Food for thought: together vs. apart

[Mrin]

I'm in a wildly successful LDR. I've been in both "meh" and complete cluster copulation LDR's in my past. So I kinda know what I'm talking about when I say this one is different.

 

The Short: I live 4 hours away and have 50% custody of my two girls. Their mother will not consider relocation. My custody schedule is weekly meaning we alternate weeks. Thus we are together every other week.

 

This arrangement will persist until one of three things happens: 1) my ex agrees to relocate to the city in which my soulmate lives, 2) her ex agrees to relocate to my town (she has joint custody of her boys as well) or 3) the youngest graduates from high school in 9 years.

 

What's Different This Time? Lots of things. Our ages. Our life stages. The mind blowing connection we have.

 

But I wanted to share one thing that we did deliberately that we both feel has not only made the LDR work, but has brought some intrinsic qualities to the relationship that in some ways make our LDR better than a full time in person relationship. I've alluded to it in my past posts but I thought I would share it in more detail.

 

The Problem With LDR's: There are a lot of problems that distance presents in a relationship. But one of the biggest is lack of connection when you are apart. You LDR veterans know what I'm talking about. You have your regularly scheduled phone calls or Skype sessions. You send text messages to each other and maybe chat via an IM client. But as the days pass, you become increasingly disconnected from each other. The phone conversations are bland - you naturally stay away from inflammatory topics. You share how your day went and hear about the other's. You talk about the daily trials of life. The minutiae.

 

Why? Because that's how you experience life when you are together. Dinner table conversation. All that. It is ordinary. But the ordinariness of it brings a sense of being together, right? A sense of consistency. A routine. Your shared routine. And you punctuate it with so much non-verbal communication. Experts say that 70% of communication is non-verbal. So yes, hearing about the work drama or the kids drama may be ordinary, but when you are cuddling on the couch or staring into her eyes the color of the North Sea, it becomes something else. Then punctuate it with the physical closeness and intimacy and it becomes extraordinary.

 

But when you are apart and still try to live your lives this way it becomes exceedingly ordinary. And boring. And so many other things. You pull back a little here and there. Become a little numb to it. And before long you're disconnected from the other person and the LDR becomes a burden to heavy to carry. You resent it. And before long, you resent the other person.

 

Stop Pretending Like You're There: So what did we do differently? We decided to stop pretending like we were together when we are apart. It started out with a thought - I remember reading somewhere that President Regan wrote a letter to Nancy every day of their lives together. She saved them all and treasured them. Something there struck a chord in me. I wanted that.

 

That's what I started doing at the onset of our relationship. I wrote her something every few nights before I went to bed. Sometimes it was just a short letter. I would write from the heart. Sometimes it was about us. About how she made me feel. But other times it was about crazy notions or ideas or dreams or fears or desires... It spanned the gamut. I would email it before I went to bed (night owl) and she would read it when she woke up (early riser). Soon she was sending back her own thoughts.

 

Letters turned into essays. And poems. Sometimes short stories. We even tried collaboratively writing a fable together. I'd write a couple of pages and she'd pick up and write a few more. Soon the ordinary discussions that we were having on the phone, or text had nothing to do with this oh so extraordinary conversation we were having through correspondence. We set up a private joint blog to keep track of it all.

 

We eventually found that we couldn't stomach too much ordinary on the phone. When we would find ourselves mired in the ordinary on the phone one of us would call it out and we'd work on elevating our phone conversations. It was exhilarating. And when we wouldn't write for periods of time, things just felt "off"

 

A Peculiar Thing Happened: Last week when we were together, we were talking about all of this one night. My soulmate just sort of blurted out a confession of sorts: while she treasured the time we spent together, she also looked forward to our time apart so we could continue our "apart" correspondence. You see, when we are together we live like we're together. Dinner table conversations. Groceries. The ordinary. We missed this extraordinary dialog that we have when we're apart. She said she looked forward to our apart weeks sort of like a kid looks forward to unwrapping presents on Christmas morning. I laughed and completely agreed.

 

Side Note: I don't mean to diminish our "together" time. We are _that_ couple. We are terribly affectionate. We nauseate people. We have a chemistry that is intoxicating. Every day is one big adventure. An opportunity for romance for passion. I swear we communicate telepathically. Sex, sex is something far beyond anything I ever knew or dreamt of.

