Weddingbee boards

I live 1,500 miles away from my fiance. We've been long distance for 10 months and engaged for 5 months. Here's the thing: I'm having a hard time enjoying our relationship and engagement right now and I really feel like the long-distance is the culprit. I feel like being so many states away, we are leading almost completely seprate lives right now. I'm busy with a job and he is busy finishing up graduate school. Sometimes I feel like we don't have much time together ever - even on the phone. We make sure we see each other at least once every two months. We talk on the phone several times a day (but usually only for a few mins) and we do long-distance movie dates when we can.

After reading the 5 Love Languages, I've realized my primary love language is definitely quality time....and that totally explains why I am having such a hard time with this. Without lots of quality time and attention from my fiance, I'm left feeling disconnected from him and my "love tank" (forgive the weird terminology) a little low. Makes it really hard to enjoy being engaged and excited about planning our wedding when I feel like our lives are so seprate right now.

What do I do? He can't move because he is in grad school and has a lease on an apartment. I have a job in my state -- so the easy solution would be for me to move up to him. Well, in my career field it is crazy hard to get a job right now - nearly impossible in this economy to find a job....so I am darn lucky to have a job in my field - so I don't feel like it would be a wise decision for me to leave my job and give up a job I am lucky to have or the money it puts into my savings account to move to his state right now and face certain unemployment for many many months.

I just don't know how to deal with it all. We have 7 months left until the wedding and probably about 5 or 6 months left of long-distance. I know I should just suck it up, but I feel like the LD is putting a strain on our relationship at a time when we should be enjoying eachother and growing as a couple...but I don't see a solution. What would you do?

I'm long distance with my SO too, so I know the feeling of being disconnected.  We've been distance for almost 6.5 years at this point and he's finally moving here in June.  Honestly, if you know that it's going to be over soon then I would just hang tight.  5 months will honestly fly by.  Keep busy with your job, friends, a hobby to keep your mind of things.

You can still spend quality time even if you are long distance.  Make "phone dates" and watch a movie or a show you both like together.  My SO and I bought the game Battleship used to play it over the phone.  Use skype, IM, webcam...etc.  Before you know it it will be the end of the distance!

My FI and I started our relationship LD because I was in school at Ole Miss (and still am, 6 yr plan ha) and he is an officer in the army. He has now been at 2 different posts, both 8-10 hrs away so it's not like we could ever hop in the car and drive up anytime we wanted.

We have lived together in the middle of our relationship when I transfered schools to be closer to him and now he has deployed and I am back at Ole Miss. We dealt and are dealing with allllll the same issues that you are, so know that you are not alone!!

It's SOOOOOO hard being in a LD relationship, especially one where you're more than just a few hours away. Let me just say that before I moved to be closer, we did everything we could to see each other as frequent as possible and although it was every few weeks or once a month, we cherished each moment along with hating it at the same time. IT SUCKS!!

I decided to transfer schools and although I don't regret it, I wasn't completely happy. I LOVED being with him ALL the time and having a normal relationship but schoolwise, I hated it. Then deployment came up after a semester of living with him and we decided that it would be the best for me to go back to Ole Miss and back to LD, even though he still had a few months that we could be together. It was so hard to leave him and go back but I knew and still know that it was the best decision I could make and I love how he supported me and told me to go. Having his support was probably the only way I could have done it and he more than gave it.

Now he's deployed and we talk maybe once a week and I get a few sporatic texts or messages online. It sucks so bad and I hate it but it's brought us closer and made our bond tighter. We realize even more what we have with each other and don't take a single moment for granted.

