Long Distance Relationships
 

Hey everyone - as our topics on FT are usually about miles and travel, I thought I'd post a shout out to those of us that may be in long distance relationships. Seeing that many of us travel a lot (and sometimes too much), what a better crowd than this to bounce some thoughts at.

I guess no matter at what stage of your relationship (casual, committed, engaged, married 50+ years, or otherwise), we all go thru the stresses of not being able to see each other like 'normal' couples (whatever that means anyway). As a sales manager, I commute up and down the west coast, and my GF lives in the Florida panhandle. Talk about a North American triangle. Thanks to mobile-2-mobile calling, we talk everyday, but only get hang out a couple weekends a month. We have our moments on both ends of the spectrum, and of course, look to the day when we can walk up to each other whenever we want (mid-'08).

Now, (not intending to turn this thread into more than it should), how does everyone handle the absence, timezones, and success stores (or lessons hard-learned)? From one FTer to another, I'm reaching out for some advice!

:cool:

When I met mr. horse glasses, I was in PA and he was in CA! We never went more than a certain time without seeing each other, had set calling times and a plan to be together permanently. We did this for 8 months and then I moved out here and we are getting married in 2 weeks! It sounds like you are doing everything you can so it's just a matter of waiting it out, unfortunately. Good luck and don't listen to jerks who say "they never work". Some people can do it and some can't.

If it's meant to work out, it will. I met the current Mrs. clarence5ybr when I lived in NM and she lived in NYC. I moved to RNO, and she moved here shortly thereafter.

Certainly there can be some difficult times along the way, but if what you need is in that relationship, one of you will eventually be ready to move; both of you moving to a neutral territory can also be a good solution. We still have my wife's apartment in NYC, and we go back for frequent visits, but we're both happy to have a short-distance relationship.

That you see each other a couple of times a month is pretty good going. I'd be lucky to see my partner 4/5 times a year.

Email was incredibly important. The time zones (me in London, him in Tokyo) made calling him difficult, I was either at work or he'd be asleep - I couldn't just call whenever it suited me as he didn't live alone.

You guys can comment on the same TV programs, discuss News stories, there are a lot of upsides to living in the same country.

To be honest, the long distance thing sucked and it was more of an endurance test than anything else which went on for more than 4 years and drained us of our finances.

We got married last year and I've spent the past 6 months in bed due to back problems and surgery. But even this is much less stressful and frustrating than maintaining the long distance relationship was.

If you can keep it up and get though it, the upside is that you should be more certain than most that you really are meant to be together.

Best of luck!

I married him. We lived across state and we'd commute every-other-weekend. It became my going there twice a month, he'd come here once a month. After he decided to leave his career behind, he moved to my end of the state.

He now commutes 2000 miles away 1-2 weeks per month and has an apartment out in Utah. After a (two second) discussion, we both agreed we would rather not move there.

<sigh>

I met Mr. Kipper when he was in MD and I was in PA. Shortly after meeting, he was sent to Yorktown, VA, thanks to the Marine Corps. We agreed that he'd come visit every other weekend, and since, at the time, I was unemployed, I'd start looking for a job down there.

Since then, we've lived together, spent 4 months where I was in VA and he was in PA, and I was driving to visit most weekends, spent roughly a year-and-a-half where we were across PA, or at least halfway across PA from each other, and are now living together. When we were apart, one of us would typically travel to see the other one, if not every weekend, every other weekend. We learned to make the time we did have together count, and if I would drive to visit him, I'd often wait to head back until Monday morning.

Great topic! I've done it twice, once sort of casually and once seriously. In the second, which lasted about six months, the key was free night and weekend minutes. We'd talk for at least an hour a night. He was in Illinois and I was in D.C., so not much of a time difference. We didn't have much spare cash or vacation time, so our visits were not frequent -- a weekend every month or so. (This was before I knew about FT, of course, or I'm sure I would have been flying out to see him a lot more often!) Things ended for a variety of reasons, but a big one was that I realized he was never going to leave his small town, and I certainly wasn't about to move there.

