Dear Miss U,
We are together it’s been only 2 months. Well, I’ve been through a lot in this couple of months… I’m sincerely worried about my boyfriend’s priorities. He says I am his priority, but honestly, sometimes I can’t really feel it. Even though is trying to show, it’s kinda not working. Like… Last weekend I was feeling so bad about myself, about some problems I was having with exams… And he just told me some comforting words and left with his friend.
I wouldn’t say anything if this exam wasn’t the exam which is going to say if we are going to meet each other or not. What can I do? Am I neurotic?
Thank you for helping,
Gaby.
Dear Gaby,
I’m not in a place to tell you if you are neurotic. Only your doctor should be passing that kind of judgement. If you are legitimately worried about this, then do seek professional help; but I sense you’ve mailed me for reassurance rather than a diagnosis.
Here’s what I think: it’s only been two months. Even if you’ve been together all day, every day, talking constantly for those two months, it’s still just two months, and thus you may as well be strangers for all the claim I feel you should have on each other at this point in time.
Should the relationship be a priority? Yes, of course. Yours or his highest priority? No. Maybe even hell no.
It takes time and effort, experiences, a deeper knowledge of each other and your needs. Like a career, within a relationship you work your way up. Just like at your job, you don’t enter the field as a senior, you start at the bottom. You start with crappy hours, poor pay, less perks; then you prove yourself to be an investment to your company. As you put in the labor, make the effort that no one before you would make and become invaluable, then you gain the privileges you originally wanted the placement for – but you never get them before you earn them.
In the same way, you need to build up some history with your partner before you become their number one. In time, after a lot of conversations about it, he will know what it is you need. He will be able to roughly figure out how an event in your life will make you feel and he’ll be able to respond appropriately – even plan for it. But right now the fact he showed he cared by listening to you and having an attempt at reassuring you needs to be enough.
I encourage you to open a dialog about this with him. Try, “What you said to me the other day when I was upset about the exam was really touching, but in future I need
Slow down and try to enjoy each stage of the relationship as it comes at you, remembering that it is a work in progress. We all feel how we feel, and those emotions are valid. You are not wrong or neurotic to feel a certain way, but at the same time there’s only so much that we can expect from a new romance.
Dear Miss U,
I have actually never met my long distance love in person but we have skyped, snapchatted, and sent messages over face-book for over 2 years. He lives in Belgium and I live in America. We plan on meeting by the summer of 2016 when we both have graduated. He is the only guy I think about, want to talk to, listens to my problems, and the only guy I know is worth waiting for. The only problem is that I don’t know how to keep being as strong as we were before. I feel like we are going downhill, but him and I both have agreed that we still want to work this relationship out. I want to learn new ways of communicating with him while also making the time go by faster.
Please help, I love this guy.
– Kasie.
Dear Kasie,
I understand how you feel. We often get to a point in our Long Distance Relationships where it seems like the relationship can not progress until we are physically together; be that meeting like in your situation or actually closing the distance for good.
You probably feel like there’s nothing new to try, like you know each other inside and out. It’s frustrating and try as you might, it can be hard to avoid feeling like you’re missing out on something. In a lot of cases just acknowledging how you feel can relieve some of the tension you feel and opening a dialog can bring forth new ideas. Oftentimes one partner, or even both, will have ideas they would like to try but they don’t put the idea forth because they don’t want to seem lame, clingy or desperate; but honestly these things can save a relationship. You shouldn’t feel silly in front of your significant other (and if they are making you feel small, that’s a red flag.)
Take a moment and think about all the things you would want to have done if you closed the distance tomorrow. There must be something! Mr. E and I were long distance and unable to visit for too many years at one point in our journey together, and even now I have some regrets because there were cool LDR things I would love to have done, but either didn’t have the chance, the money or the courage. Here are some of my regrets (they may give ideas):
- I wish I had ordered him pizza online and had it delivered. If I had pizza too, it could have been a date. (And teenage boys can eat pizza any hour of the day, so time differences don’t really matter.)
- I would like to have sent him a card every day for a month, or for the 12 days of Christmas.
- I’d liked to have sent a puzzle, one piece at a time.
- It would have been great if public WiFi had been a thing back then, because we could have gone for coffee/donuts together.
- I wish I’d gone on a road trip so that every new place I went I could take a photo of my hand saying “I love you from…” next to the town/city/state sign.
- If I had more confidence, I’d have danced for him, like he always asked me to.
- I think it would have been neat if we both did geocaching together, especially if we could have found one of those soft toys that’s trying to visit every country.
- I wish I’d thought of “open when…” letters.
- I wish I’d called him over the phone and sang him that old old song “I just called to say I love you” even though I’m a terrible singer and international calls are expensive. It would have been worth it.
I’m sure there are more too. Have a think about it, what would you regret not having done? Work towards those things, because not only will they benefit your relationship now, they will make great stories in the future. Time flies when you’re having fun, they say, so make it fun!
