A Word of Advice... on long-distance relationships

By Joshua O'Connell
Posted Monday, September 15, 2003

I'm a 20-year-old college student planning on leaving the United States soon to study abroad in Australia for five months. I have been with my girlfriend for almost a year. We are very upset that we'll be apart for 5 months, but know that this is an excellent opportunity for me. She will be leaving for her first year of college in August which is about a three hour drive from our hometown.

I talked to her recently, and she is thinking of breaking up now to avoid the hurt and pain for when I leave for Australia. She would rather end our relationship now rather than have it end suddently for when I leave.

However, I'd rather stay together the time we have left. Keep in mind it will be easier for me to move on than for her to move on b/c I will be in a new and exciting environment while she is stuck at home.

I am optimistic that when I come home I will still love her just as much, but she doesn't think we will want to restart our relationship (b/c we will be at colleges 3 hours apart).

Soooo, my question is what advice do you have for our the time left. Should we live our relationship to the fullest and enjoy the time we can, or prepare for heartbreak and try to make it easier on us???

--Break now or break later?

If there was a way to scream through the Internet, I'd do it. So much of this letter has triggered my "what the... ?!?" emotion. Let's go over this carefully now:

First, you've been together almost a year; she's about to go off to college. I gather you have already spent at least a year at school; otherwise you wouldn't be going abroad for a semester (I can't think of a college that allows you to do that first semester freshman year). How did you handle it last time around? Four months, with an occasional day or two in between, isn't much different; you just have larger long-distance bills (buy some international prepaid cards before you leave - trust me on this one from personal experience).

Second, I side with you on the time left thing, and even not breaking up when you leave necessarily - I know of many people who have been able to make it one semester successfully, especially when you've had a year to establish the relationship together, coupled with the fact that you will be back around again. It's not a cakewalk, but it's certainly within the realm of something accomplishable.

Third, it will be easier for you to move on than her? Huh? Wrong. She'll have it as hard as you will: she's going to a new place, with few to no friends that she can call on to help her through it, unless she's one of the lucky ones who can keep in contact with her friends once she gets there. Ditto for you. It won't be easy, but then a lot of college freshmen in general go through this, some of which end up honoring the "Dumpsgiving" holiday, and others actually making it work.

Finally: She doesn't think BOTH of you will want to restart the relationship? She doesn't know how one, let alone both, of you will react to this period apart. Why jump to conclusions? Yes, you'll be at colleges three hours away, but you do come home for long weekends, holidays, winter and summer breaks, and pretty much every important leader's birthday.

But, if she really wants to break up, let her: then, if she's interested in getting back together, you can consider it. If she wants to do it, say you're not really happy with the idea, but it takes two to tango the relationship rumba and if she doesn't want to mambo, you'll waltz out of the picture until you return, doing the macarena and looking like a dork.

Well, maybe not like a dork, but I really just felt like beating the dancing metaphor to death and I don't think anyone can really look that attractive doing the macarena.

--My cheatin' heart

You do know what you need to do; you just don't want to do it. You know you have to tell him.

I do believe that someone can cheat on another person and learn from their mistake. As you said in your letter, you cheated ONCE. And you didn't do it again.

Good relationships are built on honesty. With an LDR, trust is definitely a key piece: you have to be able to trust that your significant other will not be fooling around on the side while you're not around. You made that mistake. You also learned from that mistake.

You should tell him as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the longer it's a deep, dark secret that will not only nag you, but will cause more damage as time passes - you not only cheated, but you hid it from him, which is dishonest. It's time to fess up, tell him that you've learned from the mistake, and that it won't happen again.

The last thing you want is the guy who was the "cheatee" coming back around and your boyfriend finding out, or someone telling him before you do (a fairly common occurance when cheating is involved). Then the trust, and honesty, part of the relationship crumbles, and what you've got left is one person begging and one person just unable to cope with the situation and cutting off communication.

So have the chat, but remember: you can't have a heart-to-heart easily over the phone either (it may seem easier, but it's so much less personal and it leaves less room for error - he can't see in your face that you won't ever do it again, the fact that it is eating you up, etc). Do this one in person, and preferably not on the stage of Jerry Springer.

--Could I be the real deal?

I've been answering a lot of these questions lately, and I'm sounding like a broken record player. So let me approach this from a different angle to freshen up some very overused advice.

You can give someone a choice. You can let it out there, and you can make it clear that you're interested. What happens next falls in his court.

He's in a relationship right now - if he was really interested in you, and he felt like a) the LDR wasn't working for him, or b) he thinks he might have something better with you, I'd think he'd be trying to pursue this right now. Maybe he's holding back because he doesn't know if you'll reciprocate the feelings, so simply saying so won't hurt.

If he decides not to choose you, you haven't wasted your time pining for one of the taken for days (or weeks or months or until you're both sitting in adjacent chairs in a nursing home), and you can move on more quickly. If you want to remain friends with him, make that clear when you tell him you're interested: "Hey, just so you know, I like you and would date you at a moment's notice, giving you more time of day than I do my school work, but if you're not interested, I'll be fine and still want to be friends with you - having you in my life in some form is better than not at all." Something like that, but with a little more thought and smaller sentences. Good luck, and thanks for asking.

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