Hello all!

So it's 47 days till my SO and I can close the distance. The craziness is stepping up; there have been not so welcome changes at his workplace, while I am trying to get my board exams preparations done as soon as possible just so I can spend August in the last stage of my review as well as catching up with my SO. On top of that we're both playing the roles of older siblings/advisers/mentors/counselors/trouble shooters for a gaggle of family members and friends with varying issues.

What makes this stressful situation a bit weird is that my SO and I are both empaths. We're the sort who pick up on the stress and energy of people in our surroundings, and can read others fairly well. Now apparently being intuitive or being able to resonate well with other people is fairly common in our circles, but what makes us a little odd is that we can still be attuned with each other even over a distance of 7000 miles. It's not something we thought was possible till we actually became a couple, despite being friends for years.

Admittedly there are some benefits to having a partner who one can easily resonate and be in tune with. However it can get tiring when we're both stressed and just transferring stress to each other during our conversations. I have to make an extra effort to verbalize my own feelings instead of letting him just read and make a guess as to why I suddenly come off as glum or heavy. I also need to let him speak up instead of jumping to conclusions based solely on my gut feel and reading of our situation.

My biggest fear is that someday all the load I am carrying---from my family, friends, and even my patients--may be too much even for him, and scare him off.

An additional, sobering worry is that recent financial studies/projections in our home country have designated 120 000 pesos (around 2600 dollars) as the monthly income needed for 'comfortable living' for a family of 4. Comfortable living is defined as owning a house, a car, being able to send 2 kids to college, and having the means to take occasional vacations. I am wondering how on earth are my SO and I ever going to get to that. Even if I get lucky with my future medical practice, and he gets lucky as a lawyer, it's going to take a while. And I really don't want either of us to take another job overseas just to meet this income bracket. My heart can't take another LDR phase, and I really want both of us to be able to raise the two kids we hope to have.

Yet at the same time, my SO and I both went through pretty hard up phases in our childhood and adolescent years, and we really don't want our future family to go through that. Just thinking about this mess makes me want to cry.