kaka

ermp. Mine is still on-going. met her a year ago, flatmates for 6 weeks in london as she was in summerschool and was living in a flat with me and others (I've just graduated in London). Used the then-brand new Hoxton 1 quid offer with her and had a lot of talking that night since she was off back home 2 days after and me off to NL for exchange. Both decided to have relationship attached knowing its LD is stupid... but then after a lot of MSNing and webcaming, we were in.
There had been ups and downs since, a lot of trust and communication is needed in between. Then it came the day i was visiting her and have lost the passport in taiwan. It felt really weird cuz we turned from seeing 12 days in 6 monthes till 1 whole month non-stop (cuz i live in hong kong, 1.5 hours away being a different "country")
There is a lot more going on than talk, eat, sleep etc when you meet once a month, and there is a lot more on mutual understanding. Well. now i've got my passport back and got home. It surely feels very weird when shes not around. but hope things will happen so that we could move closer.

ECOTONE

btw, this has become a truly GREAT thread.

My long distance relationship just came to an end (we're both in DC now) but I've been following this thread very closely. It's great to hear other success stories and sobering to hear the about the relationships that have unfortunetly ended.

3timesalady

Deleted

jimcfsus

No green limes here either, 3times.

Let me add my story. I've had 2 LDR's (and one in-between that I don't count). The first was for about 18 months in the mid-90s with a gal who then lived in MSP. We met via AOL. I averaged going there about every other weekend and mostly lived up there the two summers, as I could run my business from there. As everyone else has said, built up a lot of FF miles that way. We did a lot by email when we weren't together. Her work wasn't the type that she could find employment easily in southern WV where I teach, so we eventually drifted apart.

Before meeting my wife (next paragraph), I saw a gal from RIC for about a month. That was going ok until a "friend" of hers broke in her house, read emails from her and I on her computer and a gun was involved. At that point in the story (as she's telling me this on the phone), she said to me that if you don't want to be involved in any of this, I understand. Well, I didn't want to, and I never saw her again. I think this might take a prize in the fastest a relationship had ever ended. One minute things are fine... next minute, buh-bye. (Funny thing was I was home grading exams that afternoon when she called... and suddenly my weekend and holiday freed up. Bad thing was I had to undo all kinds of travel plans I had made for her and I for Christmas. Luckily I had award tickets that could be redeposited, hotels could be cancelled, and I was only about about $80 in non-refundable plane tickets.)

I met my now wife about 3 months after the first LDR ended (and about 10 days after the RIC story). She was living near FLL with her dad, who was down there for work. I flew down to meet her the day after Christmas. They were originally from northern Ohio, about 20 minutes from Cedar Point. I did the travel for about a couple of months until she finally said, it would be cheaper if we got married, so we got married the end of July 1997. In some ways, I wish we would have waited longer, as we might not have tied the knot (it's not been a great marriage)... but then again, we wouldn't have had GoFaresBoy 6 years ago either.

Fraser

I've done one of these too!

Me in SE England, we met in Washington DC in September 2003. Saw each other again every couple of months (was as much as my wallet could stand) until she moved to San Francisco in September '04, went to see her out there once. She then moved back to the East Coast in February '05 and I moved here in September of '05. Got married in March '06 and all going well so far.

Wasn't quite sure what I was getting myself into when we first met but it worked out for the best! A combination of email, phone, IM, easy flights and not too different time zones didn't make it all that difficult practically. Emotionally it was tough going though, nearly every time I went to an airport it was either a very exciting day or a miserable one waiting for another 7 or 8 weeks to roll around again. My friends at Uni thought it was odd/mysterious/weird/exciting/an expensive way to get laid (delete as applicable)

My brother wasn't too sympathetic. He was seeing a girl who then moved 45mins drive away and said he'd have to break up with her because the long distance was tough! At the time Kirstin and myself were 3800 miles apart...

