Tell me about your long-distance relationships - I'm about to be in one, and I'm freaking out

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This month my boyfriend decided to move across the continent - he will be in Portland, OR at least temporarily, it’s yet TBD whether he will set up permanent residence there or in Seattle. I’ll be here in Philadelphia. He’s leaving in just two weeks. Due mostly to lack of funds on both of our parts (and lack of planning on his part, and multiple pets and lots of possessions on my part), I’m unable to move with him, although the tentative plan is for me to join him within a few months (less than a year) depending on various factors, and we should be able to visit each other at least every couple months while we’re apart. I’m VERY unhappy right now with the situation he’s forcing me into, but I’m trying to think positively and figure out how we can make this work.

I suppose it’s relevant to mention that while he’s made the decision to do this now somewhat impulsively (he lost his full-time job here a month before he was planning on moving into a new apartment and signing a year lease) it’s been his dream for a large portion of his life to move out West, and he’s had persistent issues with depression about the fact that he feels stuck and discontented living in this area. When he got a job lined up and a place to stay there, he decided to do it now rather than start over here. I do feel this is a selfish and irresponsible decision on his part, and he agrees it’s unfair to me, but he feels like he HAS to do it now for some reason, and I can’t stop him. I also have no opposition to moving away from here, I work in an industry where I can get a job fast anywhere in the country, and I love the West coast. So I’m excited about the possibility of living there with him. I just wish I could NOW.

I’m the type of person who likes to see their SO a lot, I really value companionship (spending quiet time together, experiencing things together, sleeping next to each other). I feel sad and neglected when I don’t get plenty of attention, ‘quality time’ and sex/physical contact with someone I love, even if it’s just because we are both busy or someone goes on vacation. I also don’t like to talk on the phone (with anyone - it stresses me out for some reason), and I don’t really care about romantic gestures. He, on the other hand, is more independent, he thoroughly enjoys spending time apart from me doing his own thing and seems to be ‘recharged’ and even happier to be with me after those times. He’s also more of an idealistic, ‘love will conquer all’ ‘follow your dreams’ kind of guy, and he’s great at talking on the phone, paying wonderful compliments, and making those grand romantic gestures that a lot of women love. Those last things are pretty much wasted on me unfortunately…

He doesn’t think physical distance will change his feelings for me at all, and that we simply have to work hard at keeping in touch and supporting each other emotionally until we can be together again. I am terrified that a] I’ll feel miserable all the time from missing him and because of the uncertainty of the next year and b] I will grow to feel completely disconnected from him. I also, being a mundane, practical and emotionally stable person, don’t have much need for ‘emotional support’ (unlike him, he’s always going through something) in terms of a shoulder to cry on or advice needed. My life is usually uneventful, I keep it that way. I just want the fucker to BE WITH ME. Like, right next to me. And it hurts that he’s going to be building a whole new life for himself out there, and I won’t get to experience any of that with him.

So obviously, I’m going to have to re-evaluate what’s really important to me about being in love with and having a relationship with someone, and find ways to connect and continue to build a strong bond despite distance. We love and care about each other very much, have good communication most of the time, and get along very well. We’re opposites in a lot of ways, but they are mostly good ways. We really click, on a lot of levels, in a way neither of us has found before. So we’re definitely serious about making this work and eventually living together.

I’m asking both for your stories about your LDRs, of all kinds (situations like mine, or if you started out far away from each other), and for advice on how to go about it.

2

If he actually is depressed and unhappy where he is and this is his chance to get the fuck outa Dodge so to speak IMO he really really needs to do it. Depressed people actually getting the motivation to fix things doesn’t happen very often.

And for your part, if you really like the guy and wouldn’t mind moving anyway, just make getting moved out there yourself top priority, like you are on a mission from God or something. Don’t drag the process out, do your absolute best to get it over with come hell or high water.

Just an uniformed opinion mind you.

3

It can work if you want it to and work at it. My wife and I dated three and a half years in college. After graduation I went into the Army she stayed and worked on her masters. We only talked on the phone about once a week and wrote a lot of letters. This was 33 years ago mind you. Now with free long distance and emails etc. communication and contact should be much easier. Saw each other about every other month. Did this for two years before getting married and her moving out to join me. Worked fine, but we wanted it to and as I said worked at it. It doesn’t just happen.

4

He’s young and excited to be pursuing a new opportunity and moving out of an area that depresses him. I have been through Philadelphia quite a few times, and while I enjoy parts of it I can see here he’s coming from, overall the urban area and surrounds do not seem like a particularly nice place to live. I wouldn’t move there on a bet.

