and I have landed back in California! It was great to see Richard, but I have to start off by saying I really, really love California. I don't think I can love ALL of California the way I have loved most of the places I have lived here (i.e. Victorville) but at least there are mountains, places to go, things to do, and DIVERSITY.
Back to topic, Richard and I had a nice visit this weekend in Kansas City. He is actually living in a place called Olathe. It was interesting seeing him in such a different environment. He is living in this Temporary housing apartment home. It is already furnished with everything a corporate traveler might need, and has a clubhouse with a gym, pool, DVD rentals, and gameroom. It is a pretty sweet deal, but strange seeing him in surroundings that so are not him or his style.
The trip itself was pleasant. I always enjoy seeing new places. We went to a great bar Friday night and enjoyed the art museum and World War I Museum on Saturday. The rest of the time we just ate food and relaxed, enjoying each other's company.
We had a conversation Sunday evening about the status of the relationship and how we are both are doing. We both admitted that we aren't happy. But we are still in the place I discussed last time. Neither ready to quit, neither ready to give up. We briefly discussed other alternate options such as taking a break or seeing other people. For now, we agreed that those alternate options will only end up in us breaking up, so we aren't ready to go down those roads yet either. So, as usual, no new news really to report. No updates on how long he will be there, or where he will be heading next. And no idea when I will see him again. Hopefully the 14th but quite possibly not until Thanksgiving. So much for my undying need of having a plan. Perhaps my next post will be about the unyielding flexibility required in making a LDR work.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
How did we get here again?
So Richard is still in Kansas. It hasn't been too bad trying to work out the time difference because his work hours are more reasonable out there, so he is staying up later, which is nice. He came to visit on the 10th and we had a really great weekend. The best weekend we have had in months. I am going out there this weekend and I hope we have a repeat performance. For awhile, I was beginning to think that this had all been a giant mistake, but having a nice weekend reinforced to me why we are doing this in the first place. He is really enjoying his time there, and I have decided that it doesn't really matter where he is, the point is that he isn't HERE. All of this led me to think about all that is required out of an LDR and the decision to be in one to begin with. How after over six years together, did we end up HERE AGAIN?
A question I have been reluctant to ask myself is if I had the chance to do it all over, would I? Right now I don't know what the answer is. My gut says, 'yes of course you would.' My brain says, 'really, because this pretty much sucks, and I don't know if that would be such a good call.' My heart says, 'I don't remember signing up for this exactly, maybe we should have read the fine print. I remember something about a six month limit?' Too bad brain, heart and gut rarely agree. Well obviously, they all agreed when this decision was made this time last year. Or maybe one was stifling the other?
So how does one come to the decision to be in a LDR? I think probably in a lot of situations, people just let life happen to them. And then complain about it. In our situation, I think Richard is letting life happen to him, and I'm doing all the complaining for both of us. But in all honesty, we both ended up where we are today because we both made choices to put our careers before our relationship. I don't know what that says about us, or our relationship, but the facts are the facts. When looking at all of the possible options, neither one of us wanted to quit our jobs so that we could stay together, which would have been option A. So we chose option B, go for the LDR again. Even though we swore we never would. Even though we said that it would only be for six months. Six months has come and gone, but neither one of us wants to quit yet. So the solution? Keep on keeping on. Because option C, separating and moving on with our lives, isn't an option either of us is ready to chose. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't go with option A and quit my job to move to SoCal with him last year. Where would I be now if I did that? Still struggling to finish my hours no doubt, making less money and living paycheck to paycheck, and hey, I would be in a LDR ANYWAY because he would be in Kansas! Where would we be if he had chose option A? I can't answer that. I have my fantasies, but who knows if it would have worked out for the best with what is happening to the economy right now.
