long distance relationships?
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Anybody here had one of these that actually worked? Or even started out long distant and then came together later on? Please to share stories if you have 'em.
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Marriage proposal pending, but we've been together off and on for 8 years.
it can work.
i moved to her town after 3 years. before that, both of us had the time and money to visit each other every two weeks. she also spend her vacations at my place. we're still together. long distance relationships can be tough though. i don't want to go through that ever again.
i went to elementary school with my girlfriend. she moved away after high school and we got together after that. it wasn't really a problem for us to be in a long distance relationship in the beginning. like i said, we had the time to visit each other regularly. we also used the time being together wisely. we made sure none of us had any work to do, so we could use the whole weekend for making up.
long distance relationships as a permanent condition is no good though. we had to do sth about it after 3 years. it wasn't bearable any longer. the last few months were quite painful.
Within Germany I could see this - it's a bit different here in the states where you've generally got 1000s of miles to cover.
I would say it's doable if you can see each other that frequently but still difficult.
For some people it works great. I tried it twice and both times it didn't work out. Maybe it was me, maybe it was her, maybe it was neither. In the first instance, I'm glad it didn't go further, although I would have a 10 year old kid to be taking care of right now.
Relationships, at least for me, are better if that other person is within a one-hour driving distance. If there's a fuckbuddy and both of you have established rules/guidelines, then drive or fly as far as you want. When it's serious, take it serious. One of you needs to make the move, or move on to someone else who is closer.
Nearly, but not quite.
1st try: Started dating a girl a year into college from back home, lasted 18 months before she dumped me for a man named J.C.
Round 2: Started dating a girl a month before graduation (6 years ago, damn!?!), moved 2,000 miles away. Did the LD thang for about 2 years. Now she's entering year #4 as Mrs. Jfree.
AI hit the nail on the head. If it's worth keeping, it's worth moving. If not, move on.
We dated for 4 about years, the last 3.5 which were long distance (SE->NE USA), following which we got engaged and she moved down my way. 2.5 yrs later we're still happy that we went through all of that.
"Hey baby dump the zero and get with the hero."
"Suck on it, hommie - your bitch chose ME."
I've found it to be true.
Correct, and I've been there too unfortunately, and ruined a good friendship in the process.
A reality check on the situation is
I think the bottom line is that if you are really and truly committed to the person for the long haul, long-distance can work. Since most relationships aren't like that, long-distance leads to failure.
I was engaged to my girl "back home" in NC while I was in OH attending graduate school. The problem was that ole' girl's only ambition in life (it seemed) was to get married (i.e., wouldn't stay in college, stick to a major, was obsessed with wedding gowns, etc.). She pestered me for about 2 years about marrying her while I was a broke-ass graduate student (surviving only on teaching and/or research assistantships and ramen noodles), yet she was not accomplishing ANYTHING that would help financially. In her rush for the altar, she hooked up with some soldier dude and she ended it (initially, but called back crying and begging three days later). I bet her pops screamed on her about how stupid she was to dump a guy working on a doctoral degree, since he respected that I was delaying gratification to accomplish something. I told her, "you did me a favor by breaking up with me. Now I can find a woman more like me, one with ambition. A phat ass and tits will only take you so far." Thus, I'm pessimistic about long distance relationships. Good luck!!!
Peace,
Cynical Stacks from Kakalak
it really depends on the railway and autobahn. a friend of mine still has a long distance relationship. it takes him 7.5 hours to get to his girlfriend. national flights are still unpopular and expensive over here.
my girlfriend and me had to travel for 4 hours. still half a day.
but of course, we don't have to go through distances like, say, new york and honolulu or miami and seattle.
Anna, she was Swedish, we met on a kibbutz in ???95, I fell hard. We did 3 months on the kibbutz, then 9 months apart she was in Sweden, I was in New Zealand. Go look at a map, you can???t get further than that, this was before email too, so it was snail mail with a 2-3 week gap between correspondences, shit was HARD.
She came and lived in NZ for 9 months, things were good 9not great, good0 then we did, wait for it NINE MONTHS APART, I then sold all my possessions, packed a bag, chucked in my (great) job and flew to Sweden. Did a naturalization course, took a HUGE pay drop as I was just another foreigner, managed to score some DJing work and lived there in her hickass town for 2 years, we then decided to move to Australia, better for my career, she was a nurse so no worries for her. I went ahead to organize accommodation and get it all set up, after 1 week she called me on the phone at 5 o???clock in the morning and told me it was over.
