gosha83

I had a failed long-distance relationship. While it lasted, it was amazing...so much hope and so much to look forward to! But when it ended, it was really really tough to swallow for me.


The short of it is that I met this Aussie girl while studying abroad in Leeds, England in '05. I never had the cajones to ask her out, and shortly thereafter she started dating some local guy. We just remained friends, though I really wanted to have something more w/her.

So I move back to the States, and the day after I get back, we are talking on MSN and she tells me that all this time she really liked me but was afraid to let me know. For a year and a half we kept talking every day (texts were a life savior, and the fact that Sprint didn't charge extra for international texting back then was key!). I was all ready to go see her, had my visa ready for Australia, and then things fell apart. She freaked out about the whole thing a bit. We stopped talking until about 4 months (April 2006 at this point) when she came around, said that she made a huge mistake, and that she will never make it again. I told her that I wouldn't go to Oz again and that she'd have to make the effort.

Things really heated up again, we talked a lot, many times a day. Finally she said she was buying a ticket to come and stay with me for two months! I was beside myself, I couldn't believe it was going to actually happen. All that time we just talked about being near each other and how we'll make it last. Right before she came over, she went to the UK and I flew there on Thanksgiving of last year (thanks to all the FTers btw who gave me hints about how to score a business class seat) and spent a wonderful 4 days with her in Leeds, where we first met. We both had food poisoning, but it was an amazing time still.

Then she came to New York and stayed for two months. Went to Nashville with me, met my parents...I really felt that I was in love, for the first time in my life. I made up my mind right then that I would want to be with her for a long time. I remember still the day she had to fly home. It was Australia Day (Jan. 26) and we were sitting in JFK, and neither one of us could stop tearing up. I promised up and down that I would come soon, as soon as I could (I just started a new job, that, I thought, would allow me to also move to be with her anywhere in the world). She promised me that she loved me forever, etc etc.

A month went by and I splurged and bought a ticket to Oz. Maxed out all my vacation days at my new job, as well as all of my savings for that trip. But as she started her masters in Canberra, she started getting very flaky. She wouldn't get on MSN any more, would say mean things to me, when I brought it up, called me controlling and said that she needed space (which was hard for me to understand, both in terms of the distance that was already between us, and the relationship that I thought we had). I began to fear that this relationship was going to end...and end it did. She called me about 3 weeks before my trip to Oz and told me in so many words that she wanted to break up for good, that she fell out of love. Mind you, at that time, I was still planning on moving there, was still preparing myself mentally for it. I guess I was both naive and blind...but that's what love is, I guess, blinding.

She told me that she still wanted me to come, but to have a clear idea of what to expect...which wasn't very much. I decided that I wasn't going to let this breakup defeat my long-planned, once-cancelled trip. So I still went. And it was horrible. Horrible and unfair to me and to everything that I felt we ever stood for. She was a different person. I cut my trip short by about 4 days and came home after only slightly more than a week there. It was heartbreaking, to say the absolute least. A few weeks later she cut off all communication with me, saying that she was over it. I felt (and still feel) gutted, cheated, betrayed...I felt like I put so much effort, care and love into making this long-distance thing work, only to have her say that it was the distance that killed it. If only she would've put in a third of the effort that I did...

Anyway, moral of the story: I didn't want to become another statistic in the realm of failed long-distance relationships. But I truly feel that I did everything the right way, save moving there earlier. But if it was meant to end, it was going to end sooner or later. I just didn't think that it would. I think about it every day, and about how much I was looking forward to the exciting changes that moving closer to her would bring. I even became a Qantas Frequent Flyer, thinking that I would be taking many trips to/from Oz...but alas.

lvnvflyer

Well, I've had a happier ending; we started our relationship with one in Arizona and one in IL and got married still commuting between the two and are still commuting today. BUT, we talk every day multiple times and we see each other every weekend. So not so much separation as a lot of couples, and much more "real life" about the house, the pets, the cars, etc. IMHO, it's all about communication, so that you feel like you are part of each other's life, and the most important part, at that. It's awfully nice, though, to be able to get a hug when you want or need one, and that's the downside to an LDR!

YYCWoMaN

My late husband and I had one of these in the late '70's -- my phone bill was as much as my rent some months! Me @ YXY, he in YEG. I got weary of being in a relationship, but basically alone most of the time. I moved to YEG once I finished school ~ married him a year later, he died in my arms 23 yrs later... so successful enough (except for that last part ).

I have an enjoy-each-other-when-we-can companion in CHC -- distance is daunting enough, I can't imagine trying it without IM, Phone cards, Skype and other modern communications (mod-cons ~ kiwi-ism!)

The only accepted axiom I know of for a LDR: eventually one or both parties will have to adjust (move, relocate) ~ or the relationship will stagnate.

1k-all-the-way

Well I did three years between San Francisco and Lausanne, Switzerland. Given lack of direct flights, it takes at least 2 flights and a train to connect. We saw each other every month for the three years. Relationship ended in part because of distance, but more for other reasons. It had its downside but lots of excitement too!

Insiderdude

Well said - speaking every day and making the other feel as if you are part of each other's lives is key; the hard part is that it ends after the phone and we still bounce off to live separate lives. I know it's weird, but sometimes I even forget (very momentarily), what she looks like... then I go back to the thousands of pictures we have...

Yeah, this reality is looming on the horizon. As it may be scary in a way, we find odd comfort in that we've discussed it quite a bit - and that the distance (hopefully) will go away one day. I find that it's what it gives our LDR the hope it needs to survive the distance for another year ...

