You’re in a long-distance Relationship – Dating Situation #4
You meet someone on vacation or at a friend’s wedding, and it’s instant fireworks. Will it work? Maybe, maybe not. But if you are more than an hour away and see each other less than a couple of times a month, you’re talking fantasy. Long-distance relationships can certainly be fun but shouldn’t be confused with a reality-based relationships, which is the only way to have sanity in your love life.
Sometimes a couple who has been together for a long time has to be apart for a specified length of time: Once has to finish school, a military commitment has to be fulfilled, a job transfer looms. If the two of you have been together for a year or more, you may be able to sustain the relationship over a period of certainly not more than a year (otherwise, you will have been apart longer than together, and people change over a period of a year). Work out the ground rules (basically, don’t ask and don’t tell about other social engagements, and don’t commit to one another until the end of the separation).
If you’ve been together six months to a year, you’re best served to believe in fate. Plan to get together at the end of the separation and see what’s what. But a lot of visits, if they’re less than weekly, are likely to prolong the agony without offering much in return.
If you’re sexual, you’re both likely to feel used and spend most of the time in bed – without acknowledging how both of you are growing and changing. Relationships that get stuck like a bug in amber are quite brittle. If you are not having sex, it will be easier to maintain the distance, but what about the intimacy? In general, lots of time apart is hard on a relationship. It doesn’t mean you’re doomed, but it means things will be and feel different when you reunite, Why not start over then, without ghosts and baggage, secrets or lies, and see where both of you are rather than have to finesse or pretend?
