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Worried about a distance relationship |
 I am 25 years old and I have been in a relationship with my boyfriend
for 6 years. He is the only serious mate I have ever had and I am
about to leave to pursue a Master's degree in another country. I have
never been apart from him for any long period of time and the reality
is now setting in for both of us. He has mentioned taking a break from
the relationship just in case it may mean that our careers may take us
in other directions. However, I think we have resolved that situation
and we are going to try to make it work for the 1 year duration of my
Master's degree program. Practically, it may be feasible for him to
visit me once in 2 or 3 months, but bearing in mind that soon he will
also be pursing his Master's degree, I don't want to put him on such
an obligation.
I know for a fact that I am not a fan of communicating via telephone
or instant messaging on the internet with him...I find that somewhere
our true emotions get lost and we work better when we can see and feel
each other. Phone conversations can get boring and routine and lately
I realize that we now have a daily 'format'. "How are you, how was
your day, what are you going to do tonight?" - that is actually the
order and format. I am afraid our relationship will get boring once
the physical distance between us increases.
Dr. Ruth, we have already discussed marriage by the time we both turn
28 or so and we even discussed having children and how many we would
ideally like to have (he wants lots! like 5...) Should I really be
worrying if this relationship will work out? I would like some advice
on maintaining this long-distance relationship.
 While it’s understandable that you want to make this period of separation be as painless as possible and pose the least amount of risk to the relationship, you have to realize that you are not going to be 100% successful. You’ll probably go through periods where you’ll miss each other very much. You may go through periods where jealousy adds a strain to the relationship. So while there may be periods when the separation isn’t too hard to take you may also hit some rough patches. But what’s important to hold onto throughout this separation is that you’re far from alone in having to experience such a separation, and in terms of suffering it’s far from the worst fate in the world, so that in the end the odds are that you’ll wind up back in each other’s arms.
That said, I must comment on your views on communications. Yes it’s harder communicating when you’re separated by long distances, but you’d be ridiculous to not use all the modern means of communications available to you based on some notions of which ones you like and not like at the moment. Imagine someone who is drowning and is thrown a red life preserver and refuses to grab it because it’s not blue? You’re communications are not going to be perfect but are going to be vital to maintaining the relationship so just do the best you can with whatever methods are at hand.
Finally, don’t allow yourselves to become sexually frustrated. You don’t have to engage in phone sex, where you masturbate together, but you should both utilize masturbation to keep yourself from feeling frustrated.
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