Awkwardness of long distance love

[MonkeySage]

My boyfriend and I have been together for years... We've been doing our best to make it work, even though its long distance. I'd go so far as to say that the long distance thing is the only problem for us. We're birds of a feather- our interests in academics, our hobbies, they're all pretty close.

Full intentions to close the distance at some point, and there's something very important I want to ask him, but I won't do it over the phone.

What are your long distance stories?

[Anonymouswizard]

What are your long distance stories?

I did stupid stuff because she hadn't explained a couple of things and she broke my heart, the frog eating witch.

No, I'm not still bitter, obviously

[sktarq]

Oh lets see.....

For 3 1/2 years my gf went to uni a couple hundred miles away...but came back every couple weeks for a weekend and lived at my place during vacations...problem was she hated her time there and drank to deal with it. By year 3 it started to bleed into time with me. Things started getting bad when she would hit me during her blackouts if I tried to take away the bottle or try to get her to go to bed. i foolishly thought that when she was back living with me full time we could fix things....but after a year of her living with me full time she had gotten worse. We broke up and she started yo-yoing in and out of treatment (which she started only after we broke up but I had been trying to get her on for years) She killed herself a year later.

Next GF was great for a while. Then what had been a minor medical issue exploded, turned out was a degenerative genetic issue. After she lost her job from it and had to deal with insurance BS she basically turned into a monster to everyone online and physically when I was not around. We found out a way to get her treatment easier (which really was a problem that she didn't TRY to get proper treatment here) was to move. She was to go first (to a family member) and I was to follow in a couple months when my bonus and taxes had come in. she canceled and wanted back in CA (but i had moved to a temp living situation which had single occupancy and no pet rules)....so things dragged out. Eventually we broke up. Then people showed me what she had turned into in her dealings with others.


So I've not had great luck with them

[MonkeySage]

I've had pretty bad ones in the past.
L turned out to be a bit of an insensitive jerk with the emotional range of a rock- that one lasted for just a few months.
I met T through L, he was kind of awesome and we lasted for about a year. But T had brain cancer, and hit his head during a black out.

[veti]

Distance is not the biggest problem. Time is. Time spent apart runs the constant risk of growing apart. Therefore, if neither of you has a definite, detailed, time-bounded plan to close the distance, I think you're doomed. If you're serious about each other, you should be thinking about that plan, if not actively working on it already.

I've had three really long distance relationships, where "really long distance" is defined as "at least three timezones apart, and requiring passports to meet." The first fizzled because I didn't understand the importance of closing the distance, and eventually the other party decided - understandably - that I wasn't committed. The second fizzled because I was prepared to commit, but when things started to look serious, it turned out the other party wasn't.

The third - despite involving just about the longest distance you can imagine - culminated in a happy marriage. But it took solid work and life-changing levels of commitment to make that happen.