On a brighter note: I'm requalified as a US CP because the LDR!

voop

When my SO and I met, I was living in the north of Europe, he while not French was living in France. So, we were separated by 1500km, or roughly 2h of flying. Now, this may not be long, but consider these additional constraints:

• it was 2h by SK, which means typically expensive;
• we were both in the last year of our studies at the time, thus not much cash available for traveling (nor time, for that matter).

We'd see each other about once/month (me taking an evening job on a gas station to fund that) in our respective countries.

Now, there's something very good about this: whenever we saw each other, it was on a sort of "vacation" where we put everything else to the side to be together. The downside was exactly the same: that we didn't get to have a "day to day life" with each other during that first time where we were both forgiving due to being madly in fresh love , but that we only saw each other in "vacation-mode" of sorts.

In other words, and as a previous poster has mentioned, each of our respective "weird habits" in the day-to-day-routine didn't get the benefit of a "cushion" of being freshly-in-love to allow ourselves to adopt to each other....

Anyways, studies had to end some time, and so after a bit more than a year we decided to try it out together -- and off I went to Paris...

...and now more than 10 years later, we're still happy together

The secret? I think that one of the things that helped was, that we discussed this beforehand: that it is going to be difficult since we never had a real continued "dating-period" before moving in together, and so we should "talk to each other rather than become irritated" over the small things. Also, we both knew that moving country was a "big deal" in and by itself (financially, socially) and so we were determined to make it work.

Ohh, and most importantly, of course, that we were and still are in love

techgirl

This has been my experience. I've tried long distance more than once but ultimately I decided that because I already travel so much, I needed the stability of a relationship in my own hometown, not another "escape" from that life.

The "duality" of leading three lives (one at home normally, one on the road for work, one with the relationship whether at my home, his or on the road) was too much for me - its hard enough to juggle two as a frequent traveler, three was unmanagable.

skchin

She went back home for a year after college to Pakistan and I was in Michigan. That was a tough year.

Sancha

I've had two transatlantic relationships -- one that worked and one that didn't. The one that didn't work had more challenges -- no VoIP at the time, cell phones still very expensive, language differences which hindered communication (his English was very good but not on the level where you could talk in subtleties or nuances) and, perhaps biggest of all, no discernible end in sight.
The one that worked we've been able to stay in touch every day through email, VoIP and texts, we're both native English speakers (though as a Brit and an American it's debatable whether we share a common language ), I've been able to see him very regularly thanks to my airline job, and we knew from the very first that there was a finite end to our distance.

A year after we met and I've given up the airline job (heresy around here, I know) and in five days' time will be getting on a plane for my new life in the UK.

Having a goal set down, a time when one of the two (or both) will move so you'll be together is, IMHO, critical. Of course there's trust and communication, but if you don't see a relationship going anywhere it's hard to justify the hardship (emotional, financial and otherwise) of an LDR.

Indylt

I met my G/F (now wife) while working near Boston one summer. She lived in Boston and I lived in the San Francisco area. We dated long distance 3 years seeing each other for two months over the summer when I would return to my "summer job" and usually one other week a year when she would come visit. We burned up the phone lines the rest of the time. We have now been married 13 years and are about to start another long distance relationship. I have a job opportunity in Kansas City and would be commuting for at least the first 6 months until we decide whether to move or not. I'll only be home on the coast every other weekend. Even though life is much more complicated then the first time we did it, we're confident we can make it work.

Owlchick

I've had good and bad experiences with long-distance relationships.

Second, my ex-husband and I worked for the same online game company and had met a number of times over the years before flirting with each other while working on a project. We "dated" in IMs and on the phone for about six months before attending another function in Las Vegas, where we got married.

For several more months, he lived in VA while I was in Seattle. He moved to Seattle and things were going pretty well. Then I got a job offer in SAN. We talked about it and he encouraged me to follow my dream, so I accepted the offer and moved.

Six months of long-distancing it again, he told me he had no intention of moving to SAN and he could file for divorce by mail in Eastern WA. So he did and there you go.

Maybe we might have been able to work things out had we communicated more in-depth about the impact my job would have...but then again, maybe not!

Efrem

Article today on cnn.com on this very subject:

Making long-distance relationships work

kellio33

I can't even make a local relationship work, much less think about a long distance one

Hats off to all of you that are successful

baglady

Mr. Baglady and I had a long distance relationship until we got married. Now we both travel and see each other much less than we'd like. I got a surprise tonight when we were going over schedules (1000 miles apart) and found that we're going to be in Orlando on the same night - we're psyched!

I try and tailor my travel to his whenever I can because I have some flexibility. Other than that we talk constantly on the phone, email, text, and have lots of photos. I carry a photo that I put on my nightstand (he's on one side; my daughter on the other) at wherever I'm putting my head down.

I'm travelling way too much this month and next but we're managing to meet up in five cities during that time, plus a few nights at home so that helps tremendously. It's not easy and it's not for everyone. I try and have him the first voice I hear in the morning and the last one at night - no matter the time difference.

Insiderdude

Good point - a lot of times we forget that the frequency and amount of travel is unimaginable to most other people who lead a local life, with a local job, and local families. We all "commute", so to speak, for our work, and on top of that, that in a way has also opened the door for us to do a LDR. Hey, if our offices and clients are often a few thousand miles away, we're more likely to take on a relationship that far away as well... since "home", for us, to an extent, really isn't home to begin with (in the traditional sense).