Dude, there is heartbreak, there is coldass bitch moves and then there was what that woman did to me. Crushed does not even begin to describe the state I was in. I have never spoken to her again.
LDR#2
So a month later, I meet this fine Dutch girl and I am damaged goods to say the least. This woman puts up with my pathetic moaning, my constant weed smoking, beer drinking, feeling sorry for myself shit, and we start seeing each other. We did 6 months in Sydney, then she went back home to Holland, came back 3 months later, had 2 weeks, she then went back home and we did 9 Months (that???s right, my THIRD nine month stint), finally I went to visit her for 2 weeks, came home and she sent me a ticket and paid for my visa??? I was to go for 1 year, that was in 2001, we were married in 2003, have a beautiful baby boy who turned one last month and I call Amsterdam home.
Long distance relationships are the hardest thing you can do, but it all comes down to the person, Anna was just the wrong one and I found out the hard way, but Maggie is the best thing that ever happened to me, since I met her my life is the absolute opposite of what it was, that woman saved me.
Think long and hard about it, and by all means give it a shot, as I told my family ???if you don???t try, you???ll never know???, but remember people change over time, and when you spend time apart, the one you???re with might not be the one you fell for, its easier now with email and SMS, but believe me, it???ll put a few grey hairs on your head.
Good luck.
It wasn't easy, but it was worth it. We'd try to meet twice a month at some midway point (Detroit). Hotel costs were high, and so were food costs. When you spent 6 days a month in hotels and restaurants, it adds up. The phone bills were higher than normal obviously also. The only real problems we had outside of not being able to see one another often was the trust issues and customs. Customs officers seemed baffled as to why I'd want to date an American (both sides), and visa versa for her. In regards to trust, it'll take a lot longer than normal, and I can't promise you'll ever be able to get past that. It took us over a year and made the first year close to impossible. Once we got passed that, everything got a little easier.
Anyhow, you can't control who you fall for, so distance to me is secondary to my emotions. A few years into our relationship she offered to come live in Canada with me while she finished her masters. I declined, only because the cost for education would increase significantly, and I didn't want her to have to re-do some of her courses. We also weren't married, and I was worried that if we got into a fight or broke up, she'd live the rest of her life with regret as she left her country and "world" to come and be with a man in which things didn't work out. I decided that if things were meant to be, they would be. That was a good 4-5 years in. That decision to this day is one of my life's greatest regrets. I'm living in Toronto will millions of eligable women, but nobody has ever made me feel like she did.
this thread has ruined my day!
It's what you want to do. If it doesn't work, you will get over the relationship turning bad twice as fast as your regret for having never tried.
yeah good point.
only 1 thing i'd add to this. as a younger lad i was in a blissful LDR. of course as lives changed, we drifted apart. but never forgot each other. Years later, we got back in touch. At that time in our lives, we were in a position where we could try the next level. She ended up moving here. it was great for a year or so but it became apparent that there were long-term compatibility issues. MORAL: If you fall in love from afar, even if you have the best times during visits etc, it still gives little indication that things will work once you live together or see each other every day.
but still, follow your heart. if you don't try it, you'll never know.
now you know why I haven't called you for a while man, I'm racking up the long distance minutes with this girl. need to buy a calling card after work I think... I'll try to PM you later, after I get some work done.
my next thread = phone sex thread
forgive me if i sit that one out
if you're thinking life together forever, something has got to give at some point; you only get to a certain stage from a distance. i don't think there is a certain "yes, it will work" or "no, it won't work" answer.
there was a lot of frustration for those two years, but we sure had a great time when we did see each other. i've had way less fun/exciting/satisfying /lasting relationships right here at home.
In the end, we found out that we were really just too different to be together. It's more complicated that that, but that's the gist of it.
What we found out is that you can't really base a long distance relationship on just those week-long visits alone. They're going to be awesome. You're going to get to spend a whole week or so with this girl in a vacation-type setting which is completely unrealistic. To really find out the whole scoop, you're gonna have to live together in a setting where you find out what the other person is like after a long day of work, what they're like when you want to go hang out with your friends and she's not invited, how annoying some of their friends are, etc.
I've heard equal stories of LDRs working and not working. I'd say you really just need to make sure you know the other person really well before jumping into it.
Very pass?? - especialy in the age of online chatting & web cams.