How to keep it from ripping us apart

[Sharon Q]

Last night my boyfriend and I both almost called it quits because of the being online thing. Normally it would take a lot to make me want to leave him, but we got in a huge fight about him having freedom and doing what he wants.

When he was here we were able to talk everyday now thats changed and I'm hurt by it, but after us fighting a lot and almost ending it I caved and realized he should be able to get online when ever he wants.

I feel kinda broken now, its been a long time sense we've had a fight like that, we've been back together for 7 months now, and going strong but two months into the distance and we both were so close to ending it.

I wrote him this morning apologizing and telling him I would try my best to make our relationship as openly honest, relaxing and as fun as possible. Because its normally like that when we are together in person. But its harder to be that way when we are miles apart.

Why? Why is it harder to keep things how they were being relaxing and fun.?

How can I keep the distance from changing things with us drastically in the matter of fun and relaxed and openly honest.?

[GatoGirl]

Sometimes this happens when you first start the distance thing. It's because it's so stressful on both of you, even if it looks like you are doing OK on the surface. My hb and I had a horrible time when we first started the LDR, even though we'd had a LD courtship, and had only been in the same location for a year before going LD. It takes about 6 mos. to settle in to the distance relationship. It can be very, very rocky at the beginning.It's hard to have things be relaxing and fun when you both are stressed due to the recent LDR.

What helps? We established that neither one of us wanted a divorce or to break up, so we took that off the table. If one person or both are thinking, hey, I'll just break up, it's hard for the other one to relax and have fun, distance or not. After we had that commitment affirmed, we decided that fighting over the phone was an expensive waste of time, and we had to have conversations that were pleasant. It sounds crazy, but we agreed that we had to discuss things as you would with a friend or colleague, in a collaborative way, and agree to disagree.

Something that is hard with LDRs is that you aren't able to resolve things because your communication time is limited, and you have more things hanging unfinished. When you are new to the LDR, you haven't yet had the experience of seeing that things do work out in time, so you keep gnawing at things when you are talking to each other, instead of sharing the good stuff and having fun talks like you used to.

This all probably isn't much help, but take it from an LDR veteran, it can and usually does get better. Not easier, but things get less stressful.