Blog Audit: Expansion 1 (Blog 8)

For me, talking about long distance relationships hit home.  14 million couples identify as being in a long distance relationship with around 32.5% of college students being in a long distance relationship.  I personally am in a long distance relationship and found that many of the things that I learned about were very true to my relationship.  The average distance for a long distance relationship is 125 miles where as my relationship is almost doubled at 245 miles apart.  My boyfriend and I decided that we would try to make a long distance relationship work because we didn’t want to wait the two years until I came home from school.  We have always had a connection and have been best friends forever.  We first started talking seriously about being more in the start of September but the one problem that we both had with starting a relationship with each other is the distance.  I decided to go to school here at Stout and he lives in my home town.  For us, that was a huge problem so I decided going home almost every weekend to show him that I was willing to make this work and that I wasn’t interested in any other guys that went to school here.  It took until late February until we finally decided to officially date.  We decided that a long distance relationship would work because we were able to communicate every day.  With the advancement in phones and being able to text, call, facetime and snapchat, we are able to talk throughout the day and night to stay in touch. 

In class, we discussed the individual level stressors which I found most of them to be very true for my relationship.  First, the initial adjustment.  It is very difficult being apart and it was a huge adjustment from seeing each other every day in high school to then seeing him once a week to once every other week and now we go about every third week.  For us, this was very hard because we can’t see each other and have that physical touch like other couples can.  Another stressor is loneliness.  I learned that men experience more loneliness which I find true in my relationship.  I found that with this past weekend of going home, that Jacob was lonelier than I felt.  Throughout the three weeks, I didn’t really feel lonely except on weekends but he said that he felt it every single day as soon as he wasn’t doing anything.  Another stressor is guilt, which women tend to feel more.  For me, this one is very true.  I feel so guilty having to walk away every time to go back to school and having to look back at him looking so sad.  I feel so bad leaving him and that I made the decision to be four hours away from him for weeks at a time.   Overload is another stressor.  I feel overload on the weeks before I go home because I feel the need to have to get all of my homework completed so I have all the time in the world to spend with Jacob and my family which makes me very stressed out that whole week and then I feel drained on the weekend.  Another stressor that I tend to experience the most is that commuting gets old.  That three and a half hour drive gets very old.  I know all of the exits that I drive past and I know exactly which gas stations to stop at.  My boyfriend knows exactly where I am by watching the clock and knowing also where each of the exits are by time where I know by miles where I am.  With going home this past weekend, I never really noticed the “stranger effect” until now.  It was actually kind of funny since now I see it.  When Jacob got to my house the first conversations were how the drive was, how school going and other small talk.  I never realized that we did that but now looking back that is out conversations for the first half hour or so.  The most challenging part of a long distance relationship is the loss of day to day intimacy.  Once we were able to sit down, Jacob jumped into my arms and we just snuggled on the chair.  Even the next day we laid in bed snuggling until almost noon and his mom told us to get up and do something with our lives but we having actually had any physical contact in three weeks so that’s all we wanted to do was snuggle.  It’s hard not being able to hold hands or snuggle when we had a long day and then only being together for a few days out of the month makes it extremely hard also. 

I also learned that there are family and social level stressors.  Many of our friends don’t think that our relationship can last because we don’t see each other very much.  My family made bets on how long that Jacob and I would last.  So far we have been together for a month and a half and most of my family said we wouldn’t last for over a month.  Also, some people don’t realize how far of a drive that I actually am and criticize me for not driving home more to see him but in reality, neither of us want to make the drive to see each other so he is very grateful that I drive home most of the time.  Another huge problem is commuting gets very expensive.  My car runs premium gas so I paid $2.89 a gallon this past weekend which it costed me around $80 just to go home and back. With Jacob driving, he has a truck so he is putting typically $80 bucks in diesel fuel every time he comes out too which can get expensive for him too.

So what helps?  For us, communication is key.  We talk most of the day and always know where each other are, who we are with, and what we are doing.  This helps with trust and shows that we are able to tell each other what we are doing and why.  Since we have been friends since third grade, we already knew a lot about each other and had a history which made starting the relationship long distance easier because of our history.  Jacob and I support each other with every decision that we make and tend to ask each other’s opinions before we make a final decision which helps our communication.  Both of our family’s support us and his friends are super supportive and make sure to keep him busy so he isn’t constantly thinking about me or missing me when I am gone.  We try to make frequent visits and we always have our visits planned out so we know the next time that we will see each other.  At this point in our relationship, I think that we have a great chance of staying together because of how great we are working out in the last few months of talking and actually dating.