From telling you my story, I guess I'm trying to tell you that it's going to be ok and if you really love each other (and obviously so, you're getting married!!) you want to make it work and will make it work. It's gets very stressful and frustrating and that's ok, it's nothing bad but you just have to work through and keep moving forward. He's worth it. I've gone 5 months today without seeing him and talking to him once a week and we're still going :)

My solution to you is probably just keep doing what you're doing, there's really not more you can do. Try emailing more, like even if it's a hey I love you or tell him about your day. Send him cards and letters, so sweet and so fun! I'm now OBSESSED with sending cards, from lovey dovey to sexy naughty to funny and he loves getting them. If you're comfortable, send him sexy or naughty pictures or just take pics of you doing daily things! Text. May sound silly but send love packages; fill it with his fav candy or snacks, a stuffed animal, a shirt with your perfume on it, pics, movies, etc. Just a little way to reach out, make it personal and tangible for him. Do you have webcams? If you don't, omg you HAVE to get them (and you can get them cheap, like $40 cheap!) and get on skype. Totally freee service for webcam to webcam and you can see each other and chat, BEST thing ever, let me tell you!

Another thing that you will look back on in retrospect and be thankful for (silver lining for LDers) is that you had the chance to focus more on you and your goals and dreams and wants/needs. Not that you shouldn't put time and effort into the "us" but sometimes, you can let yourself fall to the wayside while you put everything into the "us". It will ultimately make you stronger as you build your lives together. Now as I'm saying this, I'm living it and believe me it's not easy and it's taken months for any headway because I just plain out miss him but at the same time, I know that it's a good thing.

 Another thing I do is talk to someone. I go to counseling maybe once a week and I'm proud of it because I have someone completely foreign to us that can talk to me and help look at things and work me through it. There's nothing wrong with it and believe me, it's really helped. It can get super overwhelming and frustrating dealing with this stuff but you have to remember to take care of yourself and remember why you're doing this.

Just hang in there, it's going to be ok and as far as what to do, weigh out the pros and cons and just talk about it with him, pray. If you feel like you can't wait 5 or 6 more months then go. You can always find a job doing something. Maybe not like yours or what you want/deserve, but they're there. Honestly, I would tell you to wait and stay where you are. Like I said, I don't regret transfereing and moving and I'm sure you wouldn't either but is it really the best thing?

With the engagement, you can stay connected by taking lots of planning pics and forwarding him vendor contracts/emails. That's what I do. For the big planning sessions/vendor meetings, arrange for him to come for the weekend. Get his input. OMG you should so do engagement pics!! We are on the 2 yr 2 month engagement plan due to the deployment and we decided to play up the engagement big and we did pics and it was great! You can research and find good deals.

Well, this is a novel lol, so sorry for that, but I really hope this helps!! Lots of *hugs* and please, please pm if you need a friend!!

OMG and I meant to add, get a hobby, volunteer, go out more with friends, have something to look forward to every few weeks, and work out!!!

Thank you so much for your suggestions! It makes a girl feel better knowing others share her feelings and struggles. In 5-6 months I plan to move up to the state my fiance is (or will be) living in after he graduates and finds a job, so we can begin to look for an apartment and jobs in the same city about a month or two before our wedding.

We do a lot of the things you suggest - I fly up to see him as often as I can, we just finished a weekend long engaged enounter retreat, we go on LDR movie dates where we see the same movie at the same time, we play online games against each other together on yahoo.com. I WISH we could skype but I live out in the boonies and the internet/satallite signal isn't strong enough to support a webcam connection. I send him cards or care packages every so often. I know my finace stays very very busy with school work and projects. I admit I am significantly less busy than he is, which may be part of the problem of my emotions going out of control. I have a full time job, I hang out with my friends and have hobbies to keep me busy...but I still feel like I'm we just aren't connecting much and that hurts.

All of you who have been long distance for so many years are very very brave!!!! Thank you for all your advice and suggestions. I think I will just end up sticking it out for the next few months, and I'm sure the time will fly by. Sometimes it just gets you down, you know? I read stuff from other Bees about how much they love being engaged and enjoy doing all this engagement stuff with their fiance and then I feel bummed out, or worse yet, like something is wrong with my relationship because I don't seem to be feeling or experiencing the fun and exciting engagement period they are enjoying.