Balancing Family and LDR

[Sherice]

Hey all!

Happy to find this community and excited to learn more about the relationships and people here

My boyfriend and I have been together for 1.5 years and have a great relationship. We really enjoy spending time with each other and talking on the phone. Recently, my mother and sister have made comments about the amount of time the two of us spend on the phone and it's been really annoying. My mother claims that I'm missing out on doing things in the present/during the day because I spend hours on the phone. My sister made a comment about the fact that he and I spoke for an hour each morning during our family vacation. I felt I was intentional about waking up earlier than everyone else and taking a walk while speaking to him on the phone so that we got in our quality time but I still spent time with the family for the rest of the day. During that vacation, he and I also spoke for 15-20 minutes around lunch time as well.

He is based in Europe and I am in the US so we have a 6 hour time difference. That is why we talk so much during my "day time".

How do you all balance family while in your LDR? My sister is single so that may play a role in her response. My parents have a good marriage but my father is not a great communicator so my mother has not experienced a relationship where you speak to your significant other for hours on the phone. She seems to think it is all strange.

Advice? Thoughts?

Thanks everyone!

[Allurial]

I suppose the only difference would be the vacation time, but it sounds like you were still trying to be mindful and spend time with your family during the day. I know for me vacation time is to be spent on whoever is on the vacation with me and a few urgent phone calls and messages just to let people know where I am and when I will be back and available to talk. A simple good morning and goodnight text to my SO so he knows I'm okay are all he needs if it's a family vacation. Spending hours of your day talking to your SO and cutting off others is rough though, setting times to talk is good but sometimes messaging throughout the day and just one call is all thats needed or no call at all. It's important to be extra considerate during a vacation since its supposed to be a 'step back' in most cases.

[differentcountries]

How you keep in touch with your SO is not really any of your mother's businiss when you are 30 years old. Especially when you are so considerate as to talk to him when the rest of the family is not even active.

We dont talk on the phone that often, but we sometimes have long text/pic chats that can be somewhat intrusive to others, so I try to not have that if I am with people. But I sometimes skype with him during parties, just because I want to give him a sense of the vibe of the place I am at, and because seeing happy couples live makes me miss him even more.