Dear Miss U,
I meet him back in 2011 online, we became friends on Facebook. I live in Connecticut and he lives in Colorado. He means the world to me and I truly love him and we were close friends from 2011- the beginning of 2012 we didn’t talk again until the middle of June of 2013. We came to a point of trying to be together, my 18th birthday is coming up in April so for spring break I’m planning on flying out there to see him and the problem is my parents don’t accept this relationship my mom was the only one the really knew, she says she fine with it but I know she only saying that because she know I’m happy but my dad on the other slide doesn’t believe in this, he said that’s just a stranger you don’t know, they don’t understand this when I told my dad about the relationship back in November he didn’t take it so well and he still doesn’t…. I just want them to be happy for me that I found someone who makes me happy even though he is far away. Please help I don’t know what to do
Not A Stranger
Dear Stranger,
Unfortunately, we don’t always get the support we want and need right away. Some people, especially parents, want to see some kind of proof before they take a relationship seriously, particularly one that falls outside their box of what is considered normal.
And in some ways your dad is right – this guy is a stranger. It’s wrong to say you don’t know him at all, but there are also some things you cannot know until you have spent time together in person. For people who have never dated online, or finished their dating years before online dating became a thing, it can be very hard to understand how it’s even possible to fall in love with someone you can’t touch. Of course, you can explain but you can’t make someone understand any more than you can force someone to be happy for you. The best you can do at this point is live your life, and let them see over time that your relationship is real, that you are happy and have all the other things within the relationship that parents want for their adult children. They want you to be safe, supported, respected, loved and cared for. When they can see these things with their own eyes and when they can establish a relationship of their own with your boyfriend it is likely their attitudes will change and they will become more accepting. Everything is a little scary the first time you do it or come in contact with it, and that’s no different for parents whose children are verging on adulthood and making choices that they never considered for themselves or that seem unnecessarily dangerous.
Sometimes there’s really nothing you can do outside of being the best person you can be, trying to understand the views of others in your world even when you don’t agree with them, and moving forward.
Good luck.
Dear Miss U,
My girlfriend and I have been dating for two months, she lives about 14 hours away from me and lately I have been feeling myself changing. I’ve been crying a lot and if she has plans to go to a movie or go out this prevents us from talking that day and I get really upset. We text all day but we FaceTime every night and when I don’t get my time with her it’s frustrating. I know she can feel the change too and I feel guilty because it seems like I am always on her case. Am I justified in getting upset over not being able to talk with her occasionally? Or am I letting the distance turn me into an angry person?
Hannah
Dear Hannah,
The first place I would stop and look for a solution would be with your hormones, because when I’m feeling like an angry unreasonable harpy it’s often to do with where I’m at in my cycle, or whether I’ve been taking good enough care of myself (eating right, exercising, socialising with friends, managing my stress, etc).
If nothing on that front has changed, and you’ve never been like this in your other relationships, perhaps you need to meditate on why that might be. What is different this time? Or if this is your first relationship, perhaps it is more to do with expectations than anything else.
Some people expect in a LDR that every spare minute of their partner’s time should be spent communicating with them, but that’s really not how it works. That’s not healthy. It’s nice to talk every day, but not always possible. I’m currently living with my significant other right now, and I still don’t always get an hour in the day to talk to him – just for an example.
It’s hard to put quantifiable numbers on these things, but if you’re facetiming together five nights out of seven, then I don’t think you have anything to be upset about and you need to manage your time better so that you aren’t left sitting alone and moping while she’s out having fun. Ask her to give you notice when she’s having a night out so that you too can plan something else to look forward to. If however she’s going out every second night (or roughly half the week) then you might need to discuss when would be a good time to talk on those days. Could you talk for ten minutes on your lunch break or even make time for a quick call in the morning? Can you talk while she gets ready to go out, or can she leave you a sweet video message when she gets home that you can look forward to it the next morning? Can you talk for longer on another day to make up for lost time or plan a special date night so that you have plans together to look forward to that are a little more special than your regular nightly chat?
It’s healthy for her and for your relationship in general for her to maintain her life outside the relationship. It gives you things to talk about, helps her be a more interesting well-rounded person and she doesn’t deserve to be made to feel guilty for doing those things. This is true for both LDRs and NPRs. On the other hand, a relationship can never go wrong if both people hold the other person’s happiness as their paramount importance. You know that you are putting her as a priority by supporting and encouraging her to go out and socialize – with that in place, it would be time for her to think about what she can do to make you equally as happy. Could she put more effort into another part of the relationship? Add a little more romance with surprise love letters, or make you feel more included by sending you a special photo from her outing? (I wouldn’t recommend the latter for every time she goes out, because when you’re with people I believe you should be mentally present as well. But the occasional menu photo with the caption “I’d love to share this amazing salami platter with you one day” never goes astray.)
Ideally you should both be able to feel safe in the knowledge that either of you can spend a night away from the phone/iPad without having to feel bad about it while knowing that if ever one of you truly needed the other, everything would be dropped and the relationship would come first. I know I can call Mr. E at any time and say “I need you” and he’ll make time to talk to me and give me as much comfort as he can. He will stop what he’s doing and put me first. And in return for that he knows that I would only expect that of him if it truly was of paramount importance.
