How to tell if LDR is going well??

[jams]

Hi ya i'm brand shining new to this site, just having a browse on the net and came across it. Am supposed to be writing an essay right now but can't concentrate because have LDR problems that i need to get off my chest - so for the sake of my essay i'll keep it shortish.

 

i've been going out with a lovely canadian guy for 14 months now. i was studying in canada for a year and that was how we met. we met early on so we spent about 8 months actually being a proper couple before we had to do the long distance thing. I went travelling for 3 months on my own wh ile i was in Canada and the hardest thing i've ever done was leave the guy behind it is the first time i've properly fallen in love with someone. .

 

So after travelling on my own i went back to canada and we spent about six weeks together solidly and we both had a really good time and it was great, if a little intense. Then i returned to the uk but have been really down for a while since i miss living over there and i have to finish uni here before i can do anything else. i went back to canada for a week to see him and that it wasn't quite like it used to be. He just came here for three weeks and left yesterday during that time i was really snappy with him, we had a good time but i'm not really myself at the moment and have a lot in my own life to sort out.

 

My main problem is that i don't know if i've fallen out of love with him or whether things have just 'faded' due to it being a long term relationship or its because of the long distance . Or things could just feel a bit flat because in general i'm stressed out at uni and have no idea what i'm going to do after etc. He is still totally in love with me and for him things keep getting better, while i am always looking back to the first few months we were together and comparing them negatively with how it is now.

 

While he was here i told him that i no longer saw us as having a definite future together (he has plans to be here for the summer) which devastated him, but i couldn't bring myself to break up with him because i might never see him again. i know that he wants us to keep going at the relationship until it can be a 'normal' one. i am thinking that yes maybe it would be good in the summer but i am also thinking that maybe i am better off on my own. Much of this, i feel has to do with the fact that this is my first long term relationship and that previously i just had a lot of flings, a lot of male attention and that although they didn't make me happy like he makes me happy i am missing that.

 

I know that for a good relationship to work you have to work hard at it, you can't just let it slide by, but on the other hand, how do you tell when it really has deteriorated? When we see each other for one week, three weeks its 24/7 in each other s pockets and very intense. i'm not very good at that, i'm the kind of person who needs lots of space... so essentially i'm not sure what i think about it anymore, would love to hear from someone in a relatively similar position or someone in my boyf's position etc. or general advice that will stop me worrying and help me finish my essays!!

 

oops so much for the 'shortish' posting. sorry.

[moimeme]

My touchstone for any relationship has always been how my life looks when I contemplate the person not being in it anymore. When my gut drops to the floor on that speculation and the future loses its shine, there's my answer.

 

that previously i just had a lot of flings, a lot of male attention and that although they didn't make me happy like he makes me happy i am missing that

 

If you miss that more than you would miss him if he were gone, there's your answer. It is my opinion that one ought to prefer the company of one's mate to almost everything else. If the pleasure of his company is not sufficient to make up for the loss of 'flings and male attention', then you don't love him enough. It's not as though you'd be having to give up a career you adored or a home you were seriously attached to - it's just a question of giving up some social interaction.

[mintjulep]

Sure, all relationships take work, but you have to work a little harder at LDRs than almost any other relationship. In the end it comes down to whether or not you know what you are working toward a common goal. It's only worth all of the hard work and "hassle" if you think the relationship is something worth saving or maintaining or whatnot. If you two have a common goal (to be together eventually), then it will work out, if you're crazy enough to be in an LDR because you have to be crazy to love someone so far away, right?

 

My mom always told me that if it was meant to be, then it was meant to be. So even if you break it off now, you may end up in his area when you finish school. If you'd rather not be in a long distance relationship, because they are tough, then by all means, don't string him along. Also, you may start seeing someone else eventually and realize your true love is in Canada Besides, it's unfair to him to want too much of your own space when he flies all the way to the UK to see you. (you might find "alone time" the same way couples who vacation together find-and need-alone time, so there's nothing inherently wrong with it, unless there is a deeper underlying meaning to it.)

 

If you really want to be with him, give it a little bit of work, but if your feelings are just lukewarm , then do him a favor and let him go. Even if you love him you have to really want to be with him - it's hard to hurt people you love, but then again wouldn't it be harder on him if you and he made it to two years, three years, four, etc. before you realized you wanted something else? Or if you two were physically together again, and you felt differently about the relationship? You might be doing yourself a favor, as well as him, because then you'd be able to have more male attention, and you wouldn't have to feel guilty about it.

[jams]

Thanks guys, very useful advice there... i think i have some thinking to do!