I think you need to have some sort of long-term plan if things get serious; someone eventually needs to move, there's just no way around it (no matter how attractive the prospect of racking up millions of miles for your visits). And you have to remember that the distance tends to postpone the ordinary, everyday problems of being in each other's presence that would normally be tackled much earlier on in a face-to-face relationship. It may be easy to reach emotional intimacy when all you can really do is talk, but you're not learning how to live with each other.

Just my two cents -- I realize everybody's situation is different depending on age, temperment, where they are in life, etc. :)

It's feasible, but there has to be a lot of flexibility and forbearance on both
sides. I had one relationship where we were separated by over 3000 miles,
and it worked okay for a while ... until the young lady took a visiting scholar
position that was 4500 miles away, and I guess I wasn't quick enough to
hop to (especially as I'd have had to learn Portuguese), and next I heard
she'd married a samba dancer or something. The current one is a 400-mile
commute and definitely worth it; it's lasted half a dozen years or more and
threatens to become a short commute if any.

Top this one.
 

I live in Norway and my girlfriend lives in Australia. I haven`t seen her since April and I`m off seeing her on Sept.24th. It has been tough but, as long as the love is strong all will go well. Even though we are on opposite sides of the world, internet, sms and phone calls have been very comforting..... honestly...sometimes naughty:eek: but she started it!

Anyways...she is busy with her work and me with mine. And who gets all the miles from SVG-LHR-SFO-SYD-MEL and back.......meeeeee:D:D
But family and kids are more important than travel and miles....that`s what I`m realizing now.

Its been the way of life in my world for the duration of our relationship. My wife and I have been together for 12 years and married for 5. Our current situation has her in Las Vegas and me in Macau. On the bright side I'll only be here for two or three years!!

There is no doubt it is a lot of hard work but we are proof it can be done.

I think my GF and I have the record. I live in Atlanta and she in Thailand. This will go on for another 2 years before she moves back. Fortunately my work is flexible enough that I can work remotely a lot, so we've agreed that I will go over there at least 4 months/year and she'll try to come back for 1-2 months. Lots of flying, but of course, lots of miles! :)

We get by with a combination of email, Yahoo IM, and VOIP (thank God for this!) How people survived long distance relationships before the Internet I have no idea!!

--Matt in Indy

Read this carefully, and think about how it relates to your situation. Think about the issues and problems you are not addressing now (but should be) because of the distance.

Dated long-distance for about a year. I was in PHL while she was in DC. Luckily, neither of our jobs made us travel much so we spent every weekend together - 2x in DC, 2x in PHL. She loved exploring PHL (i had been a resident of 25 years) and I enjoyed my time in Washington. Over the summer, my department downsized and I was out of a job - quickly finding a consulting job down in Washington. So now we live 2 miles a part, but I'm on the road 3-4 days a week!!!

It's been great being closer to her, but now with all of my travel I find myself on the road when I wish I was back in Washington. Luckily, I am getting enough miles so we can spend a month traveling together! ^

I work for an airline here at SMF and my girl is in Jersey close to EWR in the summer, and when she's at school, she's in the middle of nowhere IPT! I have to take a Delta flight SMF-ATL-PHL overnight to make it PHL-IPT on US Airways to even get there at a decent time! I fly out and see her about once a month, sometimes more if I'm not too busy. She rarely comes out here because of school, but I give her some of my passes and we fly somewhere and meet up for a weekend every once in a great while. It's hard, but I think it's worth it!

Hey everyone, thanks for your stories- it's encouraging to know that we're not alone. We've been at this for a year now, and until we can be together in another, it will be the same cycle: See each other for a long weekend, then spend the next few weeks living separate lives... and when we get back together, a good portion of our time is dedicated to just 'catching up'. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

I agree, if it wasn't for mobile-2-mobile calling this may not have worked. I guess things like cell phones, emails, and even FT have made our relationships possible today which would otherwise be unimaginable a mere 20 years ago.

Wow, for those here that have significant others half a world away, I applaud your persistence and dedication. Of course, for those of us that are a mere 'domestic' flight apart it can still be really hard; through this I am often reminded of the things that are truly important in life.

