Have you ever been in a long distance relationship?

I’ve had several friends who have and in all those cases, it was a fruitless venture.
In these situations, it usually turns out to be “absence makes the heart grow fonder” versus “out of sight, out of mind”.
Most times, “out of sight out of mind” wins out.
This story usually ends up with “say listen, I’ve found someone really great who lives close to me so you and I aren’t going to work anymore”.

No, but I have been in a short length “get to know each other.”

I was away from my fiancee for the better part of a year doing some pro bono work in the middle of nowhere. We are still going strong. Been back fro 3 months and everything is awesome.

Yeah, I’m in one right now. Keep in mind this is my first ever relationship, but it has become long-distance now. We are 200 miles apart, I’m in Palo Alto, he’s in San Luis Obispo. We’ve seen each other several weekends over the past couple months. I’m still very attracted to him and haven’t found a “replacement” or anything. I don’t know how much longer this will last, but it’s working right now. I’m just really looking forward to seeing him again right now.

Yes, I have.

1. Overseas.
2. The distance was manageable with phone calls, internet, etc. It was not manageable when you knew his ex-girlfriend was “just visiting” as she was passing by through town and she had no other place to stay. Or when you needed some physical comfort and the only thing you had was a phone line.
3. No, it is not possible to have a normal relationship for an extended period of time if you met while living far apart. If you are married and then are forced to live apart it might work, but there has to be an incredible trust.

Why can’t you have a normal relationship long distance?

You never see the person for long periods of time to see what type of a person they really, truly are. You don’t know how they react to certain things. You don’t know if they have another woman/man where they live….and if you are the other person in their life.
People can pretend to be “nice” for a week or two (while you visit) when in reality, they have a vicious temper. A guy can tell you anything over the phone and meanwhile, he is busy saying the same things to the woman he just met in his office…at the laundry…at the Starbuck’s. You don’t know…and by the time you find out, you are in so deeply, you end up in a lot of pain.

I’m not saying there are not any nice guys out there who live far away and you can date. My advice is do not get married/move in/live with any guy far away, until you have spent a considerable amount of time with him. Pay attention to everything he says. If he says, “Oh, the last girlfriend I had….moved out while I was at work.” Uh..hello?? Why did she do that??

There was once a scene in “Sex in the City” where Charlotte goes out with this “nice guy” who is smiling and being so gallant to her. And then, a waiter gently bumps him as he is carrying a tray (or something like that, can’t remember) and the guy goes ballistic! He turns into a maniac and Charlotte is left shocked. She saw in that moment what the guy was really like…loud, obnoxious and angry as hell. She did not go out with him, again.

Interview his friends….meet his family…..if he tries to hide you..forget it. And ask important questions…so many women do not ask questions….!

That being said, I know of one woman who married a really nice guy who lived in another country. How was that different? They were introduced by her best friend who knew him and his family personally——and she knew he was a nice person. He had been “vetted” so to speak. Then, she went and worked in his country and lived with him and they became engaged and he went to her country and worked. He gave up his business in Europe to follow her to America. That showed real commitment on his part. They got married and are really happy.

I had another friend who was lured to the UK by a Brit and he had told her that he had very important art paintings…..when she arrived…she saw that they were POSTERS. This same guy treated her really rudely and when she went off on her own for a few days to sightsee, she returned to his flat and saw that he had left out sheafs of papers with other women that he had zeroed in on….their profiles from the internet. And all of them had one thing in common——they all were independent and had their own businesses and/or homes. My friend bolted for the door….as she, too, had a business. He was a scam artist, con man…and there are a lot of guys like this in Britain who think that internet dating is a big pool with “gullible and stupid American women” ripe for the picking. That’s why I cringe when I hear an American woman say to a British man, “Oh, I looooveeee your accent…..” Don’t say that..please. It’s just embarrassing and the Brits laugh at us for being so ridiculous.

Basically, there is only one Hugh Grant…and even he can’t make a commitment…neither can any of the others. (Well, there are a few good blokes to be fair.)

It’s not impossible…okay? But it is far from easy.

Yes, one good advice never be in one. Unless you two truly I mean TRULY LOVE AND TRUST each other.

@DominicX he goes to Poly too!?

@holden Yep. :) I was just there with him a few weeks ago for a big party…lol

@DominicX gasp…we could have met…in person!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am in Virginia, and my girlfriend is in Florida. It is frustrating, but it is worth it cause she is that great. 6 months without seeing each other so far.

Yes, my last gf lives in Poland (we lived there together) and I’ve had to move to Greece in January. But she physically needed someone there, so after a few months of me flying to and fro, she found someone else in April (can’t blame her). We remained friends for a few more months after that.

