Love in the Most Expensive Places

Dear Mrs. Baker,

Your tenacious nature is something I personally relate to and value. Good on you for fighting for who and what you want!

If math can sway him, draw up a chart. Show him on paper how a pay cut won’t affect his standard of living. While you’re at it, factor in the savings from no longer doing these expensive visits, too.

When you’re crunching numbers though, try and find a way to make your own move viable. If you are the person with the strengths of decisiveness and perseverance, and you are the person who wants to close the distance the most, then it might need to be you that does the moving. I know, that blows. I lived it. And my best mate was like, “Hey, that’s not fair.” I agreed with him. It wasn’t fair that I should give up everything to prove to some boy I was worth his effort, and generally, I’m here telling people not to do that. Not to cross oceans for people who wouldn’t jump puddles. But, I do think there are certain people out there who can’t just be told, they need to be shown.

I knew Mr. E loved me. Never questioned it. But I’m pretty sure we’d still live in different countries if it was up to him, simply because he can’t anticipate the fun. He’s the kind of person who can sleep the night before going to Disneyland because he doesn’t get excited. So asking him to move to me? Without me lodging my foot in his ass? Yeah wasn’t going to happen. If your boyfriend sounds like mine, this might be a successful course for you.

I know, it’s unconventional, or at least it was at the time I did it. 20 year old girls didn’t fly alone to meet their internet boyfriends, much less move away for a couple of years. But it showed him how great life could be with me. Then I said, “Hey, let’s live in my country, just a few years, so I can have my family around me when I give birth.” Sydney is expensive (on the top ten list with London) so it was a hard sell, but now (six years later) he loves my city. We have no plans to ever move. The point of this is we are people, not trees. We can move, and if it sucks, we can move again. Make sure your boyfriend realizes that nothing has to be “forever” if you don’t want it to be.

Money is hard, especially when you’re starting out. But you can’t take it with you when you die, either. If living tight for a year will make a difference for long term happiness, it’s a no-brainer.

As for the distancing, I think you need to just ask outright what’s going on there. It could be the simple fact that he’s not willing to move, and is trying to make a goodbye less devastating. Or it could be something else that you could easily address if you just knew. It could also have nothing to do with you, and just be a symptom of stressors elsewhere in his life. Unless he tells you, you’re never going to know.

I find when having those tough conversations that being able to provide examples is key. If you say “I feel like there’s distance between us,” it’s very easy to pass that off as just a hormone fluctuation or figment of imagination. It can make us second guess ourselves, then we’re like “forget it, maybe I’m over-reacting,” and nothing gets solved. But if you go into the conversation with concrete examples of when he’s treated you differently or kept you at arm’s length, he’ll be more likely to relate to your experiences.

Remember too, that not every conversation should be about the problems, even in the troubled times. Make sure you’re still having fun together; laughing together. Remember why you like each other, so you can hold onto all the reasons this is worth it.