Dear Miss U,
My boyfriend and I had planned for him to make the move, this winter. He would be done with school and since we were still in the months of dating he decided he would move here. He’s having a hard time choosing between me and his parents. I hate that it has to come down to that, but that’s what it is. He tried to breakup with me to make it easier on both of us but he couldn’t even stand not talking for 12 hours. I told him we would make a regular effort to visit his family and friends but he says that’s a fantasy and would never actually work. I want to help him make the right decision for him. What can I do to help him with this? He says the choice eats on him day and night and either decision is going to kill him on the inside. The reason I’m not moving is because I’m becoming a teacher and going through California’s credentialing process. Which brings me to my next point is that he lives in Florida so it’s quite a trip to go see him or to go see his family. He’s also an only child which makes this harder. Thanks for your time!
~ Sad in Sacramento
Dear SIS,
I’m not sure there’s anything you can do here, he just has to make a decision and stick to it. Crap or get off the pot, as my Grandmother would say. The thing is, there’s nothing unreasonable about making a regular effort to send him home on visits. It’s called having a budget. You make it part of your budget, make it a priority, and it happens. It might not be as often as he’d like, but once his new life starts rolling and with the aid of Skype, Facebook and texting, he’ll adapt and even learn to thrive.
The fact is, people who love their families every bit as much as he does move away all the time. Sometimes it’s for a few years, sometimes forever – and often at a much greater distance. Families are spread over the globe in these modern times we find ourselves in. And it is a natural progression that children grow up and leave their parents. It’s not about choosing you over them (and I suspect at this wording that they may be laying the guilt on thick, which isn’t helping him) it’s about having his own life, and seeing where it takes him. That’s not easy on parents and it’s scary for young people, but at the same time it’s no good living your life for someone else. He has to live his life for himself. One day his family won’t just be his roots and home town, it’ll be the home he builds with you and the children you have together (if you’re into that kind of thing).
Perhaps you can put his mind at ease and show him that it works for others and thus there’s no reason the two of you won’t manage to make it work. Maybe you can agree to move to his home town once your study is done, or there is some other way you can compromise so that he doesn’t feel like the burden is all on his shoulders. But for the most part all you can do is continue to love him, be positive and realistic, and ride out this storm.
Dear Miss U,
I’ve been dating this guy I met online four 4 months. He’s is 28. I am 23. He lives in the west coast and I live in the east. We talked about meeting up sometime. The thing is he wants me to meet up with him in June. I have no problem with that but the thing is 1) I have never been flying before and I don’t have a job and 2) I am disabled back in June of 08. I’ve gotten surgery to get an implant to control my seizures so I really can’t go through big metal detectors like the ones in air ports. I told my mom that we plan to meet in June she ask how come HE isn’t the one who meets YOU FIRST instead of ME coming over there to meet him. I kinda agree with her because my philosophy is if you want to see me you either will pay for me to see you or come to see me yourself and seeing how I’m not working and I really don’t have the funds to even buy a ticket I feel as though he should come to see me.
Do you think I’m wrong for this? Do you think I should try to attempt to see him? Like I said I want to see him but it really hard when you have no job and are disabled. Our Skype dates are now non-existent because he so busy and we usually text, IM and that is slowly dwindling down 😐
~ Who should see who first?
Dear Who,
My problem with this is that much of your reasoning behind not being the first to visit could be applied to all other visits as well. And that would be wrong. You can’t go in to a long distance relationship with the expectation or even the hope of not doing any of the traveling and/or paying for it yourself. It would be perfectly reasonable to ask him to pay half of your travel expenses however. He needs to be contributing.
From his point of view, he probably thinks it makes more sense for you to do the traveling because as you don’t work, you don’t have to take time off. You don’t have that whole juggling act to do – you have free time that he doesn’t. Everything is dependent on a person’s perspective so talk about it some more and explain to him that you don’t have the money if there’s realistically no way you can save up the funds to pull this off. There’s no reason to pretend you can go in June if it is a mathematical impossibility.
As to your health, have you spoken to your doctor about whether or not you can go through metal detectors and the like, or are you just assuming you cannot? Either way, you should get a medical certificate before traveling as proof of this. I am sure that in the event it would risk your health to pass through the scanner, the authorities would allow you to be checked in another way. Some pregnant women also refuse to go through scanners and such, preferring to get a pat-down instead, which may or may not be acceptable at the ports you would travel through. Make some phone calls and do your research; knowledge is power.
To more specifically answer your question: I don’t think it matters who visits who first as long as it is fair and above all, safe. In your situation, it seems to be logical that he would cover the bulk of the financial burden and you would do the traveling, but at the same time, there are a lot of scam artists on the internet, and so it is not unreasonable that he’d be uncomfortable handing over money for a plane ticket to a stranger on the internet. At the same time, your disability makes you vulnerable, and I personally am concerned at the prospect of you going alone to meet this man who is older and likely to be worldlier than you are, whom you will have known online for less than a year.
Continue to think about it, talk about it, and communicate with each other. June is quite a ways off yet, and if your communication is already suffering the relationship may too follow the same course, so I would focus on that for the time being.
