Miss You Issues: Highway to Help - Long Distance Relationship Advice

Dear Miss U,

I just found out my sweetie has been in the hospital, and will start a treatment session for several weeks. I want to go see him and spend time with him. Traveling to see him involves crossing a border, plane fare, hotel, and pausing my job search (15+ months out of work). However the last two times I went to visit, he would not speak to me nor acknowledge my presence in his city. I am also now a caregiver for my mom, who does not want me to go and (like most of my “friends”) is opposed to our relationship.

I am very upset. His emails are infrequent and his phone is broken. We cannot connect by video. We have almost no mutual friends and his friends/family don’t like sharing info. Mom refuses help from anyone except me — and she can’t travel. My current situation was very stressful before this news. I haven’t seen his face in 10 years, and I don’t want my next trip to be for his funeral.

What can I do? I feel so helpless. If I can’t go, what is an appropriate gift to send? Thanks in advance.

Stress Bucket

Dear Stress Bucket,

Sometimes when you’re driving somewhere there will be a random honk from another vehicle, or an angry word shouted into the wind that’s torn apart before you get a chance to understand what it was about. When this happens it’s safe to assume the problem was more with the other person than with you. You’re driving fine and they are just having a bad day; they are short tempered from lack of sleep or hey, maybe they are just jealous of your sweet ride. Either way, not your problem.

But if you’re driving along and everyone is swearing, leaning on their horns, shouting and waving their arms at you, or even just standing on the footpath pointing at your car in stunned silence, then it might be time to ask yourself “am I driving on the right side of the road?” or even “did I run over a mailbox and now there are letters flying out of my grill?”

Where I’m going with this is: when the majority of your family and friends caution you about something serious, like a man you’ve loved half your life who didn’t acknowledge your presence when you came to see him last, perhaps they can see something you can’t. When you’re behind the wheel you can’t see that letterbox lodged in the front end of your vehicle, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there to concern you.

To me, the biggest question here is why doesn’t he want to talk to you? If his love for you equals your devotion to him, why are you not a big enough priority for him to ensure he has at least one solid method for communicating with you regularly? You’ve been in his life well over a decade and yet his family and friends don’t treat you as his partner. Why is that? I have to wonder if they don’t like sharing info because he has requested that they remain reticent.

Obviously he is someone special, a person you have a soul-deep connection to, for you to have gone on loving and pursuing him all these years. And I’m going to have faith that most of the time he has loved and supported you right back in the way that you not only need but deserve, despite evidence that the people around you believe otherwise. I know right now with all the stress you are under it probably doesn’t feel like the right time to re-evaluate this relationship either, but at some point when you have the time and the emotional energy you do need to ask yourself what you are getting out of this relationship. As selfish as it might sound it is time to ask “what’s in it for me?” Make sure you’re not getting the short stick here.

It seems like a visit might just be a waste of funds you don’t have because there’s a huge chance he won’t let you see him at all, so I’d go with sending a gift. Is there something practical you can send that would benefit his recovery? If not I’d go with something sentimental. A bear spritzed with your favourite perfume (bonus points if the bear is wearing his football team’s jersey) perhaps, express posted home-bakes cookies maybe or even a delivery of flowers to brighten his day. If these ideas don’t take your fancy, you can aid his ability to communicate with you by sending a calling card, skype credit or a second hand mobile phone.

Remember to do something nice for yourself while you’re at it; you can’t care for everyone else if you’ve burnt yourself out. Be your own best friend.

Dear Miss U,

I’ve only been dating my boyfriend for 4 months, but those 4 months have been the most exhilarating and passionate months of my life. We are both attending schools at different universities. I know this may sound naive and idiotic, but I want to spend the rest of my life with this man. He is the most incredible person in my life and I’ve fallen in love for the first time. I don’t want to be that girl who says they’ll be with their first love forever but that’s what I want… He will be at a different university across the country so we will be spending the next 5 years in a long distance relationship. I guess my question is, because I’ve been getting so many comments about not dating other people in college but I want to be with him, am I being foolish? Should I be present in a relationship? I just love him so much I never want to part from him. Do you think this is unproductive? How will we make it work?

Hailey

Dear Hailey,

If you are happy, that is what is important. Maybe you are being foolish, there’s no way for me to know, but wouldn’t it be more foolish to throw away what seems to be a perfect love over something as trivial as distance? Yes five years is a long time but forever is longer; once you’re both done studying if you make closing the distance a priority there’s no reason the rest of your forever won’t be spent together.

There is far more to being present in a relationship than physical presence. If you’re both mentally and emotionally present you probably still have a one-up on the majority of couples sitting side-by-side with their minds a million miles away.

If anything I think a long distance relationship is slightly more productive when you’re studying because you don’t have a partner coming over to watch Netflix and distract you from your coursework with their smokin’ hot body and raging hormones. You’re less likely to go out partying because the one you love is home on skype, and while you skype you can go over your notes. And if you’re a dedicated enough person to hold a solid fulfilling LDR I bet you have all the discipline you need to come out at the top of your class too.

I am not inherently a fun person, and fun people might shun this idea of building up a future and having quiet nights in, heart to heart conversations and love letters in the mail, but honestly it worked for me and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

You’ll make it work by talking about everything honestly and putting each other’s feelings ahead of your own. Focus on having fun together even at a distance, don’t feel sorry for yourself just because you’re physically apart and stop listening to people who have no way of knowing what is best for you.

Trust yourself, Hailey, you’ve got this.