Hi Guys - I have some guest bloggers lined up for the next few days to preface some big, sad, exciting news that I’ve been avoiding talking about but will be telling you all about on Thursday or Friday! Until then, please show my fabulous guest bloggers some love; they all pulled through for me when I tweeted that I needed guest bloggers at the very last minute!!
Hello Girl With the Red Hairreaders!! Amber asked around the Twitterverse for people to guest blog about their experiences with long distance relationships, or the LDR, as I like to call it. I have had plenty of experience with those. Trust me, when I started dating my now fiance, my family was shocked that he lived in the same area as us, not in a different state or hours away. The last LDR that I was in involved me being in NY, and the guy being in California. For over a year. (We went 6 months without seeing each other one time – FUN!) And while I’ll admit that some couples can make the LDR work, some can’t. And I’ll tell you some reasons why mine didn’t work out. BTW - I’m Lacey Bean, from Perks of Being a JAP. 
Like I said, he was in Cali, and I was in NY. We had actually met years before we started dating, when we were both going to school in NY. We did the whole “I don’t want a girlfriend, but let’s hook up anyway” thing, until he got kicked out of school and moved home. Then we lost touch for a few years, and the summer after I graduated from college, we found each other again. He was coming home to visit (he had joined the Marines since I last saw him) and wanted to see me. Well that’s all it took, one reunion and we were together. And this time we were together how I’d always wanted it to be. He was my boyfriend, I was his girlfriend. I’d receive random sweet text messages and phone calls throughout the day. Visits were arranged as often as possible. I would even go visit his younger sister in CT, since I was so close and she was a great kid. And it was great… for about 6 months.
I didn’t really realize it until after we had broken up, but in the time we had been together, I had slowly become what I call a “convenience girlfriend”. A girl that he could call his own, but after awhile felt that he didn’t have to give me the attention I needed, because I wasn’t physically there. No need to send me sweet text messages anymore. Or even wish me a happy anniversary until I pried it out of him on our one year anniversary. (And no, no gifts). A man who saw me two weeks after my birthday, and got me a key chain of a singing frog, and a Red Sox shot glass (I’m a Yankees fan - he thought it was funny.) A man who when he came home from not seeing his girlfriend for 6 months, didn’t want to be intimate with her. I’m sorry, but what man in his right mind doesn’t want to have sex with his girlfriend that he hasn’t seen or touched in half a year??
The final straw came when he deployed for Iraq, and didn’t have time to give me his mailing address. And when weeks later, I finally got it, and sent it to his best friend (who was an ex-girlfriend), she said, “Oh, I got it from him last week”. That was the end. He got a “Dear John” letter, and I got a quick reply (quicker than any other reply to an email I had sent him). He said he understood and wanted to be friends, and I said fine. Have I heard from him? Barely. Do I care? Not really. I know that the life I have now is the one I was meant to have, and the love that I have in my non-LDR is more than I could ever ask for. And I get to see him every day.
Amber here: Have you guys ever had any bad experiences in a LDR? Do tell!
Long distance is tough. Rather than changing and growing together, you are changing and growing separately. It doesn’t make for a healthy relationship, especially if both people aren’t in it 100%.
I haven’t had a bad experience in an LDR. I’m in one now and I can tell you it is the hardest thing we have ever done, but the easy part about it is he is my best friend. We did get to be friends for six months and then date for six months before he went back to Canada so I think that has helped us. We have a strong base, but some days that doesn’t matter. It has been a year a part and trying to make it work/ make a move or life change is really challenging. We talk on the phone about two to three times a day, and are lucky to schedule monthly visits. It takes about a day every visit to get use to being in a relationship again with a person instead of a phone or text message. Remembering that they are real is a big eye opener. It also makes you remember why you love them so much and want to do whatever you can to make it work. I’m not sure anyone has a great LDR experience, but it can work.
My advise for anyone would be to set up goals for you, your mate, and the relationship. Just mile markers. It also makes that time together even more special. Also, take trips to other places or plan it as a fun weekend together maybe with other friends thrown in here and there. I have found that our relationship has still grown, not quite at the pace it was before, but when we are together is the time we have hard hitting convos and it is awesome! We have a plan and a “time frame” so we work towards those goals. Best of luck to anyone in an LDR of their own.
