Dear Miss U,
I have been in a long-distance relationship with my boyfriend for over three years now. I know he is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. I love the time I spend with him and my heart breaks every time I have to leave him. We live about 5 hours apart and with our schedules we only get to see each other about one weekend a month at most. We have talked about marriage and we both know we want to be together. Because of our situation with our work and our finances, it won’t be until the summer of 2014 that we will be able to get married. That summer we plan to get married and I will to his current town where we hope to get a house together. We do not want to live together before getting married and because of our jobs I cannot move there (even if it were my own apartment) until that summer. So my question is about the transition from a LDR to being married and living together. Is that typically hard for couples? Is there something we can do to make the transition easier? Am I just overthinking the whole thing? I am looking forward to marrying him, and being able to be with him without having to worry about leaving again. Thanks for any advice!
Hopeful in the Carolinas
Dear Hopeful,
That’s a big and drastic change you’ll be jumping right into, and on one hand it will be amazing and beautiful, on the other it’s likely to be hard. Moving in together is usually a big enough step for people who close the distance, whereas marriage has this heavy sense of permanency to it that can make people feel trapped when things do not run as smoothly as they had at first imagined. All at once your life is going to be something new. Most couples do seem to have some adjustment hiccups when going from a long distance relationship to a near proximity one. Some couples also experience a disappointment, or feeling of flatness, after marriage because of unrealistic expectations, or not having anything to look forward too once the confetti has settled.
To make this leap forward you both need to be very realistic, and talk long and hard about what you are expecting it to be like – right down to the small details.
- Whose duties are what within the home?
- What of gender roles?
- Is it ok to have friends over without giving the other much notice?
- Who cooks dinner, and what time do you expect dinner to be?
- How will finances be managed? Is it practical? Will it lead to resentment or feelings of dependency?
- What will your evenings after work be like? Will you want to spend that time together, or doing your own things?
- Do you expect to go to bed together at the same time every night?
Think about your everyday life as it is now. And think about how you’d like it to be (but make sure you note when you are being unrealistic. You might like to spend an hour at the gym every day, but if you don’t have that motivation, own it.) Share that with him, and ask about his everyday life and how he’d like it to be when you’re together. Look for ways you can help and encourage each other, whist still maintaining quality time together.
I would highly recommend a pre-marital course if at all possible.
Talking and being prepared will make the transition easier, as will maintaining your own groups of friends and your own hobbies after marriage. Giving up who you are or spending every waking moment together (even though that’s very desirable) will strain your relationship. You certainly can get too much of a good thing. It’s also necessary to guard against becoming lazy and taking each other for granted. Remember the things you used to court each other, and what you enjoyed together before marriage, and keep it up even as everyday life starts to infringe.
You have plenty of time before this happens, so don’t worry too much, and if at all possible, aim to have a long visit (more than a month) there between now and then. It will help you both pick up on little habits or quirks that might need working through before the big move; likely things you don’t realise that you do or things that you may feel wouldn’t irritate anyone and thus wouldn’t bring up.
Dear Miss U,
My boyfriend and I have been together since the first week of college. Now we’ve graduated and are heading off in different places for a little while. After a lot of discussion we decided to continue our relationship through the distance. We’re both happy with our choice, even though we miss each other like mad.
However, my brother is dead set against this. He is really important to me and, though I don’t plan to end things with my boyfriend because of his complaints, I worry about how I will cope with the distance amongst the constant criticism of my brother. Help?
Oh, Brother
Dear OB,
Unfortunately you just can’t please everyone all of the time.
I would start by seriously asking your brother why he’s so against this, take his feelings into consideration, and reassure him that whist you are going to do this anyway, you have taken his concerns to heart and will look out for yourself. Hopefully he’s acting like this out of concern rather than malice. If things continue, you could try not talking about your relationship around him, or simply ignoring his comments. The latter of which isn’t easy, but we can’t control the actions of others and if he refuses to be supportive there’s not much you can do.