So what is the point of all of this? The point is that my advice to anyone out there considering this option for their relationship is to really be sure of what you are getting yourself into if you chose to be in a LDR. Try to have a plan you can realistically stick to. Make sure that the end result is going to be worth all of the pain, frustration, miscommunication, and loneliness. How can you be sure that it will be worth it? You can't I suppose. There are no sure things in life. There are no guarantees. We don't even have the guarantee of tomorrow. You have to make the choice that this is something that both of you can do, and that both of you will put the effort into making work. Really truly listen to your brain, your gut, and your heart. Maybe one of them will say something you don't want to hear, but it might save you a lot of hurt. Maybe for you, they will all be in agreement.
A question I have been reluctant to ask myself is if I had the chance to do it all over, would I? Right now I don't know what the answer is. My gut says, 'yes of course you would.' My brain says, 'really, because this pretty much sucks, and I don't know if that would be such a good call.' My heart says, 'I don't remember signing up for this exactly, maybe we should have read the fine print. I remember something about a six month limit?' Too bad brain, heart and gut rarely agree. Well obviously, they all agreed when this decision was made this time last year. Or maybe one was stifling the other?
So how does one come to the decision to be in a LDR? I think probably in a lot of situations, people just let life happen to them. And then complain about it. In our situation, I think Richard is letting life happen to him, and I'm doing all the complaining for both of us. But in all honesty, we both ended up where we are today because we both made choices to put our careers before our relationship. I don't know what that says about us, or our relationship, but the facts are the facts. When looking at all of the possible options, neither one of us wanted to quit our jobs so that we could stay together, which would have been option A. So we chose option B, go for the LDR again. Even though we swore we never would. Even though we said that it would only be for six months. Six months has come and gone, but neither one of us wants to quit yet. So the solution? Keep on keeping on. Because option C, separating and moving on with our lives, isn't an option either of us is ready to chose. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't go with option A and quit my job to move to SoCal with him last year. Where would I be now if I did that? Still struggling to finish my hours no doubt, making less money and living paycheck to paycheck, and hey, I would be in a LDR ANYWAY because he would be in Kansas! Where would we be if he had chose option A? I can't answer that. I have my fantasies, but who knows if it would have worked out for the best with what is happening to the economy right now.
So what is the point of all of this? The point is that my advice to anyone out there considering this option for their relationship is to really be sure of what you are getting yourself into if you chose to be in a LDR. Try to have a plan you can realistically stick to. Make sure that the end result is going to be worth all of the pain, frustration, miscommunication, and loneliness. How can you be sure that it will be worth it? You can't I suppose. There are no sure things in life. There are no guarantees. We don't even have the guarantee of tomorrow. You have to make the choice that this is something that both of you can do, and that both of you will put the effort into making work. Really truly listen to your brain, your gut, and your heart. Maybe one of them will say something you don't want to hear, but it might save you a lot of hurt. Maybe for you, they will all be in agreement.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Just when it seems safe to breathe...
Something knocks the wind out of me.
Richard just returned from Chicago on Tuesday. I was relieved that he was home and looking forward to falling back into some semblance of a routine together. Then he announced non-chalantly that he was moving to Kansas "for a month or two" on Friday afternoon. Air rapidly escaping lungs.
Okay, time for me to try to untangle this. I think what bothers me so much about this is his attitude that these kinds of changes should have no impact on me. Maybe they shouldn't, maybe I am overreacting, maybe I shouldn't have felt like I got punched in the gut. But to me, moving 1500 miles farther away, even though it is temporary, is a big deal.
I think the second reason I am so destabilized is that this solidifies that he has no intention of taking any action to try to bring us together sooner rather then later (i.e. job hunting!). That is probably the biggest blow to me. Being in a LDR is a two-lane highway. It takes two people to make it work and two people to work towards reuniting. I know I may have to move and quit my job and forfeit everything I have established here. However, whenever I talk about that, he stops me and says he does not want me to quit or lose what I have here. He talked non-stop over Labor Day weekend about finding a job here, and maybe even being up here as soon as Thanksgiving, and no action has been taken to follow up on those musings.
