♫ Long Distance Relationships: Make Them Work

To say that long distance relationships are hard, would be an understatement. Anybody that’s been in one would agree. And, statistics show, that most of them don’t work out. There’s a quote that goes something like ”Absence makes the heart grow fonder…or wander.”. Whoever said that, had a point. Because you’ll either stay strong enough to make it work, or get so exhausted from trying.

I need to clarify my “long distance”. Coincidentally, both of mine had the same distance; approximately 90 miles. I have no idea what it’s like to have somebody you love across the world, or even states away. I feel for you. So when I say long, it’s considerably shorter than most.

I’m in my second long distance relationship ever. This isn’t my first rodeo. Similar to rodeos though, I’m afraid of climbing back in to the saddle. Wondering, if we’ll survive the ride.

Some background:

My first love, was my high school sweetheart. We met on a ranch. We trained horses together, worked with kids through the summer, and fell in love. In three months. Uh huh. Being all crazy in love, we managed to find time to see each other almost every weekend, talk each other to sleep every night, hit every school dance together, etc. We thought it was forever. Promise rings were busted out, happily ever after was discussed. Two years after our first meeting, he moved to the same town. He lived in his own apartment, but we saw each other nonstop. Things changed dramatically. We lasted another six months before we realized we were completely different people. It was heart wrenching.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified of a repeat.

My current love lives the same distance away. 90 miles. I see him every weekend, sometimes we make mid-week adventures, and we’ve had a few get-away’s. We’ve been together for a little over a year, and I can feel it coming...that need for the next step. I’m excited about the next step, but so afraid, thanks to past experiences, that one little change will flip this relationship inside out.

That’s background on this blog. I don’t really want to discuss either of those relationships any further. Let’s talk Long Distance. The strong points, the benefits, the drawbacks, etc.

The Benefits of Long Distance Relationships

*Space

Thanks to several miles, and a primarily weekend-only relationship, you get four days a week to have space. To be yourself. To live in your own home. You get a social life outside of the relationship. You have less chances of disappearing completely in to a relationship. You have no choice but to take things slow, and let things grow on their own.

*Trust

You don’t have a choice but to trust your partner completely and whole heartedly. That trust grows such a strong bond, that once you’re no longer long distance, you’ve got such a trust with one another that there’s never a worry. It forces you to assume the best while you’re away from each other for 65% of the time.

*The Build-Up, the Excitement

Thanks to anticipation of seeing each other all week, Fridays can’t come soon enough. You actually get that whole ”I can’t wait to leap in to your arms and stay there for a good ten minutes” feeling, every single week. It never goes away. There is something absolutely thrilling about long distance love, because it feels like a first date every weekend.

The SUCK of Long Distance Relationships

*Time Management

When you commit to a relationship that is Friday-Sunday only, it gets really hard to manage friend time, kid time, family time, AND one on one time in a three day time period. You’ve got to make an entire relationship that most people get to work hard at every day, in to three days. It’s hard to fit everybody in, keep everybody happy, make everybody understand why you’re not always around on the weekend, AND make things work with your partner.

*Next-Step-Pressure

As with any relationship, the pressure of when and how to take the next step is difficult. Making the choice to move closer, or IN together, is a tough, tough decision. It’s a little bit scary to think about the idea of seeing somebody for two days a week, to seeing them 24 hours a day. You don’t have a place to run away to if you find out they’re crazy. You might find that their bad habits are much more prominent during the week. You never really know. With a relationship in the same town, you generally get the idea of what they do 7 days a week. It’s so hard to make the call to turn what you’ve got, a completely different direction, and trust it doesn’t go belly up.

I really do love what I’ve got right now, and I know that in time everything will fall in to place when it needs to. I also know I’m not alone in this battle. For those of you in one, know that you’re doing the best you can. You’re not alone in those late night phone conversations, the missing somebody so much your body actually aches, the battling of your friends and family for time management, etc. Remember that no matter how much you want that special someone to be number one in your life, you cant leave the rest of your life behind you for them either. It takes a strong person to handle long distance. If you’ve got what it takes and you make it work, your relationship will be better for it.

I’m curious, anybody else have experience with long distance relationships? Care to share your thoughts?



Yours Truly,
Nomz