Dealing with goodbyes

[Bradscope]

Hello everyone! I'm a bit over a year into my LDR. It has been the most wonderful eye-opening (and sometimes frustrating) experience. I'm posting today because of something I've noticed between my girlfriend and I. Leaving her and flying back to where I live is always hard. From my perspective, it seems to be far harder on her than on me. She has told
me that not a day goes by that she doesn't cry from missing me. Each time I say goodbye at the airport seems to get harder and harder for her. I miss her terribly. I have rarely cried over the hurt of being apart. One time that stands out in my mind was about a week after visiting her, I finally unpacked by travel bag. The moment I opened the bag the smell of the dryer sheets she uses while doing laundry hit me, and I just collapsed.

I know she and I are two different people, and that everyone deals with feelings in their own way. Has anyone else experienced this apparent difference in feelings of
missing each other?

[lovestoread]

I used to feel this way every time my boyfriend left my house but now I'm used to it

[sasad]

Every time and everyone is different... once in a while, I cry the whole way home and into next day. Most times I have some tears, but have my life to live. Now crying every day is a bit silly. You both have a life and need to go on with it.. Take up a hobby or do something new. You should enhance each other and not drown in misery.
Again, its ok to cry, but give yourself 48 hours. Then stop and plan ahead. Stop living in the " I cant live without you and i miss you and just going to die cuz no one else has EVER felt this way.." world.

[Chris516]

Yes, Precious smells will do it.

[R&R]

Every time and everyone is different... once in a while, I cry the whole way home and into next day. Most times I have some tears, but have my life to live. Now crying every day is a bit silly. You both have a life and need to go on with it.. Take up a hobby or do something new. You should enhance each other and not drown in misery.
Again, its ok to cry, but give yourself 48 hours. Then stop and plan ahead. Stop living in the " I cant live without you and i miss you and just going to die cuz no one else has EVER felt this way.." world.

Exactly this. A person can miss their SO, all of us do, but crying every day is a bit excessive. We all had lives before our relationships and those lives still exist even after our relationships started. A person can't be thinking soley about the relationship and missing their partner - the focus has to be brought back on the other aspects of their lives. It's a matter of balance.

I know before I leave my SO, I'm already getting my mind back on track for the things I have to do when I get home. By already adjusting my focus, it makes the good-byes much easier. I haven't cried saying good-bye or after a visit since our first couple of visits, and we've been together 3 years. Last visit we got married and I still didn't cry when I left. Too many other things begging for my attention for that to be my focus.

[80anthea]

People cry different amounts and have different triggers and there's nothing wrong with crying every now and again (I certainly always cry in the airport but I'm usually okay once I'm through security). However, like the other have said crying every day is excessive, I do think about my SO everyday and miss him a lot but I get on with life, it's too short not to!

[Sparkling72]

I'm not sure my boyfriend ever cries when we part, with the exception of when he left for his deployment, he shed a few tears. Again, I can't count his deployment separation here... but with the previous "regular" visits... there were times I would cry the whole flight home, and other times when I'd drop him off at the airport, I might not cry at all.

I don't have good advice on how to cope. All I can say is to remind her to just look forward to the next visit. Do the two of you do regular video calls?

[c_denise3]

Hello everyone! I'm a bit over a year into my LDR. It has been the most wonderful eye-opening (and sometimes frustrating) experience. I'm posting today because of something I've noticed between my girlfriend and I. Leaving her and flying back to where I live is always hard. From my perspective, it seems to be far harder on her than on me. She has told
me that not a day goes by that she doesn't cry from missing me. Each time I say goodbye at the airport seems to get harder and harder for her. I miss her terribly. I have rarely cried over the hurt of being apart. One time that stands out in my mind was about a week after visiting her, I finally unpacked by travel bag. The moment I opened the bag the smell of the dryer sheets she uses while doing laundry hit me, and I just collapsed.

I know she and I are two different people, and that everyone deals with feelings in their own way. Has anyone else experienced this apparent difference in feelings of
missing each other?

I'm definitely a lot more emotional when parting from my SO than he is. I cry because I don't want to leave, simple as that. We've been in an LDR for two years now, and he's also in the Navy. He said that he misses me so much, but said, "babe, if I ever cry, you should be worried. If I cry, it's because I'm afraid I'll never see you again." Men are just different when it comes to expressing their emotions that girls are. It's perfectly normal.

[differentcountries]

We all have different ways of reacting and dealing. For me, the sadness is a lot related to ideas of not having a future together. It is also something physcial about not having the other person there. SO will laugh at because when we Skype, I keep petting the screen like it will allow me to touch him.
SO does not cry -apart from a few tears in his eyes now and then, he cried for real once (and then it was really scary because he was really loosing it). But he is very expressive and I can usually tell when he "cries dry man -tears". He can feel very bad about me leaving. I am used to crying a lot and to me it is just like mental jogging. Sometimes I cry because I am moved, sometimes I feel down, sometimes it is good to be a bit melancholic.

In my everyday life I don't cry a lot, but that's actually a problem. If I go numb I don't connect well with others and myself. Two days ago I bought a shower gel that reminds me of SO. I opened it in the store and tears just came. It was just this sense of needing him and it felt good to be connected with this longing.

There was a month I cried every day, I think it was after our first summer together. I felt like I was going to fall apart, and he felt the same. But then we had a visit not that long after and we have not had that sense of loss since, even if we have started to have longer time between visits.

He knows I cry more than he does. We have talked about this a lot. He even asked his mum if it is normal that girls cry so much. His mum said yes, it is 😂

I know that when I sit in that plane, I might cry for a few hours straight. But it does not neccessarily feel bad. I will not break from crying. It is more like I am telling myself to transition. It helps to have wifi on board, too