Dear Miss U,
Me and my girl met on a site called Omegle about a year ago. We started talking every day quite soon after I met her, texting her via Gmail, talking via Facebook. I started to like her quite fast. One night, under the supporting talk of my friends, I took my shot and asked her if she wanted a relationship with me. I’m glad she said yes, since then I found out she is the love of my life, my first and, hopefully, only girlfriend. Yet we live almost 3500 miles away, myself in The Netherlands, her in Minnesota. We have yet to meet in real. We Skype everyday, considering the time difference of 7 hours I Don’t get too much sleep but I don’t mind. We both don’t mind the distance and have our first meet planned in June 2015. Yet, her parents don’t like her being with me, they don’t trust me to be who I say I am and are. Do you have any tips on how to make them believe it? She is scared her parents will forbid her to talk to me and take away her phone and tablet which she uses to text and Skype with me. We are both desperate as we don’t know what to do and we would like to tell them before I actually go there. Do you have any advice or tips for us?
– Koen
Dear Koen,
What you describe is sadly all too common for younger people in long distance relationships. Meeting online does have a bad reputation, possibly because like anything the stories one is most likely to hear are the disasters.
If her parents are not completely unreasonable, they should be willing to talk to you over Skype, or at the very least, the telephone. I know international phoning is painfully expensive, but you could call from your computer through Skype to a medium that they are more likely to be comfortable with in the event they won’t give you the time of day online. Once they have spoken to you and hopefully seen your face, it should help. It seems like every parent is afraid their little girl is talking to some unwashed forty year old predator, and showing them you’re not that, but a young, honest normal-looking guy can help. Another idea is to have your parents meet hers over Skype. Your girlfriend could ask her parents what would help them believe the fact you are who you claim to be as well.
What also helps is if the first visit consists of you traveling, rather than your girlfriend. I personally believe that it’s out-dated and sexist to expect the male of a relationship to travel first, but it does play into the expectations of her parent’s generation.
Remember at all times to keep it above board. You will do yourselves no favors in the long term by going behind her parent’s backs or lying to them, and yes, definitely tell them about the visit before it happens!
Sometimes, no matter how honest you are, no matter how genuine your character or relationship, parents may not want to hear it or accept that their children are dating. In the event that does happen and your girlfriend does lose access to her phone and tablet, have a back-up plan: such as a physical address you can write to or a mutual friend who’d be willing to aid your communications until you are legally adults. Though it wouldn’t be enjoyable, as worst-case scenarios never are, it is very possible to continue a long distance relationship via letters alone. The famous poet Elizabeth Barrett-Browning had just such a relationship well before any of us were born.
Dear Miss U,
Honestly, how does one go about keeping faith in a LDR? Especially when your significant other never can remember you had a “date” over the phone/online and wants to be with his friends instead. When you make plans and he breaks them…
How do you keep the faith when he never wants to talk about the future, but when you tell him you wanna move further away, he gets upset, even though he doesn’t wanna do anything to change the fact that you guys COULD be living together. Stress where I live, stress in my relationship, it is…too much at times. I wanna live with him, I understand he doesn’t, but I cannot live where I do any longer, and I cannot have him guilt tripping me to stay where I am depressed any longer. Especially when he will not help. So tell me, how do you keep the faith in a relationship like this…
Crissie
Dear Crisse,
Honestly? You don’t. Or I wouldn’t. There is no reason for you to keep the faith in a one sided relationship where he places his interests high above your needs. It’s time he stepped up to the plate. You need him right now, and if he is genuinely not ready to progress this relationship with you (which is entirely fair, you haven’t been together very long) then he has no right to ask you to suffer where you are until he is.
I think it’s time you put yourself first. Do what you need to do for you, because it sounds a lot like he doesn’t hold this relationship as a priority anyway.
Dear Miss U,
Me and my boyfriend live in England. In about two months, I will be moving to Florida. We have talked about it and want to have a LDR. We are not apart often so we are not use to hanging out with other people. My question is How do we deal with jealousy as we are going from seeing each other every day to only skyping when the time zones match up a bit. And of course we will have to hang out with friends a lot more now that we won’t be with each other all the time. Please any advice on what will make it easier. We trust each other just know it might make us worried.
Kaci
Dear Kaci,
The best thing for both of you to cultivate is the ability to see within yourself whether or not you are being unreasonable. Feelings happen, and jealousy is inevitably one of them, but if you can step back and look at a situation logically and admit to yourself that you are over-reacting or needlessly getting upset, that will go a long way.
Keeping each other as a priority, and making time for those Skype dates will also help. Managing a time difference isn’t easy. It’s going to be a rare day where the differences just magically line up, so make the commitment now to put aside time for each other. Remember to keep each other at the same level of priority as when you were living near-proximity.
If both of you feel valued and confident in the relationship; jealousy has a much smaller opportunity to take hold.
