<p>My girlfriend and I are extremely close. We are the best of friends and love to spend time together. As far as I can tell (in fact, I am near positive) this is love and I do not feel like letting it go prematurely just for school. I have no will to go to college and hook-up with other girls or anything like that. I also know she feels the same way and I trust her completely. Is it okay that we are going to attempt to stay together even though we will be a few states separated? At what point should transferring be considered, if ever? I just feel that this is an amazingly special connection and even just having summers together could sustain me. I am just looking for some advice on this topic.</p>
<p>Do you want honest advice or what you want to hear?</p>
<p>Let’s face it. The odds are stacked against you guys. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible to stay together but it will be extremely difficult. It’s kind of like when you have a best friend move away. For a while everything is fine but then you begin to fade away. You’re both doing different things at different it becomes hard to communicate. You’ll both be in different schedules throw in when you have to study or hang out with friends it leaves limited time to talk with each other. So while it’s not impossible it’ll be extremely difficult. Have a heart to heart about it and see where it goes from there. Good luck!</p>
<p>Don’t give up your future because of a teenage relationship. If you can make it through the year via a long distance relationship, but don’t transfer/let you grades suffer because of the relationship. </p>
<p>Is she in high school still? If so, REALLY don’t make any decisions about your future, especially with regards to transferring. This scenario isn’t that unique, and I’ve heard too many stories where once the girl gets to college, she breaks up with the guy, leaving him devastated. </p>
<p>I can’t emphasize enough: DON’T make ANY decisions on your future because of your relationship right now, because 9 times out of 10 you’ll regret. Things may be perfect for now, but college is a huge life event and often changes people. Do what’s best for yourself, and don’t worry so much about your girlfriend.</p>
<p>I agree with indielove9, because I was in your shoes. My boyfriend had even proposed to me. He went off to school in a different state. I flew to see him two Thanksgivings in a row. He came back home a few weeks later and broke up with me, because he’d met a girl he liked. Like you, I thought we would be together forever, so I was devastated. If I had it to do over again, I would have broken things off before he left for college.</p>
<p>Alright, here goes. </p>
<p>My girlfriend and I met here in California. We ended up going out together but the summer after I graduated high school she had to leave the state because her mother was divorcing her step-father and her family was in Kentucky. Really, her mother had been married four times and was interested in some high school guy she happened to reconnect with through Facebook as a forty-something year old woman. </p>
<p>It was tough because we were head over heels for each other. I got her through that. Then, a string of deaths occurred in her family. First, her uncle and then grandfather the day of my birthday. I can’t tell you how difficult it is to comfort someone from so far away when all you want to do is hold them. The good thing about it was that I had taken a gap year because I didn’t have any money to go to college.</p>
<p>Once I got money, I went to a community college for the next three years. The first year was hard because she was still in high school and I was juggling a social life and was recently admitted into the honors program at the college. We barely spent time with each other, but I would always call her on Skype when I got home to talk for a few hours. I did some things I’m not proud of like hangout with friends instead of coming home to her as I knew she was getting lonely. I regret that I didn’t spend as much time with her as I could have because I probably could’ve got better grades that way than blowing off my classes and staying out to the wee hours of the morning with friends. She was a senior in high school at the time and had applied to a bunch of universities in Indiana and Kentucky. I was planning on transferring to a college in California.</p>
<p>She couldn’t take it anymore and had to come visit me. So, she came for a week and we had a blast together. When she went back, she was so sad about the whole thing that she was miserable the whole time I took summer classes. I had contracted pneumonia and she was dying to see me. Her mother could tell that she was very depressed about me, so she let her come again at the end of the summer for a few weeks. Again, we had a blast. </p>
<p>That fall I was a horrible student and I knew I was in way over my head. She was worried that she was pregnant. I was worried because I was drowning in my classes and letting my social life get in the way because I was so swamped with other work I couldn’t focus on my own studies. I couldn’t tell you how much she cried about being pre-med and that I sacrificed a significant amount of time tutoring and helping her get her homework done. I pretty much threw that entire semester grades-wise away. Same for the next semester because I was helping her do all of her classes (I learned Organic Chem alongside her…). I can’t tell you how much I sacrificed for this girl. But she got good grades nevertheless and my GPA took a huge hit. It left me unmotivated for the entire year to do my work and she ended up dropping out of pre-med to specifically pursue a psychology and art major (although she got A’s in her pre-med courses, it was just too stressful). </p>
<p>We visited each other every winter and summer break after that. They were always amazing times between us. It’s strange though because you only see each other for so long and then have to go back to doing school. Our third year was tough in that I needed to do well to transfer. I did, she agreed, and I got into all of the universities I applied to. I was always studying or busy most of the time. Honestly, I was on campus 16 hours a day on average and it took an hour one-way commute to get there. I’d get home by 11 at night enough to give her a ten minute conversation before she’d fall asleep (it already being 1 there). She had her heart set on me transferring to her school for years (even before she was in college), so I sent in an application and within weeks got my acceptance letter with a scholarship. However, we had to wait for the financial aid package. I didn’t get the money I needed to go there without being in massive debt and that hit us hard. It took a while for her to semi get over it and I spent two months of my summer vacation with her this year. She’s very insecure about me leaving her because she knows I’ll be spending a lot of time around people at my new college. </p>