Beyond all this your post makes it sound like you are a beleaguered wife and he’s an irresponsible husband who’s making it very tough for you. You have a some huge clingy sense of entitlement/expectation that he’s supposed to be there for you physically and this is driving your anxiety. You are acting like his wife when you are actually his girlfriend. He is simply a young man with a girlfriend, he does not owe you the duties of a husband.

You need to back way, way off regarding any grief you are communicating to him over this. Having a grumpy, unhappy, demanding girlfriend at home loses it’s charm very rapidly when you are trying to start a new life. If you make it difficult for him by being unhappy and whiny he will potentially look for emotional comfort with other women. Given the context of his leaving, and tone of your OP and your expectations this is not likely to end well unless you change your attitude.

5

What astro said. I’ve been in an LDR and I hated it. I was the self-sufficient one and he was the clingy, whiny one. I got sick of his behavior and ended it. If you’re coming across to him like you are to us it will get really old for him. No doubt he’ll find your being whiny and high maintenance is bringing him down when he’s excited about his new life.

If you’ve described him accurately, I understand his needing to get away from his old life. It really isn’t a fair situation to you, but that’s pretty much a moot point now. You have to suck it up and BE SUPPORTIVE, enthusiastic and happy for him. It sounds like an amazing opportunity to turn around his life.

Then sell your crap, er, “lots of possessions”, and make moving your top priority. What’s more important, your clutter or him?

6

My wife and I were in a long distance relationship for two years, first while she was working in one state while I was finishing an advanced degree in another, and later, when I was establishing a career in yet another state. We talked a lot on the phone and wrote a lot of letters (two or three a week), visited each other when we could, and got through the separation - we’ve now been married for 22 years.

7

My boyfriend of two months had an unexpected snafu with his living situation such that he’s having to be away for the summer. We discussed the various potential ramifications and decided we’d rather stick it out til September than break up and revisit the issue when he comes back. We decided to do it old school, and have been writing each other long letters several times a week. In a way, it’s actually strengthening our relationship, because we are focused on building up the communication and sharing aspect of it. It’s tough not having him physically present, and can make things seem a little abstract, and it feels a little weird that by the time he gets back we will have been apart in our relationship longer than we were together, but on the whole I feel like we are coping well. It’s already been a month, and though I miss him a lot, the time is flying by, and I’m actually really enjoying the letters.

8

We have always felt that it is very important to recognise when one of us has to do something important to them somewhere else, and to be supportive of that and to make it work. As a result we have spent some time living in separate countries over the past 12 years, and currently we are living together again.

To us it is immensely important that we each follow our dreams and do what we need to do. We will be together no matter what. Not in a taking-it-for-granted way, but we WILL make it work. You plan the time you can spend together, and then when you see each other it is wonderful. And we always know it is temporary, one or the other eventually moves.

We talked over google video chat every night. I would have my laptop in my bed and so would he, we would often fall asleep that way. Sometimes we would both be writing, with the chat open in another window, not even speaking but just being together. That way, it isn’t like being on the phone. He also really liked calling just as I was getting ready to go out. It’s so much more like the way you normally have a conversation: you’re doing something. I would be getting dressed, putting on make up, doing my hair. He would say I looked pretty. That’s how we managed without having phone calls, I don’t like those either.

Living in Brazil was very hard, because there was no internet connection out there, just a dodgy phone line that gave up if it rained. We made it through!

Now going to sleep with him every night and waking up with him every morning is such a gift. We get excited about it all the time! I said just the other night: “I can’t believe that we’re just sitting here, in our house, just doing regular stuff!”

Who knows what’s next? We said two years here and it’s been almost one. I’ll have finished my degree and he’ll want a different job. So we’ll see. One of us might find something somewhere (and it’d better be somewhere bloody far from this shit hole!), and the other will have to think about going immediately, or doing something else for a while.

Loving someone is about caring about what is good for them, and about supporting them in doing that. You don’t need to be attached at the hip. You just need to get excited about the next great adventure!

I can’t imagine living my life thinking “I can’t do that because of my relationship”. That sounds terrible to me. If you love each other, you decide to make it work no matter what.

9

A few months after my girlfriend and I started dating, I moved to DC, 500 miles away, where I stayed for two and a half years. By the end of that time, either I would come home, or she would come down, about once every six weeks or so.

We’ve been married now coming up on 27 years, so, yeah, it can work.

10

Spent the first six months of 2005 in an LDR – I in Brooklyn, she in Las Vegas. That’s a bit misleading, we’d been behaving couplishly since July '04 but only started calling ourselves a couple in 2005, but she lived in Las Vegas for most of that time (and Atlantic City before that; I took a bit of a gamble there, one might say, but shouldn’t). We instant-messaged more or less every night. She worked an early shift and I’m a night person, so the time difference wasn’t a huge deal – her work hours and bedtime more or less coincided with mine even though the numbers were different.