The third reason I am upset about this news is that we now have a time difference to navigate with already busy schedules. Anyone that has ever had to navigate a time difference will know how frustrating this can be. Thank God it is only two hours, but that two hours can still make a huge difference in the quality and quantity of our conversations, which have already been suffering for a long time. Not only that, but now it is a new routine to try to figure out. Bedtime for him may be before I even arrive home some evenings, so squeezing in a conversation that actually feels like we are connecting is going to be a challenge, especially since he refuses to use other modes of communicating because of his work schedule. And once we finally have it figured out, he will be back in Orange County, and then possibly moving to Victorville. Do we know when? No. No dates are set. No plans can be made. This will no doubt be another bomb dropped on me that I apparently am not entitled to have any feelings about.
So as I type, Richard is somewhere between Las Vegas and Denver heading towards Kansas City (yes by car, no less.) I basically feel like I have slowly lost my primary support person. I am lucky to have a strong support system that absorbed the brunt of the loss as it has progressed, but I just don't think that is a good sign for us in the long run. We are in desperate need of a plan, and that may be the topic of conversation over our visit next weekend. So more to come after that. For now, I will focus on breathing.
Richard just returned from Chicago on Tuesday. I was relieved that he was home and looking forward to falling back into some semblance of a routine together. Then he announced non-chalantly that he was moving to Kansas "for a month or two" on Friday afternoon. Air rapidly escaping lungs.
Okay, time for me to try to untangle this. I think what bothers me so much about this is his attitude that these kinds of changes should have no impact on me. Maybe they shouldn't, maybe I am overreacting, maybe I shouldn't have felt like I got punched in the gut. But to me, moving 1500 miles farther away, even though it is temporary, is a big deal.
I think the second reason I am so destabilized is that this solidifies that he has no intention of taking any action to try to bring us together sooner rather then later (i.e. job hunting!). That is probably the biggest blow to me. Being in a LDR is a two-lane highway. It takes two people to make it work and two people to work towards reuniting. I know I may have to move and quit my job and forfeit everything I have established here. However, whenever I talk about that, he stops me and says he does not want me to quit or lose what I have here. He talked non-stop over Labor Day weekend about finding a job here, and maybe even being up here as soon as Thanksgiving, and no action has been taken to follow up on those musings.
The third reason I am upset about this news is that we now have a time difference to navigate with already busy schedules. Anyone that has ever had to navigate a time difference will know how frustrating this can be. Thank God it is only two hours, but that two hours can still make a huge difference in the quality and quantity of our conversations, which have already been suffering for a long time. Not only that, but now it is a new routine to try to figure out. Bedtime for him may be before I even arrive home some evenings, so squeezing in a conversation that actually feels like we are connecting is going to be a challenge, especially since he refuses to use other modes of communicating because of his work schedule. And once we finally have it figured out, he will be back in Orange County, and then possibly moving to Victorville. Do we know when? No. No dates are set. No plans can be made. This will no doubt be another bomb dropped on me that I apparently am not entitled to have any feelings about.
So as I type, Richard is somewhere between Las Vegas and Denver heading towards Kansas City (yes by car, no less.) I basically feel like I have slowly lost my primary support person. I am lucky to have a strong support system that absorbed the brunt of the loss as it has progressed, but I just don't think that is a good sign for us in the long run. We are in desperate need of a plan, and that may be the topic of conversation over our visit next weekend. So more to come after that. For now, I will focus on breathing.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Good news, bad news
So the good news is Richard's company did not get the Chicago bid! Which means for the time being, we continue being long distance along the California coast. And that means we continue in the waiting period of not knowing when this will end, which is not a good place to be.
That is the good news out of the way. No on to the not so good news. This post is dedicated to the topic of communication. This is a huge topic when you are in a LDR, and I will likely be the herald of many more posts on the subject.