<p>Honestly, it is hard not to be sexually attracted to other women. That’s just a fact of life. It’s going to happen. But if you love her, things will work. We’ve been together for four years this month (our anniversary is on the 10th) and I will say the hardest thing is adjusting to each other’s schedules. You need to communicate and you need to communicate well. You need to compromise, you need to be accepting and you DEFINITELY need to be supportive. You need to reassure her that you’re going to have time for her because growing apart can happen real fast. </p>
<p>I’m not going to say she’s going to be your wife. I’m not going to say that she’s not going to be interested in someone else down the road and leave you. However, from my experience, some of the really wonderful things can come early on. You may have to sacrifice some things, but I don’t have many regrets about the choices I’ve made. I think it led me to a good place. Not necessarily the first place I had in mind but a good place nonetheless. You can work on your goals together, if that’s what you want. As a senior in high school I would have rather preferred to be single in college starting out but things don’t always go as planned. I believe I am in a good relationship and although we have our troubles like any couple does it’s usually nothing too serious.</p>
<p>Been through relationships like this. Just stay in touch and try to see each other often and its fine.</p>
<p>College is not the romantic/sexual experience teen movies make it out to be. You could easily go the whole four years without meeting a single girl you click with. Most of the girls are my school are too large for me… I’m a skinny boi and need skinny gurl, ya know?</p>
<p>dont let your entire future be decided by what she is going to do because you neverk now if the two of you are going to date forever. that being said there is no reason why you cant make it work. unless one of you feel the need to be free to sleep around since the other is not there, youll be fine. it will be a convo the two of you have to have though</p>
<p>Every person is different. Most high school couples do break up. Long distance is hard, but that’s not really the reason. You grow as people and you change as people. What you want right now probably won’t be the same after a year or two in college. It’s okay.</p>
<p>If you want to stay together and try it out, go ahead. Don’t just break up because you’re going away. That’s silly. Just realize that you two might not stay together forever.</p>
<p>I went to college with a boyfriend who was going to be a senior in high school. I came home and ended up breaking things off with him. I realized that I had started developing feelings for other guys and it just wasn’t right for my boyfriend to be strung along like that. (For what it’s worth, I didn’t cheat on him. That’s an awful thing to do.) I also constantly found myself being annoyed by his references to high school and things that I felt were ‘petty’. It wasn’t that I felt like I was better than him or anything, it’s just that I realized we were in different places and different things mattered to us. I had a job, was worried about paying my tuition, getting good grades, planning time when I was home to see my family, and other things that he just wasn’t worried about yet because he was still in high school.</p>
<p>I’ll never understand… if you’re SO SURE, why would you ask?</p>
<p>I was in a relationship from freshmen year of hs to soph year of college. We were engaged, in love, etc etc. We became different people and ended it. We’re still very good friends and I don’t regret staying with him. </p>
<p>You can make it work. But if you have to ask, it suggests to me that there are doubts.</p>
<p>Damn, CalDud. You have the best, insightful, life changing stories. Seriously. Every post I see you make just puts me in a trance. Congrats to your accomplishments dude.</p>
<p>
I think this is the biggest thing to take away from your question. People are forever changing, often at a fast pace, and will not stop until the day they die.</p>
<p>You’ve got to ask yourself if you’re willing to cope with the possible changes she will go though, and is she willing to do the same for you. The obvious thing here is that it won’t be easy. You’ll both be changing in many ways simultaneously, and the lack of communication and support while going through the changes is what ultimately sets the relationship to a demise. The fact of being long distance makes it that much harder to communicate effectively. You have to be willing to sacrifice certain things, and she should be able to understand the same thing if she’s in love with you. Also, face-to-face time inbetween the long times apart helps immeasurably.</p>
<p>When I was 17, I knew 2 things as absolute truth. 1. I was invincible and nothing would ever hurt me, and 2. I would remain a bachelor for the rest of my life. 6 months later I met the person who would become my wife and all of a sudden I knew nothing. She was in college and I was weeks away from shipping out to join the military (this was in 2006, so Iraq was still a hotbed). Of course 4 years in the military changes somesone, as does college and other big life milestones, but we talked whenever we could via skype and cell phone. The time difference was 3 hours. During that time her grandmother died (she was very close to her) among other things that CalDud hits. It’s hard to do anything when you’re 6,000+ miles away on deployment and the person your loved one admires most is now gone. But you stick through it and try your best. I flew her out about once a year for a couple weeks and I was able to also go back home to her once a year for a couple weeks and those times were so important. We had to make up for all those hard times we couldn’t physically be with each other and made us realize how much we needed each other. Once I was done with deployments and nearing the end of my enlistment she had graduated college, and we got married.</p>
<p>Long distance can work, but you must be prepared to see the good, the bad, and the ugly of this person. If she’s as willing as you are, then it will work.</p>
