Is the distance getting to us?

[Scottyent]

I think the distance is finally getting to me and my SO. We have been going through a rough time, as I cheated on her with a friend of mine in January. We didn't have sex, and it was just a one time thing, but as you can imagine the effects have been devastating. She came to be with me in March for one month, and then we haven't seen each other since then, and we have 2 more months until we are together again. Clearly trust is something that is in an issue, but I am an open book, and willing to talk about it endlessly...which is part of the problem.

I'm going to counseling, Im doing my best to become myself again, but the guilt and the shame has been tearing me apart. If it werent for the distance, I think I would be doing much better, because we could have the reassurance of being with each other. We would be living together. I wouldn't have to worry about what she's thinking, or if I'm being myself, or anything, because we woud be together and life would just go on. But now, I feel like it's suspended, like the more I worry, the more guilty i feel, the more anxious I get, the more I want to talk about it, the more tired she gets of thinking about serious things and talking about it. She hasn't dealt with it a lot, or maybe she's dealing with it her own way which is more quietly then myself.

The problem recently is that I feel a lot of tension during the video chat, and idk, maybe we're trying to talk too much. I feel myself, and her, growing distant, and I dont know what to do about it. I bring it up sometimes, maybe too often, and that just frustrates her much much more. Meanwhile I'm trying to find myself, and fix the things i broke in myself so that I can be a good boyfriend to her, and a lot of that involves questioning who I am, getting in touch with feelings I've been running from for my whole life, and dealing with my negative habits. So for me, talking this out and dealing and finding myself is what i feel I need, but from afar, I can't keep leaving her video messages, long emails, etc. she can't keep up, and she's expressed her frustration with that. So I've cut it down this past week, but then a part of me thinks that not sharing all those thoughts will cause us to grow apart, but then I think that fear paralyzes me and makes it worse, because then I'm convinced we are growing apart, I worry about it, I close off feelings, and then I tell her somtimes I feel like she's being distant, which frustrates her even more. I feel like it's probably more me being paranoid, but I don't know how to reign in these feelings.

We are both at the point where we are sick of the distance. We've spent so far about 6.5 months apart, 4000 miles apart. one was 3.5 months, then saw each other for a month then 1 month, then saw each other for a month, now 2 months and 2 more months to go until I move to be with her in Europe.

I just don't know what to do. A lot of this is my own personal problem, and I'm going to counseling to try and help that, and I'm also trying to do a lot of thinking on my own. I guess part of the problem is I get paranoid that in doing that work on my own, it will cause me to change and be a different person, and grow away from her, and not with her. That fear paralyzes me. what's worse, is that i feel like if i push that on her, try to talk to her too much about all this stuff im working through and trying to fix, that I push her farther, because she doesn't want to talk about all these feelings, she wants to shed this weight and have a normal life. Well, more likely, she wants what I want, just to be together physically again, and be able to talk in person. We have an apartment, I'm moving in when I get there, and I have a job lined up. Everything is going well, I'm finishing school in 5 weeks, and then I'm heading over the second I can buy a plane ticket.

I just don't know what to do. we're so close, and I feel like we're almost there, but this has been our biggest test so far. I know a lot of it is because of me, because I am so guilty, and shameful, and trying to deal with those problems and live with myself, and from far away that's hard for her to deal with too. In person, I wouldn't need the reassurance, I wouldn't say we're distant, because we wouldn't be. We'd be together often, and it would be infinitely easier to fall back into our pattern, and just be ourselves. But until that point, I feel like i'm floundering over here in the US, with no good ground, and I'm waiting to ground myself when I arrive to be with her.

Sigh, any advice or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[LadyMarchHare]

There's a lot going on. For one you have the trust issue which really puts a damper on things, then you have the fact you're trying to help yourself and clear the table of problems the way you feel is efficient, and what seems to me like an attempt at covering every possible problem at once via these long messages and e-mails and her getting overwhelmed. I know you're trying to embrace things you've ignored, righting wrongs, that sort of stuff but you have to take baby steps on all of it. You can't cover ten subjects in a day and expect any significant progress to be made. Take an issue, bring it up, and let it be handled at a pace you both can accept, not what only you can and hope she bothers to keep up.

