The common opinion on long distance relationships tend to be that they have a shelf life of about 2.5 seconds. At least that's what I thought people would say. Turns out, a majority of people think the opposite as long as both people are willing to work at the relationship. I have many personal experiences with this. Out of the 3 long distance relationships I've had in my life, only one man cheated on me. Turns out he had another girlfriend in another state. I ended it there and I'm sure he didn't stop being a player. Shouldn't have surprised me I mean I knew who he was. One of my ex's who I had a long distance relationship with was great; until I moved to the same city and that's when things changed. I think we were so used to having our own lives in our own cities that it was a completely different relationship when we lived in the same area code. He's a great person and we ended things on a nice note. My last and final long distance relationship ended up being to my husband. Here's that experience...
When we started dating, we lived 3 hours apart. We're crazy right! I drove to see him every weekend for months. After awhile it got old and expensive so he had to buy a car. From then on we alternated weekends. We lasted like that for a year and a half before we got married. I thought it was the end of long distance and was so excited to live with him full time now! That was not the case. The week after our wedding he was told he had to attend school in Virginia for 6 weeks. After being pissed off for all of 5 minutes, I got over it. 6 weeks is nothing, we can do it! About 5 weeks into his school, he got "The" call. He was to be deployed the day after his school ended. We were able to extend it by 2 weeks. Once those 2 weeks were over he was shipped off on the USS Stennis for 6 months. So the first 2 years of our relationship were spent long distance. Once he returned, I was relieved to be with him. However, he was living/stationed in Ventura and I was living in Anaheim because I was still in school. That year and a half he was home we still were long distance except for weekends. In January of 2009 he was shipped off for another deployment on the USS Stennis for 6 more months. Now, it had been 4 years of long distance. When he returned in July from deployment we were finally together. We've been living together in the same apartment for almost 2 years now and I've loved every minute of it.
To me the being apart sucked, but it wasn't the worse part of a long distance relationship. The worst part was the constant need for communication. Cell phones, emails, letters gifts etc. It was overwhelming and because we had to work so hard at communicating, it lead to arguments. To me, a long distance relationship can absolutely work. We're living breathing proof. However, communication, trust, honesty, commitment and gas money (or airline money in some cases) are a necessity to making it work. Even if it was only for a day, we would make an effort to spend it together. Now we appreciate our time together more. We understand what it took to get here and let me tell you...we deserve the time we have now. In the long run, I think having a long distance relationship was best because it prepared us for deployments. The deployments prepared us for marriage because we had to learn to communicate our highs and lows through emails only.
So when you're annoyed, angry, frustrated or pestered with your loved one, remember that it could always be worse. He/she could be thousands of miles away fighting in a war. If it can't be worse...you might want to consider ending things.
EMM
No comments:
Post a Comment