a rock and a hard place

Hi everybody

For an introduction I will tell you the current situation. My YM and me have been dating for just over a year and right now live in the same city.

I am a science major and him an art major.

I finally got hired by a beyond excellent company making good money, 8 weeks paid vacation, benefits, bonus's. My coworkers are excellent. I get raises every year and a nearly unlimited room for advancement.

I spent alot of time in school and worked as a contractor for a year and a half to get this job.

Strange enough shortly after celebrating my job my YM lost his. There is nearly no work for him in his industry in the city we currently live in.

One province over and he could have a job....but I would have to leave mine. We stay here and he will most likely end up doing a job unrelated to his industry for quite a while.

He wants to move for his job...I don't want to leave due to mine. He dosen't want me to give up a job I worked so hard for, and I dont want to see him working a job he will dislike and gain no fullfillment from.

Around it goes

We have discussed doing the long distance thing for a few years until either I can transfer or we can move someplace mutually agreed upon.

He would be about a 12 hour drive away...a one hour plane trip.

The ONE thing I cannot get past is that this seems so open ended an lacking any security.

One year...maybe two...maybe three....that seems like a LONG time with no determined END POINT

Has anybody been in this position before? It seems like a very unrealistic time frame. Alot of time and room to grow apart.

Our relationship is a good one....not awesome but a good one. Beyond anything though...it is a special one. We have had bad times and good, and it has been a hard year for both of us.

How could we ever make that work so far apart for an undetermined amount of time.

I want him to suceed and be happy in his work...as he does for me.

I worry that being apart for that long will take it's toll on us, and cause us to lose the special relationship that we have. We could go back and forth once maybe twice a month...

Sometimes these long distance things get painted with a romantic picture that is never the reality of it.

Any advice on this situation.....

Trust is an issue on my side toward him....and I think that is what would break us.

Thanks in advance for any help

My bf and I were long distance for 2 years before living together. It was doable. If you are going to have such a good job, you can certainly budget 2 trips per year to meet with him and he can do the same. You could meet every 4 months or so.

I lived in Panama, he in the US. Before him moving here to Panama, my bf had suggested that I emigrate to the US... but for what? Leave my business and family for a bf? No way Jose. For a husband yes, but not for a bf. I am all willing to have a live-in-boyfriend, no commitments (besides being faithful), as long as it does not harm my financial situation. :no:

Hi, well, you asked for experiences and I'll tell you mine. I don't know if it will help or not, it's purely subjective...you don't say if yours is an age-gap relationship or not.

I met my YM where I live. We dated for 5 months, then broke up because he went away to grad school. He did well in school, but on a personal level was suffering, and after 8 months away, moved back. We had not been in touch with each other, other than one phone call and a couple of emails.

When he moved back, we started dating again, and then living together. We had a wonderful time, life was pretty good, we fell completely in love during that time. Several months later, he decided to move 330 miles away for a job. He loved me but hated it here (he had graduated college here and wanted to move on...)

So he left, and we decided to end it. Except we didn't. We stayed long distance for the next 3 years. We saw each other almost every month for long weekends. He would drive here or I would drive there, and finally I just started flying because it only took about 35 minutes to fly there, and over 5 hours to drive one of the most boring drives imaginable.

On many levels, it was very romantic. We were always excited to see each other. Each time we saw each other it was like a holiday. We did special things together, we took vacations together, etc. In that regard, it was exciting and fun. Once we left each other, we'd start planning the next visit, so there was always something to look forward to. I loved that aspect of it.
But from a realistic perspective, there was none. How we kept it up for 3 years I have no idea.

He asked me once to come there. I couldn't give up my career, my home, my family, my friends, my 20 years of connections here. I knew he wouldn't stay there forever, and I knew I didn't want to start over only to have it yanked out from under me again. He wanted me, but he wouldn't commit to me. It seemed like a bad deal for me to sacrifice anything at that point for love...someone I was crazy about, loved to the depths of my being, but who was holding back on me always.

There was a ton of doubt. We broke up more times than I care to remember, thinking it would just be best to get on with it. He would say that he wanted something more tangible, but he could never find anything as good as us. Our connection was so intense, we were both impossibly drawn to the other. He finished grad school during that time, and I supported him emotionally in a lot of ways, and was very generous with my time, money, care.

Finally, he left the place where he was, and moved to another state. There was no way it was going to continue, things were going downhill, we fought and ended it. I saw him again 9 months later after he went though another round of depression, and we went on vacation. It was nice seeing him again, but a little disconcerting as well.

