For those who were in a distance relationship, how did you come to a compromise to live together in the same place?

We never managed to do so. I was more than willing to move and was in fact looking for a job. One of the things she didn’t like was that I was going to give up my current life to move there, she didn’t want that “pressure.” Even though in the terms of our relationship closeness nothing would’ve changed, the idea of real life closeness was too much for her to handle.

My advice would be to move together as soon as you can, and that whoever is most able to uproot their life without issue should be the one to move (unless there’s an amazing opportunity for the other where that first person is). Of course this all goes to the wind when the decision is actually being made, but its worth trying. Good luck.

My husband and I were long distance the whole time we dated. Our situation was a bit different than most long distance relationships though because he is in the military. I knew from day one that I would be the one moving. We had talked about doing it before getting married, but it just wasn’t really possible because of some restrictions the military has. So we waited until we got married to end the distance. We actually spent the first 4 months of our marriage long distance so that I could get things in order for the move.

The best advice I can give is to really think about if you would want to move and be honest about it. Don’t rush the decision. I’ve seen people say they have no problem moving away from “home”, just to realize that they really didn’t want to do it once the time came and they really started to think about it.

Starting fresh in a new place can be scary to some people. We’ve done it numerous times during our marriage. Adding children or elderly parents to the equation can make it even more difficult. People really need to think about all of that before making a decision.

Well, it didn’t work out with me, so I don’t know that I should be giving advice… Regardless, I’m in pharmacy school for the next four years, so I could not leave. He could have come here, but if he had, and we’d have broken up, I would never have forgiven myself. So, I guess, obviously be sure that you want to be together more than anything, to avoid any sort of resentment.

Sidenote, try to set a deadline, that you will actually move closer to each other in X amount of time. The problem with me was that I never saw an end to the long distance. Best of luck.

I had moved to Miami Florida. Recently like last fall I got back in touch with my high school sweetheart. She still did and does live in the town we grew up together in Tennessee. I got layed off of work and wasn’t having an easy time finding another job and making ends. She had just went through a divorce but has her own house and a job as a school teacher. She also didn’t want to yank her 8 and 11 year old kids out of school and a thousand miles away from her family.

I kind of hated to leave Miami. Man I loved the WEATHER, cuban food, beach, and cultural diversity down there. But I loved this girl first. We lost our virginities to each other when I was 16 and she was 17. I haven’t always been good at decision making especially when I was 17–20. I lost here and spent all my twenties either trying to find a chick as cool and accepting of me and not superficial and materialistic. A girl like her or better essentially. I didn’t find one as good as better. When I wasn’t doing that I tried to drink and drug her out of my head for years. We started talking online last fall after she kicked her husband out. Then daily on the phone because instant messaging wasn’t enough. She begged me a.nd begged me to come back to Tennessee. We could start over. So finally I said I love you and I will give you anything I possible can. She said fly your ass up here now.

Its been almost 3 months since I came back to Tennessee. Her divorce was just finalized a couple weeks ago. We have both changed a lot and are relearning each other and how crazy and naive we were in high school. It hasn’t been a perfect fairy tale ending but Im the most content I have felt in a long time. I am 29 and she is 30 now. I like to travel and roam and hate our hometown. Part of the compromise though was I can take off for a few months like 3–4 anywhere I would like to live work and play as long as Im true to her and my share of the bills get paid. Also when her kids are older we are definitely moving somewhere else. She thinks Nashville or Chattanooga sounds good. I like the Chattanooga idea since I’ve lived there and think its one of the best small cities in the United States but I really love trying living in a shack in Hawaii in the jungle growing lots of vegetables and fruit, fishing, and keeping it simple. Skate, learn to surf, and enjoy a slower simpler life that involves lots of fresh pineapples.

Im a dreamer and occassionally act on them by occasionally travellling and living in various places across the U.S. for the past ten years. I have been lived seen and done far more than most of the small minded people from my small town. I just don’t want to live life regretting doing things when Im young because I was scared of the unknown. I also don’t want to miss this second chance at my first love and I have made compromises to her like no hard drugs ever, no stealing, cheating, lying. Her ex husband stole, manipulated, and used everyone until he burnt all his bridges just to shoot oxycontin’s in his arm. I can still smoke weed but never around the kids and can’t get be sloppy drunk around them. Thats all good for me because I had drug issues in the past but as a young single pissed off guy I felt the only person I hurt when I used was my brain cells and wallet. As long as I made my bills, had food, then my health, lifestyle or being an example to kids that I didn’t have didn’t matter to anyone.

