My Long Distance Relationship

I met my long distance boyfriend four months ago on twitter. I live in Newcastle and he lives in Swansea. We had a lot of mutual friends which was great so we knew that each of us was real and turns out we had been in the same place a few times with our mutual friends, but somehow never met.

Like any relationship, the beginning was amazing, filled with butterflies, smiles and total euphoria. The day we first met was extremely nerve-wracking even though we had spoken online for two months prior every day. I still remember the moment I saw his face for the first time as I stepped off the train. I felt like my whole body turned to jelly. I could not stop shaking as I walked towards him. I hardly spoke a word, I was just on cloud nine. I'll not bore you with the details of our first time meeting but it was amazing, we went on dates every night and just had the best time.

Then came our first hurdle: leaving each other for the first time. So the day came and we were both extremely upset. I don't think I stopped crying the whole time. We got to the train station and I started to have a panic attack. He begged me to stay and I decided I would phone my mum and see what she said. She always talks sense. I did have commitments back home such as a job, but I figured it would be so easy to get a new one in Swansea. I had spent so much time crying at this point that I had missed the train I was supposed to get on. So I phoned my mum explaining that I didn't want to leave Swansea but she told me that I needed to come home because my sister had gone into labour! It was a really tough decision but I decided that I was going to go back home and be back in Swansea very soon after I left my job.

So after I was home and my sister had given birth to a gorgeous little boy, I was sorting everything out in Newcastle, leaving my job and explaining to my parents that I wanted to live with my boyfriend in Swansea. They weren't too happy about it but they came to terms with it when things started to get rocky with my boyfriend and I. We started to have little arguments about when I would come to live with him and I was scared it wouldn't work out. So then we decided to live with each other for a month, see how things went, and if they didn't go great I'd move back to Newcastle and if they went great I'd stay there with him.

We went to his mother's house for Easter in London and spent almost three weeks there. Now, everything started out great until I got homesick. I missed my family like crazy, especially my nephews, and all I wanted to do was go home. The next day we had a stupid argument and I packed up to leave. We said some stupid stuff that we never meant and ended up crying in each others arms saying we loved each other. But it seems that moment had put us both on edge and we ended up stressed, which caused even more arguments. Our last few days together sucked because we had argued so much we were fed up. In those last two days there I got upset a lot. I am such an emotional person and I cried every day because I didn't really want to leave. My boyfriend asked me to stay but I didn't really see any emotion in his face or voice any time I was upset about leaving or when he asked me to stay, so I left. Even though I searched and searched for just a single tear — just a single bit of emotion from him and I would have stayed.

Once I was back I instantly regretted my decision to leave, but just my luck I was all out of money with no way to get back to him. I told him I wanted to be back and asked if it was okay if I got some money then came back. We decided to have a couple of weeks or so apart until I got money to move down there with him. In the meantime, he had told me he wanted some time apart because he was stressed about us arguing so much. I won't lie to you, that hurt to hear because in my head I didn't care if I was stressed because we argued, I just wanted to be back there with him. But that's the thing with men, they don't do clingy and needy. It drives them away. The more I begged him to let me come and see him straight away, the further away he got from me. He did agree to let me come to see him the next day but that never happened because I wanted certainty that our relationship wasn't going to end or change. But he didn't know what he wanted; he needed time and space.

Now we come to the day I'm writing this. We went back to our original plan of spending a little time apart then I would come down to see him. I have the money and I'm ready to go. My head is clearer now so I'm not stressing out wondering if I will ever see him again. I'm just giving him time to be ready to see me again. Patience is key and if you feel over emotional or you think bad thoughts about him leaving you, try and keep it to yourself while he's like this. It will only push him away. I've had to learn that the difficult way and I'm not too sure if it's too late or not but from now I'm giving him everything he needs at the moment because he is the most important person to me. He means everything, so I am willing to wait for him to be ready.

If you are in this situation, I do not mean wait for your significant other forever. Give it a couple of weeks maximum, and if they still aren't ready to see you after that they never will be. That's when you need to stand up for yourself and get away from that situation. As much as it hurts, you just need to see that you will be so much better off that way.