Life after the distance

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I’ve said my piece on long distance relationships (LDRs). No, I am not a fan, but yes, as I stated, there are instances where it may transition into a realtime relationship successfully, however this process takes at least just as much effort, and it is a lot more complex than people imagine initially.

In my opinion, this transition works best when two whole, emotionally fit people come together. Any cracks in the amour – the needy, the commitment-o-phobe, the serial relationship-er for example, as was mentioned in this article here, will be exposed and the transition will not last as long as the Red House fire.

You’ve managed to soldier through it, you’ve made your plans to unite at said time and the time is drawing near. How do you prepare for such a change?

First things first you don’t just ups, drop your life as you know it, and move. Noone ever tells the end of the fairytale story to riding off in the sunset on a horse like that. Know why? Because it always ends disastrous, and noone wants their kids to see that, so the story ends there.

Change that is that simple and drastic never works. Even with the most successful change, people, including you, need time to adapt.

What’s the best way to make the transition? My top 3 tips.

1. You BOTH have to move. Period.

Packing up and moving your life is stressful; one of the most stressful things you can experience in life. As a matter of fact, it’s ranked up there with death in the family, changing careers, divorce, and yes, marriage. Pure stress.

Even if only one is moving countries, the other person should do some moving of some sort – move apartments, neighbourhoods, states – SOMETHING, so that you BOTH have the feeling of dealing with displacement. I say this not to make lives unnecessarily miserable, but that both people are required to adapt and figure out this thing called life together rather than just one, the one who’s moved.

It’s less of a transition initially for the person who hasn’t moved, as everything is familiar – the neighbourhood, their friends, their routine. Trying to fit something new into something routine will always bring conflict, and so the person who hasn’t moved will feel the transition somewhere further down the relationship timeline, and as such the adaptation timing will be out of sync.

Also, and more importantly for me, when both people move, noone has any right to any property. Noone is ‘displaced’, and so there is no accidental talk about ‘my’ closet and ‘my’ apartment. Dem dere is fighting words son/ m’am. We are all aware that statements such as these are no-nos – Noone wants to hear or make that slip, but it will come out in the heat of an argument. Guaranteed.

2. Maintain your independence

Particularly important in relationships where most of the relationship has been LD, and you have never been in the same space with the person before, far less lived with them.

It is going to be very difficult for you if you are the one who’s moving to a new location, so it is imperative that you find out as much about the place as possible before your final move. Visit it if you can, look it up online, do your research. Check out possible job opportunities, or schools even if you are into that thing, or around that age.  Check out things that you can do, alone or together, depending on the dynamics of your relationship, and keep yourself occupied.

It took dedicated focus to make the LDR work, and trust that the work does not stop when you unite location wise. If anything else, the work has just started cause you now have to figure out how to exist with this person in your space 24-7.

3. Have a support network

OUTSIDE of your significant other. Enough of the fairy tales already, it can’t be both of you guys against the world. This world is entirely too small for that nonsense. It wasn’t like that in the LDR and it isn’t going to work like that in the long term in your realtime relationship. Initially perhaps, but ‘forever’ is a long time and so that initial euphoria gets stale real fast – 6 months to a year tops, sooner for most. After that, real life starts to creep in and you have real life issues and challenges to deal with – You both need people.

Do not alienate the people who supported you before. There may be a natural tendency to just place everything on the back of your pardner or when you feel that you are overwhelmed but we aren’t camels and so it takes very few straws for said back to break before even bending. It didn’t happen whole relationship long, so don’t expect that strategy to work overnight. It wouldn’t.

b Freakin’Fabulous

Photo: m_bartosch / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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