I got 3 people counting on me now. Two of them who watch every move I make even when I don’t realize it. I guess im saying a compromise I made was to try and be a good role model and father figure. That is going really well. I never knew I could love or even had the kind of love in me that two kids that aren’t even mine make me feel. Its pretty amazing. Other than letting me go on adventures and eventually moving out of Lawrenceburg Tennessee I haven’t asked for many compromises at all from her except I suggested we need more fruit and healthy snacks from the grocery and less soda, chips, and cookies. Also my dog Ember, (really my sisters) but Ember thinks she is mine. She has been with me most of the time the past 2.5 years since my sister is away at college. She gets to live with us and stays in the house. Hopefully Ember is going to be bred soon and my sister is giving me a puppy. The kids are really excited to have a puppy. The only thing they’re asshole father got in the divorce was the family dog and a flat screen tv. I hated that little dog anyways. He was some kind of shit zoo mix of dumbness that would look like a mop if you put a stick in his ass. He was untrainable or had received no training, would shit in the floor, and ate gravel. Sad for the kids because they miss him but my golden retrievers are far superior dogs in so many ways.

Hmmm. I don’t know. Im getting older. Couldn’t believe I got another chance with my first love and best friend in high school. If things work out (meaning mostly I don’t fuck it all up) I could possibly one day be married which I never thought I would do. Oh yeah if we do get married she had to compromise with me. No family churchy formal family wedding. Its all about us. We will be going to Vegas or somewhere fun,crazy, and then we can have a reception back home for the family and friends and what not. Who knows though Im a dreamer. I dream a lot. A few of them happen. Most get washed away and forgotten when you wake up. Anyways a philosophy a good surfer friend taught me is, “Ride the wave til it breaks.’ Im excited for the future. More so now than anytime since I was a teenager and had big dreams, goals, and expectations of how my life would work out.

Essentially decide what really matters to you. Your partner needs to do the same thing. Discuss it. Compromise, tweak it things that will make your needs work best for both of you. Don’t bullshit yourself or each other just to be with that person especially when someone is giving up a life somewhere and starting new somewhere else with you. If you really think you can quit drugs but probably never pot completely like in my case make sure they know. Don’t ever say something then don’t follow through. That kills trust quick. Yes I can quit pot anytime if required by the court system, employer, or financial reasons.

Don’t say you will go to church and try and be christian or whatever and not mean it. Say no way, i will check it out, or heck yeah i love church. She asked me to go with her and I said I dont like church but if it makes you happy for me to spend an hour with you i will go
at least twice and check it out. I don’t really believe a lot of it but at the same time there is a lot of good morals, ideas on love, and being good to your fellow man taught at churches. I was forced to church 3–4 times a week until I was fifteen and rejected it all. Havent been to a service since then except an occassional Easter or Christmas service to make my mom happy. I have been to 3 or 4 services at a baptist church in the last 8 or 9 weeks. I grew up baptist and don’t really like it. It bores me mostly and I want to have a discussion instead of being preached to. But I can occasionally sacrifice an hour of boredom because you should see how happy, proud, and the beaming smile on my girls face when I go with her. Plus its educational even if you don’t believe everything. The last few sermons have been on the book of Amos a prophet in the old testament. It was interesting. One Sunday we went to Cowboy Church which was the second coolest christian church I have been to next to Pentecostals. They have Cowboy Church at the local cattle stockyards. Basically you wear what you want. A lot of the attendees wear cowboy hats, boots, or just look like normal good old boys. They play drums guitars sing and praise god mostly. Its okay to dip skoal during the service apparently. The sermon is short and sweet and usually centered on helping mankind instead of guilting you. Often they all bring their horses to church then go on trailriding after church. Be willing to give a little part of something you might not like or enjoy occassionally and its worth it to see how much happiness it brings your loved ones. If you like metal and she loves country once in a blue moon be a date to your significant other to a concert they would really enjoy.

