1. Keeping in contact as much as is possible is essential! What I have found is that oftentimes when my man and I are busy and don't speak frequently for a day or two, I go into insane crazy girlfriend mode. (This also happens when I become hormonal.) It is pretty easy nowadays to keep in contact through email and cell phones. Again, this is a must. I know what the boy is doing pretty much every minute of the day, because he is regimented and pretty OCD, but also because we have constant texts and emails going. I mean all the time. I don't know what we would do without unlimited text messaging!
2. Keep your hormones in check. I have a lot of difficulty doing this myself. The problem with long distance relationships are that you don't often have the chance to see eachother to "make things better" if you have hit a rough patch. So you have to try extra hard to stay positive and not go completely psycho. About a month ago my man told me, "I have figured it out. It is the same time every month that I really want to break up with you,"...the moral of the story, I need to control my hormonal outbursts.
3. Do things in common. My man and I don't watch many of the same television shows, but there are a few...currently Game of Thrones on HBO, I love the history(ish) aspect of the show, and the boyfriend likes the gore and naked women. The same goes for True Blood and Boardwalk Empire. Also, we read the same book once, at the same time, but that hasn't happened again since I am in graduate school and am pretty busy with reading for that. I did enjoy that one time though, and maybe soon we will do it again.
4. Do little things for each other. Every time my boy leave my house, or almost anyway, I create a tiny little note and put it somewhere in his bag, wallet, etc. My favorite note was last summer. I took a post it and stuck it on his debit card. A few days after he got back home he texted me and told me that he had handed his card to someone to pay for something and she had handed it back to him and told me he had a note. Though he didn't make a huge deal of it I know that it made him happy. He always looks for notes now when he goes home.
5. See each other as much as you can. This is pretty obvious but it is also pretty difficult to do. Each party has their own responsibilities and when working, most of this needs to be taken care of on the weekend. So it is hard to spend entire weekends together. Nonetheless, it is very important to see each other as much as is possible. I would compare it to drugs...perhaps not the best analogy, but the only one I can think of at the moment. You can only go so long before you need a fix...or else things get ugly!
These are just some things that I have figure out over the past year+. I am by no means an expert. My boyfriend would tell you that. But I think the fact that we have made it work for a year now, and we still actually LIKE each other (most of the time) says something!
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| Summer '09 |
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| Summer '09 |
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| Summer '10 |
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| Fall '10 |