Honestly it's great you're trying to fix things and better yourself because not a lot of people in this world try to do either, but you have to slow down, let her get a say in how things get handled and if she honest to God doesn't want to address it then you have to respect that. Perhaps to her, ignorance is bliss and forgetting is wonderful, and while I don't personally agree with that as I believe to move past issues they need to be talked out at least a little, if she's really moved on and just wants a semblance of normalcy, you might try just saying the bare minimum and whatever else needs getting out, reserve for a blog or a word document. Talk to her, get her side of things, and work on things together.

[mllebamako]

I think it's great that you are taking the initiative to work through your own problems and to share a lot of that with your partner. But it may just be a bit overwhelming for her.
You don't need to share every detail of your counseling sessions or every thought you have. Maybe share with her a few major thoughts that come up. I don't think that sharing a bit less will push you apart. Even though you are a couple, you are still 2 individuals with your own issues and own ways to process feelings. I know my SO doesn't like to talk about hurtful times because he feels like rehashing it just keeps the wound open. Whereas I could talk about anything for hours on end and it makes me feel better. People are different.

I would also try to add some light-hearted fun in your relationship. It sounds like most of your conversations are quite serious. If this is the case: Have you tried doing fun things via webcam? I know it's not as easy when you're LD but you can still watch movies together or cook a meal at the same time or something. I would suggest to just give her some space by talking less about the problems and trying to bring back some of the fun and romance.

[Scottyent]

what you both said makes complete sense to me, and I am going to try my very best to follow that advice. What you each said makes complete sense, and in my busy head, I couldn't see through to those truths. The thing is, a portion of why I cheated is because of my hidden low self-esteem and little true belief in myself. I had a very strong identity problem that I never noticed, and it caused a constant sense of failure, and self-destructive actions. None of which I noticed until this brought it to light for me in the worst way imaginable. What's happening is now I am seeing it all at once, and trying to correct it, and as you said LadyMarch, I have to take baby steps and do things slowly and one at a time, and not ten things a day. That is not only stressful for her, but a large stress on the relationship, and I feel could even be deterring me from moving past it myself. On the one hand, I have realized that I had many self destructive behaviors and thoughts, on the other hand it seems to be feeding the cycle that I am thinking about them all the time. She deserves more from me, because instead of bring a true jerk and having no feelings, I have way too much, which I think sometimes can be just as bad if it's poorly managed. I try to be open to her at all times, and I have this inherent fear and belief that we need to be on every single page together in order to fix this, but that seems to be more stress than it is a help. As I'm trying to break through my own defenses, I teater toter from extremely vulnerable and afraid of losing her and clinging to try and do anything to fix it, and then I go to extreme guilt and shame where I feel like I'm not myself and can't touch my feelings. I need to find myself a medium.

We decided to take a few days to step back from video chatting, maybe just phone talks, and just try and put things in perspective. I am going to start writing in my journal on my computer again (good point ladymarch), and I'm going to work on being an individual, just like you pointed out milebamako. Before i cheated, I was finding myself through her love, and then I managed to throw one last, the biggest, spike in front of my path. I wiped out hard, but I am now trying to make it back as a better person, a better boyfriend, and a true human being. I am a good boyfriend, but then I let the stresses of other parts of life, and ultimately a lot of distrust and disbelief in myself rule my actions that one night, where I made the choice to drink enough alcohol to be that senseless. I haven't drank a sip of alcohol in 5 months, and I hope that that will help me along my way as well.

I love my girlfriend, more than anything in the world, even though that one act seems to speak to the contrary. But all I want is to give her a happy life, and to be for her everything she needs. I think i became so obsessed with that that I have been failling at that, and I need to realize maybe I need to help myself gget to that spot on my own, in order to be that for her.

Thank you again, both of you have been very helpful.

[LadyMarchHare]

Everyone's going to mess up and make mistakes, say or do things that they'll regret sometime down the road and I will repeat I am very glad you are working to better yourself. But as you said you are sort of taking it to an extreme because you have become just about obsessed with being better that it's started doing the opposite. Stuff like that is hard and it does take a lot of trial and error to find the right balance, the point of the matter is you're trying and willing to keep trying instead of throwing your hands up and proclaiming defeat. Clearly your girlfriend's a lucky girl, there aren't many people, men or women, who realize their negatives regardless of how they realized them and work on them to not only improve themselves, but their relationship. I hope you two will be able to get and stay on the same page and work on common goals together and from it grow closer than you were before.

