What does your LDR feel like? Why mine is the stomach flu

[katettttt]

Once a relationship becomes long distance there's a lot of time for self reflection, which can be good and bad. Lately I've been taking the extra alone time to try to define how it feels to be in a LDR. For me, it's almost an exact match to how I feel when I have the stomach flu.

First similarity is the inability to have a decent meal. Cooking is something my SO and I love to do together and it just feels wrong to be making our favorite recipes alone, not to mention it's much harder with only one set of hands. There's something about eating a delicious meal alone that has always made me feel sad so there's a lot of days full of toast and instant soup.

Second similarity is feeling bed-ridden. Of course, this isn't every day because I do have a life and responsibilities, but on those weekend days when I don't have any plans and my SO isn't around to have a spontaneous adventure with me I have a really hard time getting out of bed or off the couch. I just want to lay around drinking fluids. (Does coffee and alcohol count as fluids?)

Third, and the most hard for me to deal with both in my LDR and when I'm actually sick, is the waves between feeling fine and feeling awful. I don't know if this something that happens to everybody when they have a case of the voms, but for me I start out feeling terrible until I eventually run to the bathroom to do my business and then have a small but oh so wonderful window where I feel better and pray that I am cured. That feeling usually quickly fades and I'm back to feeling terrible. The same is true with my emotions and missing my SO. I might wake up feeling great and ready to take on the day, but within the time it takes to make my morning cup of coffee I can be crying over the fact the pot is only half empty for one instead of two. This one gets pretty awkward when other people are around and I snap from having a great day full of laughs to those awkward "I'm in public" tears that I try to hide with sunglasses but are probably still incredibly obvious.

Do you relate at all? What does your LDR feel like to you, and how do you cope with it?

[Unconditional]

Wait a second, are we relating our LDR's to ailments? Or diseases?

[lyonsgirl]

Wait a second, are we relating our LDR's to ailments? Or diseases?

Sounds like it.

When we were LD, it was like running an ultra marathon. Sprinting will only tire you out and makes you give up faster, and, most likely, be unable to finish. Keeping a steady pace, however, helped us get through.

[differentcountries]

I think missing someone can feel like a stomach flu - being restless and fatigued. I feel that sometimes. At other times I am just happy I found him, or busy maintaining the relationship ordering tickets, making sure things are all right in our flat, writing him letters or looking at our pictures, talking to him through text, pics, phone or Skype.

When you feel overwealmed by something - anything - it is easy to let it make a shadow on all in your life. Beware of signs of depression, it can sneak up on you, but if you feel down for long try to find something to get you up again. Working out makes me feel more alive, even just using a nail mat to get the blood circulating better. I listen to music from his country, eat food I bought there, then I feel close to him. I count down to when I can see him next. I structure my daily life around my visits, so when I am back home ("my other home") am am busy paying the bills, working, seeing my friends and so on.

I sometimes just walk in the street and suddenly I am sad. That is part of this life. It is not dangerous. It just means that the feeling of missing someone comes in bits and peaces. Sometimes I go a month without hardly missing him at all, other times the whole time without him is a bit strange, most of the times I feel good some of the time and then I have some time where I am sad. I have learned that is just the way it is. I used to be very sad in airports, now airports to me is as ordinary as taking the bus, for some reason everyday life gets to me, perhaps because I have grown to like my everyday life with him, too.

When I am on Skype with him, the things that helps the most are:
Making each other laugh! It makes us remember why we are doing this
Remembering good times, prefferably some time ago (less recent=less sad)
Talking about every day life and go "you are like this" on each other. For instance, I make fun of him because he never likes to take pain killers (he is very stubborn).
Intimate moments. Actually, sometimes on Skype I feel closer to him than in daily life together because he is so focused on me. He will look at me from miles and miles away, and still the world dissapears
Our little jokes - things we have said a million times and are funny just to us. For instance, we have a joke we often say before we log off (about something I did in the beginning of our relationship), it makes parting less painful.

[AngelofFluffiness]

Once a relationship becomes long distance there's a lot of time for self reflection, which can be good and bad. Lately I've been taking the extra alone time to try to define how it feels to be in a LDR. For me, it's almost an exact match to how I feel when I have the stomach flu.

First similarity is the inability to have a decent meal. Cooking is something my SO and I love to do together and it just feels wrong to be making our favorite recipes alone, not to mention it's much harder with only one set of hands. There's something about eating a delicious meal alone that has always made me feel sad so there's a lot of days full of toast and instant soup.

Second similarity is feeling bed-ridden. Of course, this isn't every day because I do have a life and responsibilities, but on those weekend days when I don't have any plans and my SO isn't around to have a spontaneous adventure with me I have a really hard time getting out of bed or off the couch. I just want to lay around drinking fluids. (Does coffee and alcohol count as fluids?)

Third, and the most hard for me to deal with both in my LDR and when I'm actually sick, is the waves between feeling fine and feeling awful. I don't know if this something that happens to everybody when they have a case of the voms, but for me I start out feeling terrible until I eventually run to the bathroom to do my business and then have a small but oh so wonderful window where I feel better and pray that I am cured. That feeling usually quickly fades and I'm back to feeling terrible. The same is true with my emotions and missing my SO. I might wake up feeling great and ready to take on the day, but within the time it takes to make my morning cup of coffee I can be crying over the fact the pot is only half empty for one instead of two. This one gets pretty awkward when other people are around and I snap from having a great day full of laughs to those awkward "I'm in public" tears that I try to hide with sunglasses but are probably still incredibly obvious.

Do you relate at all? What does your LDR feel like to you, and how do you cope with it?