Yesterday was a very bad day for me. My mother decided to have a borderline episode on me, and I was not handling it well. I reached out to my partner for support. I tried calling him at noon. At three. At five. At seven. He did not return my calls until 9pm. He stated "Hi, I just got home from soccer." I immediatly was not pleased. I was not happy that when I needed him, he was not there for me. I work in an agency with fourteen other mental health professionals. I do not often seek support from him when I am surrounded by extremely giving, intelligent, insightful and astute people who love helping others. So when I do reach out to him, it is important. I asked him why he waited so long to call me back and he stated that this was the first time he looked at his phone. You are in a LDR and you don't look at your phone until 9pm, when you usually go to bed between 9 and 9:30? I was disappointed and a little appalled. When I brought my feelings to his attention, he stated, "Well I don't care about my phone." Which I heard as "I don't care about you." And that put him immediately on the defensive, and me into another spiral of grief. And he was no longer able to be comforting to me or show me any kind of empathy.
As far as that last statement goes, that is a personal battle we will have to address at another time. But if you are in a LDR it is not going to work without consistent communication. That phone is our lifeline. He is not on Facebook, MySpace, Gmail or any other instant messenger. He does not agree with receiving personal emails to his work email address. He does not check his personal email address at work. So the phone is our only line of communication. So for this to work, he needs to look at it, answer it, dial from it! He needs to be an active participant. A LDR will not work with only one participant. So his rebuttal, "what did people do before cell phones?" I don't know, and frankly, I don't care. I am lucky enough to be in a LDR in the age of instant communication. Honestly, people in LDRs before instant communication probably did just great with their Courier pigeons and Morse Code. That isn't who we are anymore. You have a cell phone, use it.
Like I said above, this topic is huge, and has a lot of offspring topics that will require their own posts entirely, so the subject will likely come up in many future posts. After all, what is a LDR without communication? It can't be based on sex, it can't be based on enjoying similar hobbies, it has to be based on a solid foundation and then nurtured over distance through communication, which is tough. So communication is essential, and when communication is breaking down, it won't be long until the relationship breaks up.
That is the good news out of the way. No on to the not so good news. This post is dedicated to the topic of communication. This is a huge topic when you are in a LDR, and I will likely be the herald of many more posts on the subject.
Yesterday was a very bad day for me. My mother decided to have a borderline episode on me, and I was not handling it well. I reached out to my partner for support. I tried calling him at noon. At three. At five. At seven. He did not return my calls until 9pm. He stated "Hi, I just got home from soccer." I immediatly was not pleased. I was not happy that when I needed him, he was not there for me. I work in an agency with fourteen other mental health professionals. I do not often seek support from him when I am surrounded by extremely giving, intelligent, insightful and astute people who love helping others. So when I do reach out to him, it is important. I asked him why he waited so long to call me back and he stated that this was the first time he looked at his phone. You are in a LDR and you don't look at your phone until 9pm, when you usually go to bed between 9 and 9:30? I was disappointed and a little appalled. When I brought my feelings to his attention, he stated, "Well I don't care about my phone." Which I heard as "I don't care about you." And that put him immediately on the defensive, and me into another spiral of grief. And he was no longer able to be comforting to me or show me any kind of empathy.
As far as that last statement goes, that is a personal battle we will have to address at another time. But if you are in a LDR it is not going to work without consistent communication. That phone is our lifeline. He is not on Facebook, MySpace, Gmail or any other instant messenger. He does not agree with receiving personal emails to his work email address. He does not check his personal email address at work. So the phone is our only line of communication. So for this to work, he needs to look at it, answer it, dial from it! He needs to be an active participant. A LDR will not work with only one participant. So his rebuttal, "what did people do before cell phones?" I don't know, and frankly, I don't care. I am lucky enough to be in a LDR in the age of instant communication. Honestly, people in LDRs before instant communication probably did just great with their Courier pigeons and Morse Code. That isn't who we are anymore. You have a cell phone, use it.
Like I said above, this topic is huge, and has a lot of offspring topics that will require their own posts entirely, so the subject will likely come up in many future posts. After all, what is a LDR without communication? It can't be based on sex, it can't be based on enjoying similar hobbies, it has to be based on a solid foundation and then nurtured over distance through communication, which is tough. So communication is essential, and when communication is breaking down, it won't be long until the relationship breaks up.
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