Long Distance Relationship Support Thread

[BertieBotts]

Anyone want to join me in starting one?

Things are good for us at the moment - been together just over 2 years, long distance for 6 months. I'm finding it quite a headfuck emotionally, though, and thought it would be nice to have a place to share ups and downs, maybe?

Morning Bertie! I was in an LDR for 4 years. It ran its course, I really don't know if it would have lasted longer if we hadn't lived so far apart. My 2 pennorth is that - unless you are both very independent people who want to live alone forever - you need some kind of plan/timeline for how you are going to merge your lives in the future (that's what I never had from my LDB, mr non-committal personified); and the contact has to be sustainable in terms of both your lives. Few of us have time for long phone calls every day, or being away from home lots of weekends. A friend of mine lived 100+ miles away from her boyfriend/fiancé for 5 years before they married - but they both knew marriage was their destination. What's your story?

Hello!

Yes we do have a plan to get back together at some point - hopefully in another 6 months or so, maybe the second half of next year. At the moment it's his job which has taken him out there (Germany), but we're all planning to emigrate - he already has of course, and me and DS will follow. There's a lot we need to sort first, though. I'm hopefully going to do a course in January to enable me to teach English abroad, and DS isn't his (his dad isn't interested) so I have to sort that out too. And then we'll have to find somewhere to live (he's in a shared flat currently) and find me a job, and childcare etc, which sounded like a total nightmare until I went over last, and then it turns out that DP's been planning and thinking of this already - there's a nursery at his work which apparently always has spaces and he's thinking if we can put DS in there first of all and then if we don't like it it gives us some leeway to find somewhere else, and in the meantime at least it will be convenient for pick ups.

He's done a whole budget for us and budgeted high on nursery costs so that we can afford to get any place that we think would be good for DS, too :) And then I was speaking to him the other day and he has formulated a whole new plan which involves talking to his employers to see if they will employ me as an external employee (ie, over the internet) until I move over and then there's a possibility it could transfer into a part time job there too, with our hours overlapping so that he can pick DS up early.

We speak most days over Skype, on the IM part, we have an app for free texts so often send texts throughout the day etc too, and then we have skype webcam chats some evenings and about once or twice a week in the day with DS. We only get to see each other about once every 2 months at the moment, but I don't find the distance too much of a problem in this sense. The hardest thing has been doing the single parent thing again while he has the freedom to go out and party etc, if he wants to. Luckily I have a couple of good babysitters I can call on though, so it hasn't been too bad. And the fact that he obviously really misses DS helps because it reminds me I don't have the totally shit deal

Sounds like he'd much rather have you both there than go to any number of parties! Also sounds like you're in his thoughts a lot & he's putting a lot of time & effort into planning the practicalities of you moving there. I suspect 6 months will pass in a flash... Good luck on the TEFL course!