I need to some advice on serious long term, long distance relationship. Please?

I think you are the most caring girlfriend ever. You are very sweet and he is lucky to have you! I think you take on a lot of stress and you need to de-stress somehow and you need to know that when there are problems you do not have to take them on by yourself. But you should concentrate on studying be a little bit selfish and think about yourself, because if you do not study than you will feel upset and guilty so that wont help you out. So the best way to do things, is to start by getting your work back together than solving your other problems.

I get stressed a lot too. I have no boyfriend to stress over sadly but I don't deal well with work stress at all. My first year at university I struggled a lot with not feeling like I was achieving to my ability (having done really well at A Levels and then started struggling to scrape passes) and I developed a nasty habit of blowing everything out of proportion (feeling like my life was going to be a failure because I only just scraped a pass in an essay). The best ways I've found of dealing with it:
- completely detaching myself. I find it hard to stop working sometimes kind of like you've described, but when I force myself to leave everything alone for a while I do feel so much better.
- surround yourself with people. I get loneliness really badly, I suffer from it a lot and I know sometimes the last thing you feel like you want to do is surround yourself with loads of people, but I promise it will help you. Even if they're not your favorite people in the world, somehow it puts things in perspective and calms you down a lot
-find someone who's willing to put everything in perspective for you. On my way home for Christmas this year I was talking to my mum about suffering from stress and being unsure what to do about it and feeling so much pressure, and she just put everything into perspective for me, telling me that I don't have to be the best, I don't have to achieve highly, no one will think any less of my if I don't get x grade, even if I fail it doesn't make me a failure as a person etc and that helped me a lot too
- I'm going to see my welfare tutor at uni in my department and hopefully he'll have some ideas about how I can combat my stress and cope with it better. We have a counselor at uni so i'm hoping I'll maybe get referred to them and sort it out. Obviously that options not for everyone but I'd just like to get rid of it

I understand that long distance relationships are hard too as I had one for around a year. Lots of people will just say your boyfriend has trust issues if he has problems with you going out drinking, but I totally understand how easy it is to be anxious when you're so far apart from each other. The only thing I can suggest is that the more you do it and nothing bad happens to you, the more he'll get confident and comfortable with it. So if it's something that helps you feel better, then he will get used to it too, and I'm sure he'd hate for you to stop doing just because of him.

I hope I've helped even a little bit, chin up sweetie you'll be fine

in all honesty I think a relationship needs to be give and take... he's obviously given you a lot of support and I think given he doesn't ask for much you do have to try and give him some back and prioritise him sometimes, if this is about work it probably wont last too long

Yeah that's is very true. I pretty much always prioritize him, over everyone. And I can't do that any more, and get a degree and be happy socially with other people too. We can't always be together when I'm here, and if I get caught up on that i forget that i have other people I can have fun with. I just struggle with balancing everything. Yeah, hopefully it will pass, he is trying hard to get another job, I just can't afford to get upset every time he is in bad mood as it can be most of the time when I'm at uni. I think he just needs something for himself, like a job he enjoys, or uni, or something sociable, but hes pretty introverted and has lost contact with a lot of friends from college. ah... :/

in all honesty I think a relationship needs to be give and take... he's obviously given you a lot of support and I think given he doesn't ask for much you do have to try and give him some back and prioritise him sometimes, if this is about work it probably wont last too long

Your boyfriend is possibly the real victim here. It sounds like he's put so much of himself into trying to support you, that he's not got much left for himself. If he was already concerned about your getting drunk, he's going to be doubly so now at your apparent lack of interest in his emotional state at having become unemployed.

If you go out while he is alone, it will be one of the saddest, loneliest moments of his life.

Objectively, I believe the best thing you could do for yourself and your relationship is to go and see him, and both just talk out whatever problems you're having. Don't try to solve each other's problem, just HEAR them, and LISTEN. Learn where you both are and think about how you could be using your relationship more effectively.

Having a romantic partner should be an incredible resource in times of difficulty, but I think people get too distanced and forget that it should be about mutual support.


edit: reading your last post leads me to believe that you're now thinking you'd be better off with someone else. I would urge you to reconsider your position. Rather than looking for a new, better relationship, perhaps consider making your current one work better for you.

in my opinion if you don't feel you can make time for your partner you need to ask whether you are invested in the relationship right now...