<sigh>

Hang in there my friend.

I had a long distance relationship before mobile to mobile. My wife and I saw each other once per month. We were old enough to realize that we would make it work no matter what.

Had I been in my younger days it would have been very hard because of my ragin hormones. But being older and wiser (well not THAT much older but old enough) has its advantages.

In a way long distance relationships work much better because you focus on the spirit rather than the physical. It does improve many relationships to not have that person readily available.

Too often I've seen people take their partner for granted because they were always there physically.

Enjoy it, and don't worry, you're not alone.

Mine lasted a year.

Me in DFW, her in STL. Luckily, that's a short flight, and thanks to the AA/WN wars at the time, a cheap one. We saw each other for a weekend every 2-3 weeks for the first 9 months or so, then both the frequency of visits and the strength of the relationship started to slip.

The way I saw it, we spent as much time together as most local dating couples. But instead of an evening together a few times a week, we'd have 48 or 72 hours continuously every 2-3 weeks.

Mine lasted a year. I was in NYC and he was in London. We had been best friends for 2 years when we both lived in Chicago and only got together the day before I moved to NYC and he moved to London! It was tough but I was over there about once a month and he did get to spend 6 weeks in NYC. Ultimately it ended but it was worth the try.

I can't beat the Norway - Australia story, but it certainly was possible to maintain a long distance relationship before internet and cell phones.

I was in SNA, he was in DEN. We worked for the same government agency and both traveled throughout the U.S. So I would stop over for the weekend on my way to D.C. or Minneapolis, and he would stop here if he was working in SFO, etc.etc. After 2 years of this, he finally was able to transfer here. Next week, we will celebrate our 24th wedding anniversary!

You're right - it's now all about dedication and seems *almost* like a game of endurance and hard work. Whoever says that relationships aren't work I don't believe it. However, on the flip side, it is one of the most amazing parts of my life today that I'm not able (nor ready) to replace.

I just hope US, DL, and maybe WN give me a break this year and start some fare wars out to the southeast!

To Cassie: Congrats on your 24 years!

I lived in PA, she in TX. I would visit when I could but on a grad student's budget, it was tough making it down to see her. She, meantime, ws banking her vacation days for our trip to visit my family in Japan so she was only able to fly up twice.

It was hard but daily phone calls and email contact made it easier. We went that way for three years. We got married last May. I even posted a trip report about our honeymoon.:D

The key to making it work, IME, is a shared commitment to making it work in addition to the other things crucial to a successful relationship (shared values, mutual respect, etc.). Having a good idea when the "long distance" aspect will end helps, too.

Good luck with your relationship, Insiderdude. And thanks to the respondents for sharing such wonderful stories.^

Mine lasted a year. My gf lived in boi doing research and I travelled to see her every 6 weeks.

The worst trip? syd-sfo - the stay was amazing but her flight leaving was 10 am and my flight was the red eye back to syd so I sat in SFO all day, 14 hour flight back and say in SYD for 10 for my DJ flight to christchurch...)

The internet was a life saver - skype saved us a fortune in calls, we played games together on YIM and had web cam.

I also got to earn 100k in miles with trips like syd-sfo bfs-ewr man-ord and bfs-hnl.

Nice! Now I've to pay it all off :rolleyes:

Mr. ACB and I dated long distance for a year. I was in Chicago, he was in NYC. We met at a business meeting in Albuquerque and over the course of a few weeks of e-mail, started dating at a business meeting in Tampa (as much as you can date at a business meeting).

We were lucky because fares were very low throughout the course of our long distance relationship (175.00 roundtrip, usually, from LGA to ORD and vice versa) and we were able to take long weekends and work out of each other's offices on Fridays or Mondays as we worked for the same company.

A year of this and I managed to get transferred to NY. I lived with a random roommate for six months and moved in with Mr. ACB six months later, and we were engaged about a year after that. I'm not going to lie, it was very rough in the beginning. Dating long distance has a thrill about it that is very different from day to day life with someone--every time we saw each other, it was like a vacation. The transition took me months, as I left all of my friends and a solid life in Chicago for the great unknown of NYC.

