Should a long-distance relationship discourage you? (Jenn’s take)

Similarly to Sean, I’ve been in two long-distance relationships: one ended well, and the other…did not.

I guess the best advice I have to offer is to challenge you to ask yourself why you’d want to go through that. As my relationship with Sean demonstrates, it’s possible to date long distance and have it work out. But it’s hard work, requires (in my opinion) much more commitment and effort on both people than regular dating, and has its own unique set of difficulties – in addition to the regular ones that come from starting a new relationship.

So, WHY would you want to do that?

If your answer is somewhere in the ballpark of, “Because I think he/she might be someone I could marry,” and both of you have discussed this and are willing to put forth the extra effort, then go for it! If it’s something more along the lines of, “Because we’ve been dating so long, so why not?” – I would encourage you to seriously reconsider.

I think it’s easiest to date long-distance when there’s some sort of timeline in place. For example, when Sean and I met, he was going off to school in South Carolina, and I was about to start my senior year in college. There were holiday breaks (Thanksgiving, Christmas, summer) that we knew he’d be home to visit during, we planned trips in the interim periods so we got to spend some time together, and I was anticipating graduating in August of 2006…so, in theory, I’d be available to move closer to him, should we decide to go that route, in about a year. If there was an undetermined amount of time that we were going to be apart, it would have made it SO much harder for the both of us…but we made our relationship a priority, and worked hard to keep it going.

I think one thing that helped me was familiarity with Sean’s surroundings. Since I had attended the same school he did, I could imagine where he was, or which professor he was talking about – things like that. Whereas, had he been somewhere completely unfamiliar to me, I would have felt more isolated from him.

As he mentioned, one of the hardest things for both of us (particularly me, I think) was knowing that there were other girls around him when I couldn’t be. This isn’t even to say that I thought he’d cheat on me, or leave me for another girl, but just knowing that they get to share in your boyfriend’s life while you’re 1200 miles away is really hard. Little things like eating lunch together, studying, shopping, whatever…it’s hard to know you’re missing out on those little things with someone you care about and, even worse, that someone else is getting to spend that time with them. At least, it was hard for me.

I think, if you’re seriously considering dating long-distance, that it’s crucial to reassess the relationship frequently. Make sure that, if either you or your boyfriend/girlfriend thinks they might not want to date anymore, that it’s brought up right away. You have to be honest, and deal with issues as they come.

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