Home for Christmas

Dear Palade,

It’s a tricky one, but I believe as you’ve only been dating ten months, family comes first. I would advise spending the majority of your time at home with your family, taking a gap of four days to spend in his city somewhere in those two weeks. Next year if you are still together and long distance, split your holiday 50/50 giving them each a week. If he wants more of your time than you can give, he isn’t a tree - he can move around too! He can take time away from his family and friends and come see you in your city. It goes both ways.

Christmas is very much a family event. Until the time when you decide to join your families together, it’s perfectly fine to want to go home for Christmas, and no one should make you feel guilty.

Dear Abroad Sadness,

I’m glad you’ve found LFAD useful, that’s wonderful!

Here’s the rub: everything worth doing will challenge you in some way. It’s not supposed to be easy because easy doesn’t help us grow. It doesn’t fulfill us. It’s okay for this long distance situation to test you and your relationship because it will teach you amazing skills that will keep you strong in the long term, such as:

• Effective communication
• Time management. How to set aside time for your relationship and stick to it.
• How to work as a team to overcome an obstacle together, instead of letting pressure set you at each other’s throats.
• Independence
• Grow your ability to comfort, bond, and be intimate without physical touch
• Budgeting skills
• Monitoring and controlling your situation through your mindset and attitude

That’s the great thing about LDR; if you go into it looking at it as a way to grow and appreciating the sheer awesomeness of love worth doing the distance for, you won’t fall into the trap of feeling sorry for yourself. I have used all these skills that being in an LDR taught me multiple times to keep my marriage strong.

Yes, you will miss each other and sometimes it will suck, but those are the times you do something nice for your partner. Look back through your photos together and make a cute slide-show. Send her a photo and say, “I wanted to share this with you,” and, “You’re always on my mind, no matter where I am.” Include her in your life by telling her the gritty details about it and by talking to people about her. Nothing feels quite as flattering as your partner saying, “I was bragging about you at work today.”

Lastly, it’s great to have fun and make memories, but remember the main reason you are going is to study and build a future that you’ll share with her, so keep that at the forefront of your mind and don’t get carried away trying to go to every party or becoming super popular. Make your study and your relationship the highest priority and you’ll both do fine.

One thing I personally found helped more than anything else was always sending Mr. E a message or phoning him when I got home from wherever. He did the same for me. This gave us a sense that at the end of every day we always “came home” to each other, even if one of us was long asleep.