 

Which brought us to a funny conclusion - perhaps sometimes when we are together, we need to pretend like we're apart. And that's when it struck me - what we have in our LDR is so different. So extraordinary. Works so much better for us that we need to find ways to bring the extraordinary elements we invented for when we are apart into the times in our lives when we're together.

 

That my friends, is our story. I don't know if this will help anyone but I thought I would share the experience. I guess if I had to find a moral of the story it would be this: find a way, some way, any way, to make an extraordinary and persistent connection when you are apart. For us it was correspondence. But for others it might be something different. But find a way to make the apart times extraordinary.

 

Best of luck!

 

Mrin

Edited April 8, 2015 by Mrin

[Michelle ma Belle]

Thank you Mrin. Reading this felt like reading my own LDR love story. I couldn't have said it better or agreed more

 

At the end of the day, whether you're together or apart it's about making a consistent effort to keep your relationship alive. It's as much about all the tiny minutia as much as it is about the big grand gestures. It's being on the same page with your partner at all times and making communication paramount. Had a bit of goofy and spontaneity and the world's your oyster.

 

I've always said that complacency is the death of any relationship regardless of distance or gender or whether it's romantic or platonic.

 

Personally, I feel like romance, real romance like what you see in the old movies are a thing of the past anymore. And that's such a shame. If done right, LDR can actually reignite some of those old-world romantic gestures and bring them back in style again. At least it seems possible in my case and yours as well.

 

:D

 

Thanks for the post. A lovely read.

[Tayla]

in a nutshell absence makes the heart grow fonder. Please to read how this works for you. Thanks for cutting out the fat and getting to the essence of any relation. appreciation,wantings and regard. Best to you and your lady.

[Els]

OP, I'm very happy to hear that you and your partner are doing well, and that you've found an amazing connection. I agree with you that that - the extraordinary connection - is what makes a relationship, ANY relationship, worth the ride. May you two have many more happy years to come.

 

That being said, uh... at the risk of being a wet blanket, I will say that a LDR where you see each other every other week, is VERY different from a LDR where you see each other a few times a year. The two types of relationships are so different as to be almost incomparable. I say this as someone who has been through both with my SO - the 'seeing each other every 1 or 2 weeks' part was in no way comparable to the 'seeing each other every 6 months' part. In fact the former did not even feel like a LDR to me (I'm not saying you or others cannot consider it a LDR, just that it didn't feel like one personally) - it felt much closer to a same-town relationship on the spectrum, than it did to the VLDR.

 

So yes, absence can make the heart grow fonder - sometimes being apart for a while is just the spark that a couple needs to get a little extra romance going on, to nudge them out of the usual everyday routine. But if you're spending MONTHS on end without EVER being able to touch each other, or have dinner together, or have sex, or go out on dates... that just completely trumped any potential upsides for me during the once-every-6-months phase. I view that part of our relationship as an investment, which was certainly worth it, but that I would really not want to repeat if at all possible. On the other hand, during the once-every-one-or-two-weeks phase, the 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' part did come into play a bit, and perhaps offset the negatives to an extent.

 

I hope this doesn't come across as trying to belittle your experience, just that I know most people who are in a VLDR would get very frustrated to hear about how rosy it apparently is. I know I would've been in their position. It's just a different kettle of fish entirely.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Elswyth

[BluegrassBaldGuy]

OP, I really enjoyed your post! As someone who will soon be traveling a lot for my job, I've thought about how my dating life will change. There is a new girl who I like and we've both discussed some of the changes that we'll be facing soon. Some of your ideas about writing letters, sharing correspondence, etc are creative and clever. Seems like you came up with a great way to keep the flame alive in your relationship!

 

Kudos to you and thanks for sharing.

[Mrin]

Elswyth - you raise some excellent points. There are all degrees of LDR's and what works for a more frequent LDR like mine wouldn't suffice for a VLDR like you described. I've been in a VLDR once (see each other every 90 days) and I have to tell you I shuddered a bit just remembering it. I'm not sure I could do another if it were open ended. Temporary - ya, no problem. But open ended? That's a whole ball of wax!