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<p>CAN work. No matter how much you want something to happen or how much effort you put into it, sometimes it just doesn’t work. You just grow in different directions. And that’s OK. </p>
<p>Fwiw, I met the person I’m going to marry when I was 18… the first day of college. He knew it right away, it took me over a year and a half to figure out what he knew immediately (mainly because I was blinded by my other relationship… again not that I regret anything).</p>
<p>
No, I believe ‘will’ is correct.</p>
<p>
This entails you ended it because you both changed (of course it could have been many reasons, but that’s the context in which you gave us here) and my whole “Am I willing to go through the possible changes of this person and vice versa” outlook applied negatively in your experience. So, through the context, if you both were willing to cope with one another’s changing, then it would have worked. I’m going on some deductive reasoning here, and not trying to tell you how your relationship would have gone.</p>
<ol>
<li>All relationships where people are willing to work out changes of each other over time will work.</li>
<li>Person A is in a relationship with person B where they broke up because they were changing.</li>
<li>Therefore, Person A or Person B were not fulling willing to work through some or all of the changes they were going through to be able to stay together.</li>
</ol>
<p>Of ocurse this would entail that item 1 is not fallacy, and until it’s disceted in terms of other reasons people break up (which is hard to classify in non-measurable terms i.e. something in the relationship becoming different can always loosely be translated as a “change”), should hold true.</p>
<p>EDIT: In short, if the OP or their GF break up it will be because either one of them realized a change within themselves or within one another and decided they did not like it/did not want this new aspect in their relationship etc.
Person A notices person B is spending more and more time with a particular person (the change!) and doesn’t like it. Give person B an ultimatum to stop and they decide to break up instead because of either B realizing new things in the other person they like more than in person A or person B realizing they didn’t like how newly controling person A could be (another change!), or a whole lot of other things. The list of scenarios can go one for eternity. People change. People don’t like change. People really don’t like when something close to them changes. People realize change is either worth it or not worth it. Just my personal life observation.</p>
<p>In my opinion, long distance relationships aren’t worth it. At least not as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>You can spend four years desperately wanting to be with someone you can rarely see, constantly worrying that it won’t work out and that one of you will decide it’s not working. Or, you can spend a couple months heart-broken and then have the time of your life at college, potentially meeting girls you can actually see in person or in general just feeling much more connected to what’s going on in your own life. Because you will be living two separate lives, in two separate places.</p>
<p>But in the end, none of what I said matters. If this truly is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, then you will find a way to make it work. Just remember that while she may be perfect for you now, she may not be perfect for you once one (or both) of you change.</p>
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<p>You should never have to “cope” with another’s changes. That’s not how a relationship should work IMO. We were willing to make it work. We made it work for over a year and a half of college, but it got to the point where we had both changed so much that we weren’t going to work in the long run as we were no longer compatible (people change considerably between the ages of 15 and 21). We now wanted completely different things and were just going down two completely different paths. It had nothing to do with will and everything to do with the fact that people CHANGE. It happens.</p>
<p>ETA: I’m not saying it can’t work. What I am saying is that it takes a hell of a lot more than just will and determination to make it work. People change, you have to accept that. You also have to accept that no matter how much you try- it might not work. It’s no one’s fault, it’s just how things work. I think saying it will work if you do x, y, and/or z is both unrealistic and can make people think they’ve done something wrong if the relationship fails.</p>
<p>
Change doesn’t have to have a bad connotation. Some change in good ways. Change that is bad (in the POV of either party) is where the definitive test is held. When that person goes through some bad changes, are they still in line with what you want from that person? If not, then it is still the change that led to the break.</p>
<p>IMO, it’s hard to define absolute relationships with individuals that you’ve not experienced at a wide range of emotional stages: happiness, endearment, romanticism and sorrow, pain, and hatefulness. Each one of these emotions (and many many others) can express a degree of change. So by “cope” with change, I mean coping with someone in each array. You can’t say “Oh, I really like you when you’re happy or romantic to me, but I don’t like you at all when you’re sorrowful or hateful towards something. You asked me to rob a bank with you yesterday and I’m not into illegal activity. It’s too much for me, but we should stay together to try to make it work.” That’s not it. You should be able to be with that person, cope with that person through the good and the bad when they obviously align with your changes as well.</p>
<p>Even though some people are harder at showing emotion than others, most humans are, well, human and it’s a bit superficial IMO to base a relationship off only being exposed to a main facet of your partner (i.e. always shows humor and laughs, but not once in 20 years has told you they truly love you or expressed sorrow in relation to a tragic event or experience). Is the change from laughter to crying neccessarily bad? No, they are what makes that person human, and that’s what you’re going to have to be willing to cope with to make things work. The point for the OP is that the lack of communication through distance makes it harder to reflect the humaness of the changes and emotions, but still possible with the right attitude and effort.</p>