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HELP - long distance dating depressing me

Dear all,

I'm here to ask for help with my emotional instability. God bless you for reading.

My bf and I have been dating for 1.5 years, and both in unversity. We live in 2 countries separated by a distance requiring flight. We meet normally every 5 months; sometimes 3 months. Last time I saw him was the start of the year.

The problem is I have been very depressed since he left. I miss him all day and feel tired or miserable. When it gets serious, I cry every day for consecutive days. It drains my energy and concentration from my stressful work as I study a tough subject and need to compete a lot for finding work. I don't have many close friends and don't go to bars etc so I'm not the type of "fun" person - most of my friends are just friends, hard to have a deep "soulful connection" with. Meanwhile, he is happy and all fine with his work and stuff; he'd love to see me again but it's not like he misses me so badly. He has no problem focusing on his work and I sometimes feel even more miserable precisely because of this fact - that I am the overly emotionally dependent one.

It's my first relationship and his second.

To clarify, replacing or distracting myself from him by new hobbies works only temporarily so I'm looking for a ROOT solution to being emotionally attached. Is there no way but to break up with him? You can be sure I love him a lot but it's really making me depressed.

PLEASE I'd love to hear from you about how to deal with this. My bf is like "you have to pull urself tgt" and "you're sticky" and "you're the only one who can deal with it", which I already know. Not constructive because it restates the problem. I'm by nature a very emotional person and finds it hard to get more independent emotionally.

Never been to counselling and I've no idea whether my crying every day and stuff is a sort of depression but I'm sure I'm feeling quite horrible and it affects my spiritual health A LOT.

Thank you in advance <3
The only thing you can do is try to find other things in your life. Make some new friends, try spending more time with your current ones abs you never know, maybe you will be able to have the 'deep' conversations you're after.
Reply 2
A counselor told me that 1 in 4 people experience depression at some point. I think that makes depression not very much of a big deal unless it is moderate/severe. By moderate/severe I mean someone literally is often unable to bring themselves to go into work/lectures, they don't eat enough and that makes them even more tired out, they think about suicide every day.

You have things to live for like your work and your boyfriend, it just seems like you are struggling a bit with living for those things. Maybe or maybe not what you are experiencing would be classed as depression, but either way I don't know if counselling or pills are the answer for you.

Do you feel like the problem is that your boyfriend has more of a social life and is less dependent? That alone can make a person feel dependent and insecure. If your partner knows that you are feeling this way, then it even somewhat prevents them from feeling dependent because they know you miss them and love them and they don't have to worry about you losing interest. Perhaps a solution for you is to make an effort to permenantly increase your social life, and let yourself depend on other things as well as your boyfriend. I know there is no easy solution and my suggestion sounds difficult/rubbish, but it's about shifting that balance so that you and him miss each other the same amount.
I'm in a long distance relationship so, although I see my boyfriend a considerably more often than you do yours (longest time apart has been 6 weeks), I completely recognise the feelings you describe. Lethargy, lack of motivation, sleeping difficulties, floods of tears - I've been there, done that, for over three years.

It sounds to me, like what you need to do is talk to your boyfriend. The fact that he says you need to sort yourself out either shows a lack of understanding on his part or - worse - suggests that he doesn't care about you enough to help. Surely he understands that he is a huge part of the problem? The fact that he is surviving happily and comfortably without you is only going to make you feel more separated from him and more lonely.

How often do you have contact with each other? Do you text every day? Skype once a week? What are your communication patters like? Is it regular? Is it him initiating the contact or is it always you?

My boyfriend and I used to send one email per day and skype once a week and I thought that was enough, but then I realised that I was really miserable and missed him constantly. These days, we skype almost every night and the fact that I get to see his face, listen to his voice, hear him laugh and tease me, makes me feel so much closer to him and I'm much happier now.

It works for me and maybe it'll work for you too, but the real problem seems to me to be the disconnect between your feelings and your boyfriend's understanding of them. If he loves you like you love him, then he should want to support you and help you feel better, not force you to deal with it on your own. The best advice I can really give is just to talk to him!

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