I can relate to all of the stomach flu feelings, since I have them too in mine.
I also feel like I'm in a relay. When I run and run and run and then hand the rod off to him so he can run and run and run. Even though we cannot physically do this, it kind of feels like the conversational rod. Or when my emotions are suffering, I hand the rod to him and he runs on to calm me down.

More than anything though, my LDR feels like a room where I can be with him and only him. And tell him anything and know I won't be judged for it. We just sit there together watching shows and writing stories and being with one another, even though in reality we're miles and miles apart.

[LovingAcrossTheAtlantic]

I actually agree with Op and differentcountries.

But for me, being in a ldr is like wanting a new phone that all of your friends have but you don't because you can't afford it. You get to watch all your friends enjoy theirs and you can imagine what it will be like when you finally save up enough, but you don't yet have it. But it's that way for me simply because I haven't had the chance to meet my SO yet.

I try to focus on the positive stuff though, like the fact I'm dating my best friend, that no one else makes me feel the way he does, and that no one could love me like he does. And how lucky I was to find something so special so young. So in that way my LDR makes me feel like a queen.

[Moon]

Honestly, I wouldn't do anything willingly that felt like the stomach flu Yeah, LDR's can be rough, but it's our own choice to be in them, but a stomach flu is one of the worst things in the world, in my opinion, and my relationship isn't.

[TwoThree]

Mad cow disease.

[Dziubka]

Mad cow disease.

Living off instant soup and toast becasue your SO isn't around and not getting out of bed when you don't have plans with them sounds very unhealthy.

[80anthea]

Mad cow disease.

hahahahahaha

[differentcountries]

Honestly, I wouldn't do anything willingly that felt like the stomach flu Yeah, LDR's can be rough, but it's our own choice to be in them, but a stomach flu is one of the worst things in the world, in my opinion, and my relationship isn't.

It is our own choice to be in the relationship, still being in love and missing someone can feel like you have no choice ther than contiueing or loosing them completely. The feeling I had in my stomach the second time I left SO (after my first visit) was a feeling I have not had since I was a child and moved (against my will from my home town, that feeling of everything sinking, far worse than flu....an incredible helplessness. I was between jobs, little money and no idea on when I would see him again. That is the part of international LD I hate the most, and I do anything in my power to avoid that feeling, including turning money around and being stingy, "cutting to the bone" as we say.

LD is very filled with contrasts, you have to take the good with the bad. And there are lots of good things, of course

[Moon]

It is our own choice to be in the relationship, still being in love and missing someone can feel like you have no choice ther than contiueing or loosing them completely. The feeling I had in my stomach the second time I left SO (after my first visit) was a feeling I have not had since I was a child and moved (against my will from my home town, that feeling of everything sinking, far worse than flu....an incredible helplessness. I was between jobs, little money and no idea on when I would see him again. That is the part of international LD I hate the most, and I do anything in my power to avoid that feeling, including turning money around and being stingy, "cutting to the bone" as we say.

LD is very filled with contrasts, you have to take the good with the bad. And there are lots of good things, of course

I have been in my LD relationship for over 5 years, I'm well aware of the good and the bad and don't need you to explain that to me. I still would never, ever compare my relationship to the stomach flu, what a negative, terrible comparison. My relationship is closer to a day at the beach than one of puke and diarrhea. Every relationship has it's own challenges, whether it's with your mother, your best friend, your boss, or boyfriend. Obviously for an LDR the biggest one is distance, and it sucks, but it's certainly not a daily dose of stomach flu, at least not for me, and if it was, I wouldn't stay in it. It might not always be easy, but you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and go on living.

[snow]

When we were LD, it was like running an ultra marathon. Sprinting will only tire you out and makes you give up faster, and, most likely, be unable to finish. Keeping a steady pace, however, helped us get through.

I think this is a better comparison. It is like a marathon. Going slow and steady with a goal in mind.

[lyonsgirl]

I have been in my LD relationship for over 5 years, I'm well aware of the good and the bad and don't need you to explain that to me. I still would never, ever compare my relationship to the stomach flu, what a negative, terrible comparison. My relationship is closer to a day at the beach than one of puke and diarrhea. Every relationship has it's own challenges, whether it's with your mother, your best friend, your boss, or boyfriend. Obviously for an LDR the biggest one is distance, and it sucks, but it's certainly not a daily dose of stomach flu, at least not for me, and if it was, I wouldn't stay in it. It might not always be easy, but you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and go on living.

I can't give you rep points, but "hear hear!"

[katettttt]

I have been in my LD relationship for over 5 years, I'm well aware of the good and the bad and don't need you to explain that to me. I still would never, ever compare my relationship to the stomach flu, what a negative, terrible comparison. My relationship is closer to a day at the beach than one of puke and diarrhea. Every relationship has it's own challenges, whether it's with your mother, your best friend, your boss, or boyfriend. Obviously for an LDR the biggest one is distance, and it sucks, but it's certainly not a daily dose of stomach flu, at least not for me, and if it was, I wouldn't stay in it. It might not always be easy, but you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and go on living.

You are completely right. Sorry, I guess I should have explained more. It doesn't feel like that every day, maybe just today, or just this time around, or just for the moment that I wrote my post.

Of course, when I think about our actual relationship it's the best. Just like everybody said, I'm so lucky to have found him and am so grateful that we have been long distance and still held it together, when a lot of people can't. The relationship is the best. It's perfect. This distance is not, but it's worth it.

We only said goodbye for the second time yesterday, so the pain is still a little new and I'm throwing a bit of a pity party. However, last time we were apart while it was hard we made it through and it's not like every day was mopey and sad. Some days were great!

Sorry to bring everybody down with the sickness reference... and thanks for gently reminding me why the hard times are worth it