I can definitely appreciate your perspective, and I’m glad to hear that you feel like you’re in the midst of a healthy relationship. As for the “catching up” that couples do, I think it comes down to the couple and to the type of conversation the couple enjoys. Personally, I want to know what the other person is thinking or what made them think that day more than I want to hear about what they did that day. Perhaps that’s just personal preference. I think with LDRs, you tend to trend towards talking about what you did that day so you can feel like you’re a part of each others’ lives, but that type of conversation gets old to me really quickly. So perhaps that’s just personal preference.

You have a great point about seeing all sides of the other person during the “mini-vacations” you share with them when you’re together. I definitely have not been at my best at times, and the one girl I dated for a while in an LDR was often moody and down. However, I feel like I should put out the term “mini-vacation.” It’s an accurate term, because for at least one member of the couple, that’s exactly what every trip is. But a healthy relationship, in my opinion, is FAR from a vacation. It’s not normal (nor is it healthy, in my opinion) to take a complete break from normal life every time you’re with your significant other. And yet you have no choice but to do that in an LDR. I think that’s what bothers me about them so much–the very structure of an LDR is an the unhealthy version of a relationship.

Perhaps some of this is my distaste for the idea of making someone my world. I see so many relationships where the two people get so caught up in each other that they neglect everything and everyone else around them (and then they come crashing down when the relationship fails and they realize how distant they are from their own life). In an LDR, especially during those mini-vacations, you’re making someone your whole world for those 3-5 days, and that scares me. And even on a daily basis, picture yourself out at a bar with friends when you get your nightly call from your boyfriend. You can’t take the call at the table, so if you decide to take it you have to excuse yourself from your friends. You’re literally removing yourself from your life to entertain someone else who is hundreds of miles away.

I know, I’m hugely cynical about this whole thing. There are many success stories with LDRs when they people finally live in the same city and can have what I consider a healthy relationship at that point. Or they realize at that point that the LDR blinded them from a lot of things that they could have seen fairly early on in a same-city relationship.

Do me a favor–mark on your calendar to return to this entry one year from now and share your future perspective on LDRs. Hopefully by then you’ll be happily living in the same city with your boyfriend. Or maybe you’ll have broken up amicably for reasons completely unrelated to the LDR. But maybe you’ll also have some future hindsight about LDRs that my readers might find helpful and interesting.

I’m currently in a LDR that’s going on about 6 months now. I agree on some of your points, like spending so much time on the phone that you stop going out with friends… but personally I don’t find it at all unhealthy to talk to someone everyday and “catch up”. Isn’t that what people in all forms of relationships do? Admittedly, I’ve never lived with a boyfriend…. but I figure even couples who live together must have some “catching up” to do most days.

As for point #4 (and also #3 to some extent), I disagree wholeheartedly. Spending 3 or 4 days together at a time means we DO see all aspects of each other. For us, it isn’t like a mini vacation every time we see each other, we still have everyday things to do… work, grocery shopping, hanging out with friends, etc! We see the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between! This is in stark contrast to nearly EVERY other relationship I’ve had. With past boyfriends, I would see them a few times a week, sometimes for nights out and sometimes for nights in. But if one of us wasn’t feeling like being together for whatever reason, like a sudden grumpy mood or something, we could just postpone our plans and see each other in a day or two. That’s not possible with a LDR, so we’ve been able to see every aspect of each other.

Anyway, just my opinion!

(Also, it’s worth noting that I work for an airline, so I get all the free flights I want, and my boyfriend can get very discounted flights. That definitely takes a lot of strain off the relationship, because we get to see each other a couple times a month for 3-5 days at a time, but we don’t have to worry about the financial aspect of traveling so much. So that might explain why this particular LDR is easier than many others.) =)