don’t want from your next relationship?
I believe there is a silver lining in every situation - its just a matter of finding out what it is. In this case, it could be that there is someone even better for you out there? Good luck!
Oh there’s nothing to apologize for, at least I get to write about stuff that’s on my mind and pretend people care If anything, it helps, I suppose. But I’ll bet the last thing anyone wants to hear about here are my sad stories, so slap me if I post about this again. I’m glad things do work out for some of you, though
Good luck!