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Do you have a plan to be closer?


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Been really struggling with my LDR, even though I know if I ended it I'd feel worse. Maybe its harder because we have no plan to eventually be closer together.

 

Does everyone else have a plan? And if so when did you think of it and how did you agree on it?

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Do you really have no plan at all, not even an indication? How come? Since it would really help coping with the distance.

 

Me and my girlfriend are both studying at universities, and we talked about our future together A LOT. And we will try to at least do out master programmes in the same country, or perhaps even the same university. Afterour studies we want to start living together.

 

We're not really sure on the details or if that it will all work out, but we at least have laid down the blueprint.

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We've had to recently revise our first plan, which we formulated after a year and a half of knowing each other.

 

Now at 8 months of exclusive dating, we're throwing together a great little plan with a lot of potential, personally and professionally.

 

It was easy to agree on since we're like-minded people.

We both have each others' best interest in mind.

We wanted whoever moved to be excited about it; to have something other than the SO to look forward to in their new country.

A friend just closed the distance on his LDR.

He reminded me that it doesn't just have to be overwhelming ; it can be FUN too.

That mindset helped his gf and him stay positive during the process, and find a satisfying solution.

They're quite happy now. :)

 

Do you mind sharing how long you've been dating and any ideas you've come up with?

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We've been dating 8 months now visiting each other ever other weekend but no plan to move closer or anything. Its really hard sometimes. But I'm scared to bring up the future. Maybe because I know on some level that it doesn't look good. :(

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We did have a plan early on in our r/ship, or rather he did, he was going to move over within a couple of years but his job transfer didn't happen, so for the last 2 years we have no plans to be closer, he seems to be ok with the situation, but I'm finding it increasingly harder, will be 3 years we've been together in Spring, and I can't do this indefinitely.

I'm torn about us, I know I should end it, but finding it too hard to because we have a lot of love between us. The whole thing is making me ill now.

 

I wouldn't recommend an LDR to anyone unless it's possible for them to move.

I would never go into an LDR again, it's too heartbreaking.

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We've been dating 8 months now visiting each other ever other weekend but no plan to move closer or anything. Its really hard sometimes. But I'm scared to bring up the future. Maybe because I know on some level that it doesn't look good. :(

 

We were there.

Both of us avoided talking about it for the EXACT reason you mentioned.

So I understand.

But nothing got rolling until we finally did.

As scary as it is, it MUST be done.

 

Don't give up on the relationship until you have a few of those conversations, ok?

Because at first, yes, you'll find obstacles.

But don't be discouraged.

There could be ways around them.

We found one but wouldn't have had we not put our heads together.

 

Know broaching the subject is scary and that's okay.

As one of my favorite American Buddhist nuns likes to say:

To first reach fearlessness, one must feel fear. :)

 

We did have a plan early on in our r/ship, or rather he did, he was going to move over within a couple of years but his job transfer didn't happen, so for the last 2 years we have no plans to be closer, he seems to be ok with the situation, but I'm finding it increasingly harder, will be 3 years we've been together in Spring, and I can't do this indefinitely.

I'm torn about us, I know I should end it, but finding it too hard to because we have a lot of love between us. The whole thing is making me ill now.

I wouldn't recommend an LDR to anyone unless it's possible for them to move.

I would never go into an LDR again, it's too heartbreaking.

 

Completely agree with the bolded.

 

And I'm sorry, HOH. xx

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We did have a plan early on in our r/ship, or rather he did, he was going to move over within a couple of years but his job transfer didn't happen, so for the last 2 years we have no plans to be closer, he seems to be ok with the situation, but I'm finding it increasingly harder, will be 3 years we've been together in Spring, and I can't do this indefinitely.

I'm torn about us, I know I should end it, but finding it too hard to because we have a lot of love between us. The whole thing is making me ill now.

 

I wouldn't recommend an LDR to anyone unless it's possible for them to move.

I would never go into an LDR again, it's too heartbreaking.

 

So sorry to hear that. :( Must be so hard coping with all that. I do sometimes think I'm not built for coping with this. Sometimes think it may be making my health struggles worse too. I think my bf is ok with our situation too, so I wonder if maybe I'm worrying too much.

 

We were there.

Both of us avoided talking about it for the EXACT reason you mentioned.

So I understand.

But nothing got rolling until we finally did.

As scary as it is, it MUST be done.