Basically we came to the compromise for me to move back to Tennessee with her because
she had a house and needed me here to help her because her ex husband hasn’t paid a lick of child support or repayed the money he stole from their joint account and then forged 30 of her checks which the courts are now garnishing her paychecks for. Basically I have always loved her and was lonely, having a hard time finding a new place to live and work after being laid off in Miami. We both had something the other wanted and needed. Mainly love, shelter, and the hope of being a happy couple that enrich each others daily lives and support each other when we have shitty days or longer stretches of hard times.

This relationship is pretty much over now, but the plan was always for me to move to where he was. He works in an industry with a good number of jobs. My undergraduatee degree needs a master’s to practice in the field but I’m not sure I want to do that career so the plan was for me to take some time off after I graduate and if we needed to move for my schooling in a year we would (due to a disabillity I need to live in a city with deceent public transportation so even if we had to live apart for a shortwhile he could probably eventually get a job in the city I was).

I seriously doubt we’ll be together much longer, but it has been a major difficulty for us because even though it is more logical for me to move there (not a partcularly useful degree, not great family situation, he until recently was employed, etc) I always felt like I was expected to give everything to be with him while he got to stay where he was in a much more comfortable position. I started to feel like I was the only one making sacrifices.

I wanted to move, I’ve spent my entire life in the same city, practically the same neighborhood. But I also knew whatever romantic ideas I had about moving away would have to deal with the reality of the situation. And I felt like he wasn’t being supportive enough, like he wouldn’t do the same for me if the circumstances were different, and that every chance I gave him to prove he could take care of adult responsibilities he couldn’t do it, and everything was always on my shoulders.

Our process was and has been fairly straightforward, although we’ve managed to go back to being long distance for all intents and purposes.

When we started dating, we were 190 miles apart, which meant weekends only. Eventually, she decided to move here because a) her sons and mother are here, b) she was living in a smallish resort town and perceived fewer economic, social and cultural opportunities for me, c) she wanted to live here for her own reasons.

That being said, she hasn’t managed to break free from her workplace, which is enjoyable to and meaningful for her, so now she’s schlepping back and forth on Mondays and Fridays. She’s finally running out of gas with that situation and wants to stop that commute, so she’ll be transferring or finding a new job here as soon as she can make it work.

Not quite the challenges that maybe you were hoping to understand, but there it is.

If at all possible, in whichever place you both intend to end up, mix and socialise with friends there so that whomever is moving feels like they know more than just their love… Also, if there’s new things to learn in the new place, (customs, geography etc) try your best to learn that from someone other than your partner…

@hug_of_war I’m sorry to hear this about the two of you. (hug)

To the OP: it was easier for him to move because I had a child and elderly relatives to take care of and NY was more progressive than a little town in Illinois where he lived. I don’t know, it was always ‘he’d move here’.

I’ve had a ridiculous amount of long-distance relationships. I’m shy and I think I’m not especially attractive until you get to know me, so I’ve met most of my girlfriends online. I spent many years basically chasing girls all over the country.

It hasn’t worked out very well for me.

I have learned my lesson, however; I now will not be moving anywhere to follow anyone. If I happen to have a long-distance relationship again (and I hope not), she will have to move here. My days of giving up my life to move to where a girl is are over.

When my partner and I first started out we met in college but on leaving, we went our separate ways to different parts of the country. After about 8 months we got back together agan by moving to a city that was new to both of us. It happened by chance because of my partner’s job, but I think it worked out really well.

We lived on opposite coasts of the U.S. when we fell in love. Then followed voluminous exchanges of letters (real letters, in envelopes) and cassette tapes, daily transcontinental telephone calls (no free long-distance back then), and monthly 6000-mile round trips for a short weekend together. The wear and tear, never mind the expense and the total consumption of free time, and the constant longing made it obvious that the only thing to do was to eliminate the distance.

I was happily rooted in New England and never meant to leave. He was a third-generation native Californian. But—he owned a house and I rented an apartment. It made sense that I should be the one to pull up stakes. So I left home, family, friends, job, and familiar world for the weirdness of California and life with my true love.

We were married a year later.

I’ve often been homesick, and there have been rough periods when I’ve thought a lot about the path not taken. But I’ve never genuinely regretted doing what I did. I couldn’t: it was right for me then, and that will always be true, no matter what happened after.

In two weeks we’ll celebrate our 33rd anniversary