Does it ever get easier?

[winterxsun]

Hi everyone,

I never imagined I’d end up on a website like this, but the truth is that I’m only slowly heading towards acceptance of my situation, at the current moment of perhaps needing a kind of closure which lets me see I’m not the only person who has had to go through something similar.

My situation, briefly, is this: my boyfriend and I met 6 months ago in the UK, where I’ve been living for the past 12 years and where I plan to continue my life after I graduate this June. My boyfriend was honest with me from the start and told me after our first date that he already has plans and tickets to Australia, for a one-year-long working holiday visa. He said he didn’t expect to like me as much as he did and he’d like to keep seeing me, and deep down I knew I felt the same way, but at first I was angry that finally this good person who had entered my life out of nowhere would be taken away from me just as quickly, and for a few days I was torn between giving it a chance and forgetting him completely. In the end, something told me that if I didn’t meet him again I’d regret it for the rest of my life, and so my intuition has taken us on a wild adventure of an attraction and eventually love which other people view as impossible or crazy. Since July last year, we had gone on holiday together, I followed him for a few days to his hometown in Italy, and recently I invested a small fortune to spend the whole Christmas month with him in Australia. He’s not yet entirely sure of all his plans, but we talk often about things big and small honestly and vulnerably, and all we both know is that we want to try our hardest to stay together until October this year, when his visa is supposed to expire. After that, he originally wanted to keep travelling the world, but now talks about coming back to me to have a future together. In November when he first left the UK, I was a wreck. Now, after having spent December together, our relationship has become more mature, and I acknowledge many things and even accept some – although not all – of them.

I can’t say exactly what sort of advice I’m looking for because another truth is that despite spending now almost 3 months apart overall, I still feel lost sometimes. I want to support him but I can’t yet not take it personally/selfishly that he’d made plans before he met me, nor accept that his not wanting to change these plans in any major way doesn’t mean he doesn’t value me; I try to keep a brave face when we talk on Skype but there are moments almost every call where my throat burns from holding back voice cracks and intense emotions; I want to believe his every “I love you” and “don’t worry/think too much about it” and his every dreamy excited thought about our possible future, but I can’t stop getting angry at the “I don’t know what I’m going to do/let’s see what happens”, and I can’t ignore that it seems easier for him to accept the thought of not being each other physically for another 8 months, and I can’t not be scared that maybe this “one day” could be something I’m waiting for but may never stop waiting for because the time and distance (he’s 11 hours forward from me, which – so far – we are handling quite like champions) will eventually, prior to our "one day", suffocate this beautiful thing which we only just started building.

I guess I’m grasping for closure to hear I’m not alone. Does it ever get easier? And if it does, how can I make it easier?

Thank you,
Winter

[Littlewhiteflower]

Many people that write here have similar worries. Will that work? How can we make it work? How can we make it easier?

There is no correct answer. If you were in a normal relationship without the distance, your relationship could work or could not work as well. You would not think over and over again about the idea of how to make it work. You would just go with the flow, deal with the issues when they come and grow up together or apart.

With a LDR, you deal with the distance, the uncertainties, but you should focus on the now just like in a relationship where there is no distance. What do you have now with your boyfriend? Are you happy together? Why worrying about the future when your plan is already to settle in the uk? You might have a broken heart out of this experience, but you will have learned something and you will have traveled to Australia. You will have made memories. On the other hand, you might end up stronger as a couple. Your partner might also come back so grateful to have had the chance to live this experience. He might be thankful to have a girlfriend who lets him leave his dream for a year. We never know what the future hold.

If I was you, I would just continue to focus on your project and on nourishing your relationship while you let him leave his dreams until he gets sick of it. You said you are handling the hour difference like champion. It seems to work fairly well between both of you. So I would just try to focus on the present moment.

Of course it is hard to be apart, to never have anyone to hug or cuddle at night or in the morning. It is hard to not have him to talk to whenever you want or to annoy just because you like annoying him. but if you can survive the distance, this is going to be a good way to show the strength of your relationship. I don't think it ever get easier to be apart. I've been in a LDR for over 3 years. We see each other twice a year and it is hard, but if I would have given up in the first year, i would not be about to marry my partner. I would not plan to move in together in July. It would be a total different life. At some point, it is a choice you need to make, whether you can live with the uncertainties or not. But sometimes the uncertainties lead to something great

[winterxsun]

Thank you Littlewhiteflower for your sharing your story and advice and understanding, and so many congratulations on making your relationship work. I wish you the best for your future together