My only LDR was in high school, it we were only an hour apart, so it’s not a good litmus test for what an LDR is like. But it was definitely a challenge. We made it work, but it was tough…
I dated a guy for about 3 years and most of that time was long distance, since he was heavily involved in mission work. We dated for about 2 months before he left for 4 in Honduras, he came home for another 2 or 3 months and then was in Zambia for 8 … home again, gone again … and on it went. We tried to stay in touch when he was gone but he wasn’t exactly in places where he had frequent internet access and snail mail took FOREVER – so it didn’t work that well. The times he was gone were hard but the times we were together were so amazing, we figured it was worth it! We were seriously considering marriage when it all fell apart. I had grown so used to being in a relationship that allowed me to be completely independent that when he was home for an extended period, he drove me absolutely NUTS. And my independence drove him nuts! You might love someone but if you can’t live with them ~ well, that doesn’t exactly give your marriage the greatest chance! We were off and on for eons after we broke up – even after I moved to the opposite side of the country! – but we finally realized that we only worked when we weren’t physically together. I’m sure there are ways it could have worked (if we had been able to talk/write/email more, had been able to spend more time together when he was home, if I’d spent some time with him when he was doing his mission stuff so it became important to me too, if I wasn’t so ridiculously stubborn and independent, etc.) – but yeah. We’re both happily married now. The end
my current relationship started out as a ldr — though it was only an hour apart (plus some more if you counted traffic). We only saw each other on the weekends for the first year and half of our relationship. but i think that let us grow and evolve. When he did move in with me, that was a very rough time for both of us because he had lived by himself for 7 years and was now living with 3 other girls (my location was more ideal than his location). and I wasn’t used to sharing my space!
sure enough, last spring, we bought a place together. and now have been living on our own for about 1 1/2 years. a trying time at first, but we’ve figured most things out.
OMG, never again. Ever.
The weirdest friendship-could-maybe-one-day-become-more type deal I’ve ever maintained was long-distance (specifically, Georgia v. California), with a friend from elementary school whom I reconnected with years later. It went well enough initially…we stayed in touch via email for various reasons and he seemed to be an articulate, thoughtful, normal guy, if a little shy. But when a chance move brought him to GA, he turned out to be a completely different person than his online presence had suggested…he was a socially awkward, clingy, possessive little boy in a man’s body with a frightening fixation on me and big dreams of marriage at 20, and nothing like the articulate, mature young man I knew from our emails (because…ding ding ding…someone was helping him write his emails to me all along…eeek). He turned out to be too “off” and disturbing to even make friendship possible (let alone the marriage he had fantasized about), he couldn’t accept this, and he is now hounding me incessantly from Michigan almost three years later.
So ja, never, ever again.
I have never been in a LDR, but I have felt like a “convenience girlfriend” even with my boyfriend around all the time! so I think that part can go for any relationship, near or far.
but congrats to Lacey on getting through all that to find the love of her life! that makes all the BS worth it, right?
Not gonna lie, I’m kind of nervous/curious about your big/sad/exciting news. Does this mean you landed some awesome job and you and eric will be separated for a bit?? Hope all is well Amber!
Not gonna lie, I’m kind of nervous/curious about your big/sad/exciting news. Does this mean you landed some awesome job and you and eric will be separated for a bit?? Hope all is well Amber!
Oops…forgot to say great post! Looking forward to your next one.
Well I won’t ruin what I’m writing about in my LDR post for Miss Amber but I will say that I can relate! LDR’s are incredibly tough even if they work out in the end.
Two of my co-workers at A&W (yeah, I used to have a fast food career) started getting close, a few years ago. A couple months later, he moved to Fort Saint John to work at a big energy company and make money. While he was away, they chatted every day and eventually became a couple. It was rough, and they missed each other like crazy, but a few months later they were reunited. She moved in with him and their life together carried on. Just last month, they both got married (to each other
)
Then there’s my mom and dad. They met in university. My father is in the military and that meant he was gone a lot throughout my life, for up to six months at a time. Not only was my mom alone during these times, but she was also a career-woman with two kids to raise. 25 years later, he’s still in the military, my sister and I are fine, and they’re still happily married.
I think the huge “make or break” factor in LDRs is knowing when you’ll be back together and making the most of it in the meantime.
It’s rough, but you’ll make it.
If you ask a bunch of single people if they’ve had any “bad experiences” with long-distance relationships, you’re probably not going to hear that they lived happily ever after… It’s kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Try asking married people if they ever had to spend time apart.
I disagree that if a single person has had a bad experience in a long distance relationship that you wont hear of them living happily ever after. Because in my opinion, if one person is putting in the effort to try and make the relationship work, and the other isnt, that doesnt mean that both are doomed to live “unhappily ever after”. You find someone who is willing to put in just as much effort as you, and then you have your happily ever after. Whether that’s long distance, or sitting on the couch next to you.
I tried a long distance relationship in college, but it really really didn’t work. I guess it worked out for the best though.
And I’m awfully intrigued about you exciting/sad news. What could it be?
Once I went to college I only had long-distance relationships. All the guys were from where I was, but I did Virginia to Texas and then Virginia to Montana. (Different time zones are sooo much fun). When I started dating my now husband I was so excited we were on the same coast! I think I needed that in college because I was so independent – they are haaaard though! Both people really have to be willing to make it work, and there has to be and end in sight (as in you both are in the same location).
My last two relationships that I have been in were long distance and it sucked. The first one we were together for a month and a half before he left for DC for the semester and everything was great for the next 2 months before I flew up to see him, but the week before I flew up there he got awkward and was awkward during my trip and then we broke up a couple weeks later because it just wasn’t working, and that happend 3 days before he came home. I’ve spent so much time in long distance relationships recently that I sometimes don’t even remember what it’s like to be together in person and it sucks.