In the end she came east and we got a place in Brooklyn, and we’re still together. We decided to do that probably around the time we declared ourselves a couple. LDRs shouldn’t be open-ended, in my opinion.

I don’t like going to entertainments (e.g., concerts, movies, etc.) alone and I don’t really have much of a meatspace social group to do that, so I never felt I was giving anything up to chat with her. Similarly, I actually don’t like going out in search of women, so again, I didn’t feel like I could be getting acres of pussy if I weren’t tied to a woman I didn’t even see in person. So that helped minimize resentment and concomitant unhappiness.

11

I can understand why you are upset.

But I also agree with the general mood here. Long distance is a reality, especially for the young and upwardly mobile. I roll with a pretty restless crowd, but I can’t actually think of a single long-term couple I know personally that hasn’t spent at least one chunk of time long distance. Life moves fast, and when you have two people working towards two careers, you have to have some flexibility and ability to roll with the punches through the bad times.

I know it feels like he pulled the rug out from under you with this, but quick moves like this aren’t uncommon. When you see an opportunity- especially an opportunity to get away from a bad situation and into one that you’ve been dreaming on- it’s not going to wait for you. When it comes down to it, long-distance moves are one of those things that it’s never a good time to do when you think about it. You could plan for years, but you are never going to find that perfect moment when both of you are ready to go at exactly the same time with no sacrifices. So if you want it to happen, you have to jump right in.

And harsh as it is, it’s true that you are not married. Married people have to make these kinds of choices together. But you guys haven’t made that kind of commitment yet.

So in short, it can work, and lots of people do it. Yes, you want him by your side. But you probably also want a million dollars and a pony- sometimes we have to work through not getting the stuff we want for the sake of the greater good. But it’s also totally your choice. If you want a homebody by your side, you should go out and find one rather than expecting someone to fit that mold when they don’t.

12

My husband (of now 8 years) and I maintained a LDR for over a year. We met at a summer camp where we were both counselors, and when the week was over he went back to Texas and I went back to Tennessee. We ran up huge phone bills and emailed, wrote letters, and instant messaged as much as possible. He was also able to drive up to see me about 4 times, and I went down to see him once during that year. We met in June, got engaged in October, and married the following June. It can and does happen that it will work out, and the long distance will become shared living quarters sooner than later! Hang in there and it will work IF YOU WANT IT TO!

13

I would save the money visiting each other and put it toward moving expenses. Have a garage sale, and if the goal is for you two to have a place together when you get out there, pool your savings in the next few months toward your moving goal. It will happen faster than you think. Skype a lot. Have Skype dates. I would bet you would be able to move within four months. If you really want to.

14

That’s a question I’m not sure people thought to ask, OP, to what extent are you unhappy about the distance and to what extent are you unhappy he’s not where you are?

15

It sounds like you’re not going to be able to make it. If you can’t stand the thought of not “being” with the other person in a relationship, why put yourself through the trouble? Just end it and move on.

16

Maybe you know something about the OP’s specific situation that would change this, but some people don’t get married. “Marriage” is not some magical level of commitment that all relationships should lead to. There can be one without the other, both ways.

If someone mentions their relationship, just take it at face value. She says they are serious.

17

I’m gonna need that converted to metric units…

18

Boyfriend and girlfriend does not equal wife and husband. “Serious” boyfriend and girlfriend does not equal wife and husband in social context or behavioral obligations and expectations. Marriage may be old fashioned, but the state of being married is not the same as the state of being a couple. It’s part of the reason gay people have fought so hard for this recognition.

19

Obviously marriage isn’t magic. But the evidence shows they don’t have the kind of commitment where major life decisions are made mutually. You know, given that he made a unilateral decision and all.

If the commitment level of a relationship isn’t spelled out and mutually agreed upon, it’s not there. Feeling that something is “serious” doesn’t mean that any obligation is actually there. You need to actually make those promises to each other in one form or another in order for them to count.

20

I really don’t want to dishearten you, so stop reading if you don’t want to read a bad outcome to a LDR.

…

I dated a girl for a long time. We met in high school, dated throughout. Continued through college. Her senior year (my junior) she left for a job a few hundred miles away. A year later I went a few hundred miles in the opposite direction.

You know - it kinda worked, at least for a little bit. But after a year and a half of being apart: She had met new people, as had I. Talking on the phone every night probably prolonged the relationship for a bit, but phone is no substitute for actual face to face interaction. It eventually got to where her current social circle was completely different than mine. She wanted to end the relationship; I didn’t. Our relationship ended. Hey, that’s how it goes. It’s been many years now, so I’m OK with that now.

Look, some people in LDR can make it work. I don’t want to poison your hopes. But they don’t always work, and my experience is one of the negative ones.

But good luck!