It is since year 2001 that I just have long-distance relationships.
I started to question myself about that, and I discovered I am a lazy person, and that long distance relationship are just confortable enough.

And they are more romantic too. How? Anticipation.
The journey to reach her/him is every time an experience.
You just take the good of eachother, and everything is just more intense.

They simply cannot last forever though. And you know it from the start. This is the only con I have found yet.

When my SE (I don’t like significant other, but the other day I heard someone say my spousal equivalent, so that is my new phrase) and I first met, he lived in Australia and I on east coast USA. We talked for a year or so and began to fall in love. Finally we decided it was time to meet in person and see if it all carried over into real life. I came to Australia and we were as easy together as we were online. I stayed a month, then back to USA, he visited me about 4 months later and we decided we wanted to be together all the time. So I put my business up for sale. That was in July and I moved to Australia the following September. We have been together 11 years now.

While we were apart, we talked on the phone occassionally (pre – Skype days) and online daily. I guess if you really love each other, you will find a way to make it work. Skype would have been great, we just used ICQ to chat. The funny part is we still like to chat online, often we will chat when one is at work and one is home, only a 2 minute drive apart!

These days, it’s not a good idea, trust is always going to be an issue, and even though you “Think” there doing nothing wrong, they probably are. This is usually not the response one want’s to hear but we are human, and humans have needs.

Hm. I must say all the answers expressing low faith in long distance relationships saddens me. It makes me wonder if most people are just really weak, like, “wahhh, I need to be touched a lot!” It’s one thing if someone local interferes, but I think when one truly loves someone else, they don’t allow that situation to happen.

@qashqai‘s response reminded me of the Greek philosophy that love/desire is essentially a lacking. The striving for ideal love is what keeps the love burning. For example, even when your love is requited, you seek to continue the relationship with that person. There’s always a yearning involved, and that’s what keeps love alive and passionate. Like @qashqai was saying, anticipation plays a key role in this. Since long distance relationships involve so much lacking, I would think it would make the love just that much stronger.

I have never been in one because I have never believed to really work out, as I have seen several friends who were in a long distance relationship and it never really worked out for both of them.

Yes, i think its better then meeting someone from where you live. IMO

Yeah. I met a young man here in NYC and we dated for several months. When he went home, I thought, well, that’s that, but then he’d call and email and write and send mix tapes and other presents, and he’d beg me to come see him. He would alternate between “I love you!/Oooh, there’s girls on the beach by my house!” Well, go talk to them and stop calling me, I’d tell him, but he was persistent. And to my immature mind, very sweet. I wanted to believe that he loved me.

I went to see him, in Australia, his home country. That was quite a trip. 3 days into our camping excursion into the bush, he dumped me after dinner in the tent with the deathless phrase, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” To this day, I do not understand why he didn’t just dump me over the phone. That plane ticket cost me over $1200.

At least in the bush, only the dingoes can hear you scream every vulgar word in the English language. And some in French as well.

I’m well aware of the insecurities and the bad habits that might have bugged him that made him want to dump me, sure. But, gee, what a crappy way to go about doing it. I wish I had had the emotional wherewithal to not accept his calls and ignore his emails, letters, and gifts. “Romance”, my arse. Never again, peeps. Never again.

@le_inferno
Loved your analysis and your greek philosophy reminiscence

I was in one around this time last year. I’m from Ontario, Canada and she was from Austin, TX. We “dated” for a year. We got to see each other maybe, 6 times throughout that year (for 2 weeks at a time). First time that we got together was New York City, then Austin, then she came here and then we went back and forth from her place to mine. The reason that it ended—- the distance. The more time that we spent together and getting to know each other (talking daily via phone), well, our feelings grew stronger. Our plan was for me to get certified, so, I’d be to teach in Austin. I was supposed to move to Austin in Sept. of 2009. It was a helluva lot of work to make that happen. Emotionally, it was tough being apart. Financially, having to travel back and forth to see each other was a killer. Having to wait another year for us to be together—it was just too hard. Sadly, it didn’t work.

Would I ever do it again? Nope.

I suppose I’m in one right now. He’s in Colorado, I’m in Pennsylvania. I don’t think it’s too bad…I was just there last week. I won’t see him again until Christmas, and then two weeks after that I’m moving to the same city he lives in so it won’t be long distance for very long, but it’s still rough right now just wanting to see and hug and kiss him and not being able to. Actually I think the thing I want to do most is just cuddle. I don’t mind it terribly because I get to be so excited all the time to see him again. I constantly have something to look forward to. I’m trying to look at it in a positive way. I really just want to be with him now, but I know I can’t and there’s no point in dwelling on it. So I might as well look on the bright side and think about how wonderful it will be when I finally do see him. :)

I was in a long distance relationship through most of my freshman year of college. I had started seeing my SO during senior year of high school, and we decided to try and make it work while I was at Florida State and he was back in Philly. We ended up making it through the whole first semester and until Spring Break of the second.

