What would you do if you could never meet?

[Fairydust]

Hello everyone,

I just am needing some opinions and would be grateful for viewpoints.

Starters, I'm in my early 40's. Very happy with life, great career etc.. In October I started talking a man online. We clicked and ever since started to get to know each other. He lives in Europe, I'm Australian.

Over the past 5 months he has become a wonderful part of my life. Our time differences work perfect for us both for online chatting. I am single by choice and I truly enjoy at the end of a stressful day at work I can sit in front of my laptop and chat for a couple of hours. I joke and say it's like I have the perfect relationship, I love to be single and not have to answer to anyone (I'm two years post divorce) but yet I have this wonderful person whom I can talk with.

The problem lies is that we will never meet. I don't want to go into particulars as to why but it's simply the fact that it will never happen. Yes, I travel to Europe yearly for family reasons but us meeting is not an option.

Would you cut ties now and walk away? Or simply to continue and appreciate what we have as it's fulfilling many needs in both of us?

Thank you for reading.

[Redheart14]

Hi fellow Aussie,
Welcome to the forum. I guess it depends on what you both want. Is he happy with the fact that you can't ever meet? LDR's need to have an end date otherwise why bother if it's not going to go anywhere? But if you two are both ok with that then you are the only ones you need to answer to.

[Rezie]

I personally would not be ok in being exclusive, monogamous relationship with a person I would never meet. I could be in a "relationship" where we chat, but I can look around. But that is just me. If both of you are ok with it then absolutely go for it!

[Caro1]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

I personally cannot think of a reason to why two people can never meet.

I guess if I'm really thinking out of the box, one could be in prison without the right of visitation or something. But I assume that's not the case, because you can chat regularly.

So it really comes down to your priorities. And that's a choice.

I agree with Rezie that I could not see myself in a romantic monogamous relationship with someone I choose not to ever meet.

[JLJR]

Like others have said, it is your and your partner's decision, but I could never do it myself. LDR's just take a toll with only being allowed to talk online, and it can become very frustrating, more so if you know you can never meet.

[RWhiz]

My opinion, you have a friend and a pen pal, if for whatever reason you two can never meet, you don't have a romantic relationship.

[erwin1973]

The whole purpose of being in an LDR - a romantic LDR, that is - is closing the distance, so you should be able to meet. Not meeting is fine, but than, in my humble opinion, you're just friends and not exclusive.
So, it depends if you want to be exclusive or not, in my opinion. I couldn't do that. I could not be exclusive with someone whom I know I will never meet.
I just cannot think of any reason why you both can't meet, unless he's married or a scammer...

[Rezie]

The whole purpose of being in an LDR - a romantic LDR, that is - is closing the distance

This might be just splitting hairs, but I believe it's perfectly fine to be in an LDR meet up every now and then and have your own life. different relationships suit different needs. I don't think it makes the relationship lesser. Like there is an increased number of married couples who choose not to live together, doesn't make their marriage less valid.

[erwin1973]

I was just giving my opinion, hehe.
Of course it is possible to have an everlasting LDR, but then, without meeting, I doubt it's a good idea to be exclusive. When you've an everlasting LDR with meetings, that's different. Then you can be exclusive, in my humble opinion. But again, that's just my opinion.

[Caro1]

I believe it's perfectly fine to be in an LDR meet up every now and then and have your own life.

Emphasis on “meet up every now and then”. Never meeting however, in my opinion, makes the relationship much lesser. It just shows that meeting each other is not a priority and while that may be fine for a friendship, for me it’s definitely a deciding factor on not making it an exclusive relationship. If I’m exclusive with someone, I want to be that someone’s priority.

[Rezie]

Emphasis on “meet up every now and then”. Never meeting however, in my opinion, makes the relationship much lesser. It just shows that meeting each other is not a priority and while that may be fine for a friendship, for me it’s definitely a deciding factor on not making it an exclusive relationship. If I’m exclusive with someone, I want to be that someone’s priority.

As you can see in my first response I voiced my opinion that I would not be ok with a monogamous, exclusive LDR with never meeting, but if a person does not need physicality and is fine with online companionship then it's up to them how they want to have their relationship. It would not work for me personally. The next reponse was merely to voice my opinion on the idea presented that "the purpose of romantic LDR is to close the distance" which I did not agree with, so I was talking about two different things.

[Caro1]

As you can see in my first response I voiced my opinion that I would not be ok with a monogamous, exclusive LDR with never meeting, but if a person does not need physicality and is fine with online companionship then it's up to them how they want to have their relationship. It would not work for me personally. The next reponse was merely to voice my opinion on the idea presented that "the purpose of romantic LDR is to close the distance" which I did not agree with, so I was talking about two different things.

I’m kind of getting the vibe that you feel like I was attacking what you said. I was really only trying to quote a sentence that I thought made a nice entrance to what I wanted to say about priorities. I was not referring to any other content of what you wrote in any other post. Just trying to make it sound like a conversation, I guess.
Sorry, if I offended you. That was not my intention at all.

[Rezie]

I’m kind of getting the vibe that you feel like I was attacking what you said. I was really only trying to quote a sentence that I thought made a nice entrance to what I wanted to say about priorities. I was not referring to any other content of what you wrote in any other post. Just trying to make it sound like a conversation, I guess.
Sorry, if I offended you. That was not my intention at all.

not offended or attacked. I was under the impression that my comment was taken as a reference to the OP, I wanted to fix that impression (which turned out to be a wrong one). no harm, no foul...at least from my side 👍

[TaraMarie]

You have a friend in another country. Much like a pen pal. No strings. But sooner or later one of you is going to find someone local. And the other might not like it.