 

Don't give up on the relationship until you have a few of those conversations, ok?

Because at first, yes, you'll find obstacles.

But don't be discouraged.

There could be ways around them.

We found one but wouldn't have had we not put our heads together.

 

Know broaching the subject is scary and that's okay.

As one of my favorite American Buddhist nuns likes to say:

To first reach fearlessness, one must feel fear. :)

 

I did mention my worries to him before but he doesn't see it as a problem I think. I really don't know what to do, to get him to understand how hard it is for me and start thinking about possible future solutions. I don't want to push him, maybe I need to just handle my worries better.

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Some people think that I was thinking too far ahead when I mentioned that my SO and I have already started talking about the future, but as I see it, when beginning an LDR, there must be an initial talk about the future. There was no way that I would lay down my heart for someone who lives so far away if there was no possibility of a future together (I'm not getting any younger!). If it was determined that neither of us were willing to move, we would have called ourselves friends from that point on. But I'm a planner, so what was important to me may not be important or relevant to anyone else.

 

We don't have a set schedule because there are variables that could change, but at least we know who will be moving and what those variables are.

 

I would suggest bringing it up to him and at least letting him know how you feel. If this was a close distance relationship, you wouldn't have to think about the future right now, but it's not. LDRs are different. If you are not willing to move in the future, I think it's even more important to talk to him, because if he's not willing to move either, are you willing to have an indefinite LDR?

 

I wish you the best of luck and I agree with HoH, I would never begin another LDR. They can be very difficult, but as my SO says: in this case, the risk is worth the reward.

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I agree, the future does need to be spoken about quite early on, in case you invest too much into it and then realise you can't move to be together.

 

On the other hand talking about it in the early days can mean talking about it when you're all caught up in the excitement of it all, honeymoon phase, and then when reality catches up with you you might have given false promises which in the cold light of day you can't carry through.

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The truth is I'm at a point where I'm scared of a future where I may have to move away from my current life. I don't know if I want that. But its also unfair to ask him to move away from his life.

 

So either way will be long distance for years yet with maybe no solution in the end.

 

Also I think I'm scared to tell him exactly what I want in case he doesn't want it.

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We've been together for 6-7 months and we haven't had the discussion yet. The thing is, we're in the same place in our lives. We're not ready to settle down right now, but we want to in the next 2-3 years. We've established that we have the same core values and everything and we even talked about kids (not ours but in general) and how we would be a parent. I sometimes want to have this conversation because as a planner, I just want to know. Even if it's 2 years out from now, I just want to know. But I also know there are a few things right now he's doing (buying his first home home not a condo) and wants to have settled before having that discussion. I know his plans are to do this within this year. He's mentioned to me that he is always the one who is the caregiver. I've never been in a relationship like that. In fact, my last relationship I was the provider. So there's a part of me that feels he doesn't want to bring it up until he has the ability to 'take care of me'. Knowing him, he would NOT ask me to move when his condo is way too small for the both of us and he's not financially ready to purchase his new home yet. I would be coming from a different Country where, unless I have a job lined up (which is hard to do unless you work for a global company), Visa's can take awhile to get. So he wouldn't feel right asking me to move until he could provide for me. I've never needed someone to provide for me but I understand the situation we're in. Maybe I am naive but I believe that we'll get there... plus it's not a discussion about who will move where. I just know for his occupation, he is better in the state he is in and I would be moving to him. I think because I've mentioned finding work in his Country so many times, it's now a given. Plus, I would LOVE to live where he is.

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I think it's definitely important to have a plan for sure.

 

We have plans on how we would see each other for the next three years fairly consistently (he's in Australia, I'm in United States). I think it's necessary in order to keep looking at an end goal VS just feeling overwhelmed by the distance.

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My ex and I used to have a sort of plan. It was very projected-into-the-future though due to our circumstances.

 

We were in a LDR (Australia & the US), online / text / phone only, and both are with other partners.

 

Originally, we planned for him to get enough money so he could move out of his house (where he lives with his partner and her 3 adult children), and then come and visit me to see “how we go” and whether we still wanted to be together and really live together. He also had to wait 6 months until his partner got the pay rise she’d been promised for a while, so she could afford to take care of her kids without him, so he wouldn’t feel as much like he was deserting her.