me4yankees

This thread is my life, at least the last 11 years of it. I live in VA and my fiancé lives in NY, 610 miles away. I met my him in July 1996 on AOL and we communicated by chat, e-mail, and phone until March 15, 1997 when we met in person for the first time. We saw each other a couple of times per month in April and May of that year, but since then we have seen each other every weekend somewhere, except when a NY blizzard caused me to return home, "a trip in vain," and I had a conference in TX on a weekend in fall 2006. I have flown to him, he has flown to me, we have met in between by car and air. We have been to numerous states and small towns to meet, as well as the Bahamas, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Boston, D.C., Montréal, Toronto, Paris, Nice, Cancún, and Negril, Jamaica together. Since I teach college, most summers I have spent in NY for weeks at a time. We are hopeful that someday our careers will allow us to live in the same place! But until then, we are making the best of the air transportation, hotel points, and frequent flier miles! What a crazy 10 years of travel it has been...........

nkedel

My then-relationship/now-marriage was an LD one for three of the years we were in college in the mid-90s; the LD part was a pain in the neck, especially as we were just on the cusp of the telecom revolution - domestic LD phone service was getting cheaper - we still ran up about $150/month in calls between us - but wasn't nearly free like today, and we had email and some much clumsier ways to chat online than today's IM systems. No affordable mobile phones either, at least in the boonies of NH where I was.

We got really used to SFO to (BOS/MHT) flights. I got into the mileage game much later than I should have... each flying 5-6 times a year would have been gold or equivalent for both of us.

I moved out west after graduation, and it's been a local relationship ever since.

Insiderdude

Wow, thanks for many of your heartfelt stories here!! For those of you who have done LDRs for many many years I applaud your dedication.

I will probably make is as a US CP again this year because of the LDR travel - 10k a month just doing that adds up quick! Not to mention the monetary part of it...

dcutcher

for couples expecting to marry, used to (and still may) frown on long-distance relationships, and especially on engagements lasting longer than one year. I'm not quite certain what reasons were given, but neither would seem to characterize the better arrangement, anyway.
In my case, R and I have been on opposite Coasts for...uh...."some time", see each other at the rate of 100,000+ miles of travel together per year. United seems to be profiting--but we are, too, despite both the time and distance

WHBM

A few FTers know the story of Mrs WHBM

Sent on a semi-business trip visit from our Russian office to the UK for a few days, I got the job of doing a sightseeing trip round London on the spare Saturday. First date all on entertaining expenses (London Eye, Theatre, etc), which is probably distinctive in its own right !

Sneaked a couple of evenings out as well later in the week. Walked round the West End of London in the pouring rain on the last night.

It was e-mail that made it. Exchanged messages of thanks, then we just never stopped from about 4 or more mails each way a day. Electronic cameras allowed daily exchange of photos of everything what we were doing (I used to send photos of meals I had just cooked, got comments back about their poor nutrition a few minutes later). SMS texts as well, phone calls, etc. Little visit to Helsinki near the border, first trip to Russia, trip back to London, we never looked back. Time between trips just got shorter and shorter. Holidayed in Turkey for ease of visas, we both bought package tours from our home cities to the same hotel. Married just short of 2 years from first meeting. Our chairman, who asked me to do that first day out, was Best Man, of course.

If you think long distance across the USA is an issue, you should try doing it between the UK and Russia. But if you have found Your Sweetie, stick with it.

I'd do it all over again, exactly the same way, in a heartbeat.

By the way, we still exchange multiple e-mails each day between our offices across London. Never stopped ! Sometimes I send e-mails across the living room between our two laptops for fun, just like the old days.

PSUhorty

Excellent, excellent thread, everyone.

Thank you.

aaac

My wife and I first known each other through the internet. She came across my travel photo website and sent me an email. Phone calls then ensued and in a few weeks after that I flew down from the Great White North to North Carolina to see her. Follow that first encounter was monthly trips to NC as she was a foreign student and cannot fly to Canada to see me.

A year later, I decided that the airlines has taken enough of my hard-earn money so I decided to switch from a desk job to a field job which allows me move to NC to be with her. We thought that was a smart move since we can spend more time together. The unfortunate thing was that I ended up traveled for work a bit too often but at least we still spend more time together than when I was in Canada. We got married shortly after I moved to NC.

A year and a half ago, she completed her graduate degree and moved back to Asia. Ever since then I flew to Asia every 2-3 months to see her (thank god for all the frequent fliers miles). I am accepting a new position in our Asian division and will be moving back to Asia next year. We will still have to commute back and forth to see each other for a year or so but at least it won't be 24h trips anymore.

What makes it work? Gazillions of emails, chats and phone calls (thanks to Skype and VoIP). Lots of patience and understanding.