[Scottyent]

I hope so too. That's what I want with all my heart, and maybe I get ahead of myself sometimes to get there. I know that it takes time, and I'm generally a patient person in most aspects of my life, but fixing such a large, identity changing mistake with the girl that I want to spend the rest of my life with, something of that magnitude is something I have a hard time getting out of my head. The distance though makes it much worse, cause most of the time, I'm alone with myself and my thoughts ya know?

Thank you so much for the vote of confidence, and for the encouragement. It really helps me, and it is not something I get very often. I needed this push today, thank you again.

[Sano]

Im sorry you're having problems over this but its probably going to take a little while for her to trust you fully again. Its a good thing that you were honest with her, but even though she's not spittinig fire angry she probably still needs some space away from you to breathe and regroup. If you keep overloading her with messages, it's going to keep her frustration level up. I know that distance does make thinigs difficult but people cheat on their partners at close distance and you can still feel distant from each other if you were in the same room. Being cheated on is a hard blow to take. I think you need to have a single talk with her. You both need to sit down and give each other a whole week to seriously think about your relationship, if you feel any different about, if you think its still on course, and to be honest and sure that you can move past what happened. Theres not a lot of people who'd stick by you after you cheat on them.

[Scottyent]

Sano, you're absolutely right, there aren't a lot of people that would stick by them after their partner cheated, and I don't take that opportunity lightly. I've been spending the past five months going to counseling and working every day to move past the guilt and pain that I've caused, and the weight and the stress of that has been enormous on our relationship. I feel that I am finally coming to a place where I feel myself again, and we are both extremely looking forward to closing the distance in about a month and being together once again. I've managed to stop with the over communication, and it has helped both of us because we have both been less stressed. We also tried a 4-5 day period where we just talked on the phone (much better than the very spotty video chat lately) and it was less frustrating and stressful for us. We've now been doing pretty well for the last couple of days, and I try to bring as much fun in as possible! We're both busy with our own lives, and again, we still feel the distance between us and we're both fully exhausted and ready for the physical distance to be gone.

I also am going to think about, and maybe bring up what you said about taking a week to really evaluate our relationship. I mean, by deciding to give me another chance, we sort of went through that sort of evaluation, and this was 5 months ago and we're both very committed to making it work, but maybe a renewal of that commitment and just taking a step back to really think about that pain? idk, that could be a bad thing i guess, I don't want to seem like IM questioning being with her ya know?

My point for that is that I want her to think about the possibility that she can't forgive me. Maybe I'm beating a dead horse, I mean, she's made her decision that she thinks we're strong enough to work through this, and we are putting everything we can for it. But that doesn't stop the fact that I feel I don't deserve her, and I feel I deserve more severe punishment. That voice inside me constantly searches for reasons she might leave me, or puts thoughts in my head about the idea that she hasn't yet realized the pain, and that she will one day and will realize it was too much. While I think you have a good idea of taking a week to evaluate, I feel that at this point in the relationship, we have both decided to work past it. But we have taken a step back to take a breather from it all, and I'm hoping that will help us once again start chugging forward

[Rugger]

I really applaud you in that you are taking steps to better yourself. Searching for the reasons behind cheating and fixing them is truly a great thing.

I agree with some posters though, that she might need more space. You said she hasn't dealt with it a lot, but I think that's false. She's dealing with it in her head. You overloading her with messages is only going to make the whole process of forgiveness more stressful on her. Let up a little and let her heal at her own pace.

[Rugger]

I really applaud you in that you are taking steps to better yourself. Searching for the reasons behind cheating and fixing them is truly a great thing.

I agree with some posters though, that she might need more space. You said she hasn't dealt with it a lot, but I think that's false. She's dealing with it in her head. You overloading her with messages is only going to make the whole process of forgiveness more stressful on her. Let up a little and let her heal at her own pace.