The Final Step

Dear Lucinda,

Eight odd years is a long time to stay in contact and maintain an attraction to someone; effectively carrying on a non-committed LDR. You stayed in touch and continued to visit T even though you were in a relationship with someone else. Why would you do that, only to not follow through at the crucial moment?

You’ve come this far!

Additionally, it’s clear you’re not afraid of travel. There’s no reason you can’t visit your family and friends the way you once visited T. I’m not saying it will be easy, I don’t know how much time you spend with your people or how big of an impact their presence has on your day-to-day life. But I do feel like you must have felt this move coming like an inevitable storm. You’ve had time to think about it. Years, even. This is the way forward.

When I have a big decision to make, I ask myself, “What’s the absolute worst that could happen?”

In this case, the worst is probably you move in together to find you’re not compatible. You’d likely move home and have to find a new job, a new place to live. You might lose a bunch of your stuff and you might be a bit embarrassed. But really, that’s not the end of the world, is it? You could keep a separate savings account prepared just in case you ever need to set your life back up.

Talk to him about what you’ll do if you don’t like living in his country. Ask him what would happen if the relationship was great, but you couldn’t get fulfilling work, or you hated the weather, or whatever. Make a back-up plan. I say this because I’m very much in-tune to the land and I personally hated living off-shore. You would think Australia and Canada aren’t much different, but they are. The land speaks differently; the people act different, social norms aren’t the same, and the weather! For me, living away from my family was too much to ask. I did it for a couple of years and was miserable. In a lot of hetero relationships, the plan is often that the woman moves to the man, but sometimes that doesn’t work. Make sure he’d be willing to make the same sacrifices for you and that your happiness is just as important to T as his own.

There’s obviously something very compelling between the two of you. Whilst I can’t make this decision, I’m going to leave you with a saying that often crosses my mind:

“It’s better to regret something you did, than regret not doing it.”