I've turned down things which were important to both my social circle and wellbeing to look after my partner when he needed me, I know he's always been there for me and I can't imagine how abandoned I'd feel if after all of that he told me he felt ****ty and I went 'oh okay but I'm going out partying'

I'm not saying that you don't need things for yourself at that moment but your partner has been there for you so much (and I'm sure that included plenty of sacrifices on his part) so in my honest opinion it is quite selfish to say you need to keep looking after yourself and not giving back to him in his time of need... I know it upsets you but, and I don't mean this harshly it's something I've found very difficult, you need to deal with it, stop making his problems about you and learn to put yourself aside and deal with him sometimes

Well ****, that's thought provoking.



It wasn't quite like that, I was planning it for days, and i only went out for a few drinks and danced with a couple of female friends that I wanted to get to know better as i may be living with them next year. And there have been many times that I haven't been out because of problems we were having.



He has sacrificed a lot, but I never made him do that. He sacrificed too much, and I know it, and I didn't realize until later. Or when i did question it, he always denied it and didn't ****ing say how he really felt.
You are pretty much on the dot with that last bit. Its one of my many flaws.. I'm not sure how to change it. I'm not even sure that people can change, they may respond better for others, but maybe they still feel the want to respond how they do naturally. I don't know. I feel ****ing hopeless.

Well, I don't know what to tell you then. If you can't/won't make the changes you need to, then unfortunately you need to end it.

I hope you might apologise to him when you break it off - since it sounds like he's done everything right, and is still getting shafted. He'll learn a valuable lesson though and will be better off in the long run.

Well, I don't know what to tell you then. If you can't/won't make the changes you need to, then unfortunately you need to end it.

I hope you might apologise to him when you break it off - since it sounds like he's done everything right, and is still getting shafted. He'll learn a valuable lesson though and will be better off in the long run.

I'm not sure where you got the idea from that I'm going to find someone else, please stop saying that stuff to my boyfriend, it's not fair on either of us because I don't want to do that and I won't why we are trying to sort it out.

If you "dumped him", he's no longer your boyfriend...

Of course you will know your relationship better than I do, but from everything you've posted, and everything that I've encountered in the past, it looks obvious that you're done with putting effort into the relationship. Again, I could be wrong, but I think your "trying to sort it out" may just be borne from the guilt you feel for being the bad guy here.

Rather than you both being on forums though, perhaps you need to do some talking and thinking together in real life. Being as honest as you can about what you're both feeling, and try to understand where your problems have come from.

I've been with him for two years, I think me calling him my boyfriend after one day of sort of breaking up with him shouldn't be such an issue.

I don't feel guilty, because I've thought about this for ages, and I don't want to **** with him, I don't ****ing mean to, and I really ****ing about him.

I am not done with putting effort into, I'm just trying to be active to get something to change because I have not been happy, and all the comments on his thread that I found made me realize more that I have been unfair on him without meaning to. So i decided to be pro-active and i thought we could both do with some time. He won't acknowledge that we aren't in a healthy relationship, and its hard to be with someone who ignores problems, because I'm not the type of person to ignore problems.

Wow. You think we haven't talk at all? We have talked on the phone numerous times and have texted because I can't deal without him at all, and i know its a mutual feeling, and we aren't just gunna cut off completely after being together for so long in an intense relationship that can be hard. But we love eachother, so we try, so I try, like i have been for months now since I came to uni. I know I'm not the best person in the world, I know I can be a ****, but I struggle to deal with intense emotion, and I take things out on him, which is my fault, but he lets me do it, which makes its a mutual thing that neither of us are helping.

So yeah, it feels hurtful to read that on there, and don't say I don't have to read it. because there is a whole thread on here where everyone is hating on me then I'm not gunna not read it, espeically when he will and it could influence how he feels about me.

I understand you are cynical (I have that fabulous trait myself), but please don't assume stuff like that from very little evidence.

Sorry to be so defensive, but it really upset me reading that and I don't think its fair. So thank you for trying to help both of us, but that post was uncalled for.

The thing is, you both came here asking for opinions, and my posts have offered mine, as cold and cynical as they may be.

But here's another question: if you're concerned that opinions from strangers online could influence the way he feels about you, perhaps you're scared that if he stopped and really scrutinised your relationship, he might find that actually he's the one who's been let down here?

Don't get me wrong though, he's clearly very committed to you so this probably won't happen. Having said that, I'm not sure how long your argument - that you're trying to improve your relationship by ending it - will hold water.



Anyway, I hope you both find your happiness wherever it may be, and genuinely want nothing but great, happy relationships to fill the world.