I saw him twice more, and ended it last January, almost a year ago. All told, we spend almost 6 years of our lives involved. I'm sure we will never forget each other, but it was time for both of us to get on with our lives.

At a certain point in being long distance...maybe two years into it, I never trusted him completely anymore, so I gave him permission to date others, thereby taking away my need and desire to have him be faithful. I knew he would always come back to me, and he did.

Words of advice? I don't think I have anything sage. Trite sayings like "follow your heart" don't cut it. If a long term commitment is forthcoming, that would be a different story for you, but that doesn't sound like the deal here. I say your career is more important than this relationship right now. You can fly back and forth easily if you want to see each other.

Personally, I'm glad I didn't sacrifice my career for the man I was in love with. That's not the advice you're going to hear most often however. Every circumstance is different. If you like an adventure and think absence makes the heart grow fonder, a LDR is probaby right. I don't regret mine, in fact I have a ton of great memories from it...we had a blast on many levels, and we also had a lot of pain too. Would I do it again? Yes.

My SO and I have been doing the long distance thing for 2 years now. We are 12 hours apart by car and 1.5 hrs apart by flight. It's been hard. I won't even fib about it... sometimes it really sucks! I went through a really rough spot in September, because like you are suggesting, I felt like it would never end.

The decision to do this was all about our careers. He had just graduated college and wanted to get established in his industry... the best place for him was California and I was doing residency in Seattle. I took a fellowship here because he encouraged me to, and I encouraged him to focus on career now and get established so he could make the move to be with me. We are working on finding him a job in Seattle now, and end the long distance thing... we're getting closer to that every day. I don't know when it will happen, but it WILL happen and I am confident in that now.

Here's the thing... Long distance has made things progress slowly, we have both used that to our advantage. This is the strongest relationship I've ever been in, and I have to say that a huge component of that is that it's been communication above all! We've grown that communication and trust because of the distance. We've learned to not sweat the small stuff and make every moment together count. We've really worked on it. It's a daily choice to make things what we want them to be...

I don't know, maybe it would have been great if we were together for those 2 years, but I'm sure I would have found a way to mess things up with my fears of commitment if we'd been together initially! Sometimes the hard thing to do is the right thing to do. In my case it was, but each case is individual and only you will know if its right for you!

I am going to come off cynical, I know, but that is sort of where I am right now. A long distance relationship is damned hard and I wouldn't commit to another one unless I was as enamoured with the man as I am with my current man. We are planning for me to move to his state and I will have to re-establish my career there. This in itself is daunting, not to mention the hassle and expense of making the move.

I have really considered whether or not we could keep going the way we are; once a month visits and long vacations together. The answer is probably "yes" and I am not convinced that being apart makes you grow apart. But what I am convinced of is that when you love someone deeply, you want to be with them. If you are not clear in this, then I strongly recommend you stay put, because the odds are, you would grow apart even living under the same roof.

They say long distance relationships dont work.. Well they might work but for a while..I feel when to people truely love eachother they need to compromise and come to some type of medium and do whatever it is they must do or sacarfice to be together.. Money is not everything..
So decide who is making the more money and who has tha chance to advance further and the other get some job he or she might be willing to do..Now if kids are in the works you might want to go eith the man..
Cuz you might just looose the one you truely love..

They say long distance relationships dont work.. Well they might work but for a while..

I met my man online over five years ago when he was just a boy and we were sharing stories about common interests. Three years ago we met and began a long distance relationship.

Ours has been an open-ended long distance relationship with no immediate plans to finalize anything due to several circumstances.

We have been indefinitely engaged to be married and only this past week decided to get married when he's finished his apprenticeship, and then he will move here to live with me. This will happen in about three years from now.

Sometimes the sacrifices we have to make aren't giving up jobs or taking new ones elsewhere, but of time together itself. We don't have to be together physically full-time to be together in a relationship that works.

There are a lot of people who have told me to give up waiting, that it's a waste of time, that I could already be with somebody new that's local and living a happy life....but I wouldn't be happy with anybody else. My man is worth the wait and we will decide together how to proceed.

My suggestion is to let him move for a better job, continue with yours, and see what happens. If it's meant to be, it will be.

I have never been in a long distance relationship myself, but have a few close friends who have. It seemed to be pretty dang hard, most of the time. One couple I know who just got engaged were apart for a year, and they survived it, only because they allowed eachother to see other people. It was more like, don't ask, don't tell - but the permission and understanding is there.

At my age of 46 I wouldn't consider an LDR for more than a few months. I'm too old to spend time without the man I love. I also believe that careers, friends, houses, money and all that is completely secondary to a relationship. None of that stuff is important to me.

Just my two cents.