 

Finding a job and enough money was hard in the US economy for him. Then he got sick and was in the hospital for a week. He is much older than me (he’s 61 now, I’m 34) and he realised at this time that he didn’t have much of an ability to get a large sum of money and he wasn’t stable enough health-wise to live by himself and forge a new life over in Australia with me (who has no money of my own, and no health insurance, which he now needs). His partner wanted to marry him so he did (social standing and stability for her, financial stability and her employer’s health insurance for him).

 

So after THAT, our plans went out the window and we just regressed back to enjoying what we had online and through texts, etc. It was hard though to adapt and give up on the dream we’d had of really being together.

 

Then it ended when he left. I guess being together online only, with no hope of it ever being “real” wasn’t enough of a “reward” to counteract the difficulty he experienced in trying to live two lives, with me and with his wife over there.

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It's important to have a plan but not rush into it either.

 

My boyfriend had a plan very early into our relationship. It didn't work out well after a few months and after an almost break up, we decided to toss the plan. It was his idea to toss the plan and I just had to go along with it because as lame as this may sound, I love him too much to let things go. A couple of months and a visit between us and no talks about moving or planing or nothing was mentioned. Sp we just went with things for a few more months, eventually I did tell him within the next year we'd make a new plan. I just couldn't deal with no having a plan whatsoever. Five months down the line, he came to me making a plan which of course got me very excited. Like we originally planned he'll be moving here, this time however I have my own place (this reduced one stressful element). Just recently we revised our plan from Sept 2013 to June 2013. With our anniversary in tow, I just needed some reaffirmation and asked if we could talk about our plan. He suggested moving it up to June and we talked gas prices and an est. idea of how much money we'll need to save. We agreed that in April, we will discuss exact details such as a date etc etc.

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Thanks everyone for your replies. I'm still really worried about my long distance relationship. But hope in time we will put some plan in place.

 

I think he is happy with things as they are so it may just be me. If the distance continues to be a problem for me I may need to talk to him again. But as there is nothing really to do seems I will have to get used to it.

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I think he is happy with things as they are so it may just be me. If the distance continues to be a problem for me I may need to talk to him again. But as there is nothing really to do seems I will have to get used to it.

 

I brought up a topic that is more or less the same as yours except it is about marriage because it is the only way to REALLY close the distance. My boyfriend and me talked about this a few times but only in general, nothing too specific, no time frame. I know that down the line, we will eventually get there. The thing is, I want to know exactly when so I can be prepared because, just like you, it is hard for me to leave my current life to be with him but that is the best option for us because I speak English pretty well and he don't speak my country's language.

 

The whole LDR thing is really hard on us eventhough we skype with each other at least 4 hours everyday, more on the weekends. EVERYDAY. He's having it harder than me I can tell. So, he is the one who 'seriously' brought marriage topic up first. I used to joke about how in my culture, there are traditions that needs to be followed, during the first couple of months of knowing each other, he took them lightly, but now he's really keen on meeting my dad :eek:

 

Enough about myself... I think you should talk to him about the distance.. It's better than know for sure than wondering what... it doesn't have to be a serious conversation, just bring the topic up casually.. eg. "if we were to close the distance, who will move?" -- That is IF you're really comfortable with each other to have that conversation.

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I brought up a topic that is more or less the same as yours except it is about marriage because it is the only way to REALLY close the distance. My boyfriend and me talked about this a few times but only in general, nothing too specific, no time frame. I know that down the line, we will eventually get there. The thing is, I want to know exactly when so I can be prepared because, just like you, it is hard for me to leave my current life to be with him but that is the best option for us because I speak English pretty well and he don't speak my country's language.

 

I'm glad you've talked about it with your boyfriend, Life.

 

As HeavenOrHell mentioned in her post, it's a delicate balance: Talk about it too soon, and your plans may not be realistic....wait to speak about it, and your relationship could already be worn thin.

 

Talking about it sooner than later is preferable, I think.

Should people go the marriage route, the Visa process can take quite a while in and of itself.

Better to know what all is involved early on.

 

Enough about myself... I think you should talk to him about the distance.. It's better than know for sure than wondering what... it doesn't have to be a serious conversation, just bring the topic up casually.. eg. "if we were to close the distance, who will move?" -- That is IF you're really comfortable with each other to have that conversation.

I agree.

OP, allowing anxiety to build around an issue leads to needless worry and suffering.

Just the anticipation can make one anxious.

Of course it's your choice, but it seems having the discussion beats the alternative.

Good luck. :)

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