It was difficult, but I don’t think the distance was the only reason it didn’t work out. During fall semester, I came home once (for his birthday in September) and then again for Christmas, so our time was very limited. We talked on the phone nightly for lengthy periods of time, and that certainly helped. I think what eventually led to our demise as a relationship is that we both were going through significant changes- he became less interested in school and focusing on long-term goals, as I became more focused on getting into film school. In our case, the distance definitely contributed to us not being able to work through these.

Every relationship is different. There is no magic answer.

Before I met my wife, I had a semi-long distance relationship. She was living about an hour away, where she went to school. I would drive up Saturday morning and stay with her for the weekend sometimes (which was awkward, since she had roommates), or take her back home with me. I’d return her on Sunday night.

Then for a year we were even further apart—three hours. So we didn’t see each other as much. Again, I had to do all the driving, because she didn’t have a car.

We survived. When she graduated, which I think was in the winter, she moved up to where I was going to school, and got a pretty decent job. Then, when I graduated, we moved to where she was going to graduate school. Things weren’t going very well for us by then, so when I met someone else, she didn’t even fight and she moved out within a week.

My boyfriend and I were a long-distance relationship for 10 months (I in SC and he in MI). During those 10 months, in the beginning, we were able to see each other a few times, usually every other month. Then the last 4 or 5 months we weren’t able to see each other at all. It was difficult and we found ourselves arguing quite a good bit, but we always got over it. We didn’t communicate so much online as we did over the phone. I think that helped. I liked being able to talk for hours. I trusted him and he trusted me; trust and communication are the two most important things. You can love someone completely but if you don’t communicate your feelings and thoughts and you can’t trust them, then it just won’t work. It’s tough, no getting around that, and it helps to have something to occupy your time. He went out with his friends and I had time with my friends. We’d tell each other about our days and nights. I was (still am) always 100% honest with him. There were roadblocks, but mostly those blocks were our own frustrations with the distance. We stuck it out and are better for it.

My opinion/advice on long distance relationships is that you want to make sure you actually know them. I don’t mean anything like doing background checks and stuff, what I mean is would you really get along with this person if they weren’t far away? For example: I feel like I could probably have easy conversations with most people via texting, chatting, or email. But it could be totally opposite if I talked to that person face to face, suddenly it might not be easy to talk to them. My opinion is that people come across differently when all you see is words that they type, as opposed to their mouth moving, eye contact, and all the nuances you see in face-to-face conversations. Another things is that when you just communicate virtually you aren’t really doing anything. You can’t tell if you would enjoy going to a movie with them, playing miniature golf, or going to a fancy dinner. There’s no way to tell how they might act in a possibly romantic situation, or how they would act if they met your friends. If it’s going to work I think the majority of the communication should be done with actual phone calls and video communication, that way you can at least see and hear them.

These are my opinions/advice, hopefully they help in some way.

No but almost. He had already decided to leave the state when we finally got together and was torn between staying put with a job he absolutely hated in order to be with me, moving as planned and flying me out once or twice a month until he was settled or me moving away with him- I went with him. I was willing to try the once or twice a month visit thing but don’t think it would have worked for me than a few months, he figured this up front but I had no experience and would have taken any of the scenarios.

My husband is deployed right now. I was worried that I would be really sad, lonely and miss him alot. I do miss him alot but am not sad and lonely. We communicate in some way daily- phone calls, emails, chat, written mail and care packages. We share our days with each other. his job is keeping him busy. I am with the 3 children and have all kinds of house projects I want to knock out before he comes home next year. I also still follow our routine here- church and sunday school on sundays and bible study on wed evenings. I keep myself busy. I think another reason why we are both able to miss each other but still be positive and happy is because we trust each other completely and our lives are open books to each other. He is able to concentrate on doing his job because I have everything well in hand at home and am happy even though I miss him alot. There was a day I missed him more than usual and I was just open and shared that with him. So I would say there needs to be a high level of trust and honesty involved.

@madsmom1030 I think it’s important to communicate daily in some form or another…or a combination of forms. Thats what makes it almost fun to be long distance. Mail, email, text, telephone, carrier pigeon from time to time, smoke signal. just kidding about the last too, but really I have found that I’m enjoying finding new ways to communicate. It never hurts to see a wall post on facebook either. It’s just little things that make me even happier when I’m not with him, ya know.

@deni oops almost forgot facebook wall posts also! i enjoy telling him how proud I am of him and love him alot.