But, it all worked out, and Mr. ACB and I welcomed our first child, a daughter, eight weeks ago. So we definitely had a happy ending to our long distance romance. And we often joke that that year of LDD was the best of our relationship, as we only had to "deal" with each other once or twice a month. :-)

For nearly three years, I've been seeing a man in Italy. He refers to me as his ragazza - girlfriend - but I can't consider someone I see 4-5 times a year my boyfriend.

He'd like it if I'd move there, but I won't. Because of his work, he travels around the country 95% of the time and his home is in a very small town. So I'm supposed to give up my life in New York City to move to his tiny town (I think more people live in my apartment building here in NY than live year-round in his town) and be alone in his empty apartment? I don't think so. :rolleyes:

When we're together, it's great, but it's not real life. We're always staying in hotels, eating in restaurants, having a nightcap at the bar before bed... it's living the fantasy of the hot Italian lover without any of the work needed for a real relationship. And if I moved there, I probably wouldn't be happy, so it's best left as it is. But for however long it lasts, it sure is fun. :D

That is awesome. You are officially my hero(ine). :D

Haha, - interesting perspective!! ;)

I've been in a long distance relationship for 9 months now. My fiance lives in Manchester (UK) and I live in London (UK).

We only get to see each other 1 day per month and the odd hour when I'm in Manchester for meetings. Luckily our company has an office in Manchester which means if I add on a visit to my fiance when in Manchester then I can expense the train tickets saving us quite a fair bit of money.

We talk every day and know that we want to be together. We are set to be engaged in December and marred in March before I move up to Manchester.

I have to say that it hasn't been easy and we've had our fair share of arguments caused by not being able to see each other as much as we both would like.

I tried twice:

1. Moved to Sarasota in 95 at the age of 36. Meet a gorl attentding New College (U

When my G/F (now wife) and I were living across the state from each other, the internet was our best way to keep in touch. It was before webcams, VOIP and unlimited calling plans were common, so we used AIM just about every night, with a phone call once or twice a week. She was still in graduate school and I had just left, so we were trying to do it on the cheap. Worked for us! :D

I tried twice:

1. Moved to Sarasota in 95 at the age of 36. Meet a girl(24) attending New College (USF) on a student visa. She is Trinidadian. It took a while,but she finally agreed to go out with me. For ~4-5 months we were inseparable. Then the graduation day came, and we both realized what is is necessary for us to be together. Her visa required her to go back to Trinidad after graduation. Marriage was one of the possibilities, moving to Trinidad was the other. I just lost my wife about a year earlier so I wasn't ready for marriage. Moving to Trinidad was out of a question for me. We e-mailed, called and she came back and stayed for about 2 weeks. She has family in Orlando and Ft. Myers so I got to meet everybody during the visit. We kept in touch for few more months but came to the realization that unless we marry or I move to Trinidad, we were fooling ourselves. She was/is one of the most wonderful girls I've ever met, but the timing was just not there.

2. Met a beautiful AA FA on a HNL-ORD flight. Not bragging, but she did introduce me to the mile high club.....:D
Her- Living on Pittsburgh with 2 teenage kids right next to her sisters house. Based out of ORD. Her favorite flights were HNL and LHR(which she gladly exchanged for HNL).
Me: Living in Sarasota, flying a great deal and not ready to move to Pittsburgh.
Result: We had some fun. I'll never forget when she e-mailed? couple of naked pictures from her Honolulu hotel through her mobile to my mobile, but at the end, it came down to the real world.
I wasn't about to move to Pittsburgh, and she did not want to uproot her teenage kids life to move to Florida, and besides ahe had her sister to depend on to take care of her kids when she was on a plane going somewhere every few days a week.

It didn't work for me. Both women were very beautiful, wonderful, funny, sexy, sensual and ...........:D

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. :(

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!

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! :rolleyes: 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 :cool: 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.

3 years of SFO- GVA
 

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!

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!

Ok, a positive story for a change, yes?
 

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 ;)

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.

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

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.

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.