6: On Long Distance Relationships

This particular subject may be difficult for many other people to celebrate; but for me, long distance relationships are a strange breed of good fortune. While I tend to become very close with the few people I form intimate relationships with, our bond builds into a kind of drug. My significant other and I produce a nasty habit of dependency. And as I can only speak for myself, my habit has grown into a controlling fiend.
Dependency leads to low self esteem, compliance issues, among other concerns in the individuals it overwhelms. Individuals with dependency disorders tend to:
• prefer to have someone they trust guide them
• seek advice for everyday decisions
• find themselves in situations where other people have made decisions about important areas in their life
• find it hard to express a different opinion with someone they are close to
• often pretend to agree with others even if they do not
• often need help to get started on a project
• are uncomfortable when you are alone
• are desperate to get into another relationship right away when a close relationship ends
• worry about important people in your life leaving you (en.wikipedia.org)
Treatment for dependency includes “managing distress, improving interpersonal effectiveness, and building skills for affective regulation...the goal of treatment is not independence but autonomy,” (en.wikipedia.org). Individuals with dependency disorders must build strength rather than foster neediness.
Specifically, dependency in my relationships is most effectively and quickly treated with the wondrous healing powers of the increased distance between the two of us. The long distance relationship is a break up in denial. I’m not saying that relationships will always fail when the two parties do not touch or at least see each other on a regular basis, but the mystery of the other party’s actions has an undeniable distress on the union.
Fast forward through the weeks or month(s) of excruciating, lonely pain, and focus on the only celebration in this situation. Long distance relationships force me to get on with my life. I cannot continually hold a white-knuckled, death grip on my cellular phone and wait for my faraway significant other to dial that precious phone call or type that treasured text. My life is happening in the now and in the here, not in the then and in the there. New faces pass my way, just as my significant other is now more open to considering their options in physical replacement partners, someone to fill in the black hole of lonesomeness and self pity. It’s easier to lie, or accept, that I am attached to no one, single, instead of being slapped in the face with the doubtful expression when explaining that I am in a long distance relationship—notorious for never working out. The need to be faithful lessens when I loosen up and allow myself to have fun outside of my previous commitment shackles.
With distance, I am forced to focus on only my life, my own good. There is no way to accurately monitor my significant other. Being freed of the weight of living for two is liberating, after the pain has passed. I begin to see clearly, to think for myself. I’m weightless. Time may indeed make the heart grow fonder, but this is only until the heart is starved by perpetual loneliness; then the more sensible proverb takes hold: out of sight, out of mind. It’s much easier to forget without (constant) reminders.
My long distance relationships are simply used to wean me off of the connection. We both change and grow, more often than not, we grow apart. We develop new friends, new interests and hobbies, and most tenderly new inside jokes that are too difficult to explain to one another. Visits become more of a burden and unwanted time away from my new life. The financial and opportunity cost is no longer worth the awkward encounters. Long distance relationships are the antidote for moving on to new possibilities, to becoming autonomous instead of dependent.
The average distance between two parties in a long distance relationship is 125 miles. They visit an average of 1.5 times a month. Calls are made on average every 2.7 days and last an average of 30 minutes. And the amount of time they expect to be separated on average is 14 months (www. longdistancerelationships .com). The average 14 months of separation may be ended by the two parties moving back together, or more probably ended by their acknowledgment of the break of their connection. In my case, it’s always the latter, and it never takes as long as 14 months.
In a personal writing, from a past long distance relationship finding its end ,I affirmed to my significant other that we were joking ourselves if we stayed attached by the single thread of the façade of commitment: I’m beyond it. I’ve moved past it. It is the past and I have no intension of attempting to revisit it. It is the past and that is where it shall stay. It is something that has crumbled in comparison to the now. What was once thought of to be so great is now looking not so great. The great has surpassed itself. A past excellence was really no such thing because of what is known now. It has over lapped itself—doubling itself yet cancelling what magic it ever once had. And now, even I am over it. Being over it and reaching acceptance, I conclude the only logical next step is for you to get over it as well. And my willingness to suggest this is proof enough that I will have washed my hands of it.
Long distance relationships are my celebrations of a new life.
True, this view on long distance relationships belongs to solely me, an unmarried, unengaged twenty-two year old with no prospects of long lasting belonging to another. Those that are married, or even engaged, are obviously free to have their own opinions. And those meant to be together, even with whatever happens while miles apart, will still be together once united in place.