“We’ve Lost that Lovey-Dovey Feeling”
Recently, he’s expressed that if his company can’t find him a position in the U.S., he’d rather stay in Europe where he’d be assured a job. I’ve expressed that it’s almost impossible for me to live/work in his country due to language skills, work visas, government collateral money, etc. We were lovey-dovey in the beginning and now all we do is fight. We FaceTime all the time and try to communicate but always end the conversation upset. In addition, I crave a sex life (ours is fantastic, but we’re hardly together) and fell back into old habits by being unfaithful a number of times. He says he’s forgiven me — God knows I don’t deserve it — but I know I’ve hurt him badly.
With all our LDR problems, I keep thinking he deserves someone better and I miss a relationship that doesn’t carry all this baggage! That being said, he’s by all definitions perfect. We both are deeply in love, are best friends, and both still say we’re happier together than we ever were apart (although lately we’ve been feeling separated from all the fighting).
I was so happy with him and so glad I found this wonderful man to settle down with, but it seems like, the more we plan and discuss, the further we are from ever being together. I have all these doubts and obstacles in my head, but I can’t deny how in love I am and that I still see a future with him regardless of all our problems.
What do you suggest that I do?? I feel so lost. — Overwhelmed in a LDR
It sounds like the beginning of your relationship was very much a fairy-tale. You met this European man and immediately fell head-over-heels, flying across the ocean to visit each other as often as you could, and spending hours and hours on FaceTime (well, OK, that part isn’t so fairy-tale-ish, but you get my point). But you know why we never heard what happened with Cinderella and Prince Charming after he fit the glass slipper onto her foot? Because everything after that is pretty mundane. I mean, hopefully, not EVERYTHING was pretty mundane, but most of it probably was.
Like you and your boyfriend, they probably had a few months of “lovey-dovey” bliss, but then real life caught up with them. They had bills and period cramps and the flu. They probably fought over the temperature in their bedroom and what to watch on TV and where they should spend the holidays. Mundane.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re with the absolute love of your life/ “soul-mate” or not, life isn’t going to stay as exciting as it is in the first few months of a new relationship. It’s just not. That doesn’t mean that a deeper love doesn’t grow, because it does. In fact, it’s actually in those mundane, often difficult moments of a relationship when your bond is truly strengthened. You wanna know why? Because those are the moments when you’re being tested. Those are the moments you get to prove to your significant other that you’re in this — you’re really in this — and that what you share is more than fairy-tale, puppy dog lust, but the real damn deal. The “stick-to-your-side-no-matter-what” kinda love. The “I’ll-do-anything-to-be-with-you” kind of love, like figure out how to get a work visa in another country, and take language lessons, and something about “government collateral money,” cause that’s how much love there is.
And that’s not what it sounds like you have with your fiancé. Not only does it sound like you haven’t really discussed the important things a couple needs to discuss before tying the knot, it sounds like you lack the commitment needed to not only survive a LDR, but, more importantly, survive a marriage. And trust me, I have experienced a long distance relationship and I have experienced marriage, and marriage, at least one that involves children, is harder. It takes more commitment. You can’t just cheat when you aren’t getting enough attention and then expect things to be smooth after that.
What troubles me the most about your letter is how you say in one breath that you and your fiancé do nothing but fight constantly and how every single conversation you have ends in anger, and then in the next breath you say you’re happier together than you ever were on your own. It doesn’t sound like you’re happy now, so I can only imagine how you must have felt before. It’s always a red flag when someone thinks the best or only way to happiness is through being in a relationship, even if the relationship is as lonely as yours sounds.
You’re young; you had a fun, whirlwind romance with a man from a different country. Why not leave it at that and go your separate ways before you start resenting one another for creating more challenges than you’re prepared or ready to deal with? Why not end things while you still have love for each other and keep the memory of your time together happy before it’s tarnished by endless fights and disagreements over where to live and all the sacrifices you’ll eventually have to make for each other? That’s my advice for you: just MOA now while you still have positive feelings for each other.
But if you can’t bear the thought of saying good-bye just yet and you’re serious about trying to make this thing work, you need to have some serious discussions with each other about your expectations, your needs, and what you’re willing to sacrifice to make a marriage work. It’s not all fun and games. And that love-dovey feeling you had in the beginning? It’s not going to be there every moment. But it’s in the moments when it’s not there that you find what your relationship is really made of.
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If you have a relationship/dating question I can help answer, you can send me your letters at wendy(AT)dearwendy.com.
WWS! But I’m confused on why the LW expects her fiance to go through all of the pain in the butt stuff like work visas, establishing citizenship, and adjusting to a new language/culture if you won’t do it for him?
Wendy this was absolutely beautiful!!!
LW PLEASE listen to Wendy. You and your fiance barely know each other, no matter the visits and skyping. It´s impossible to get to know a person deeply (deeply enough to commit to marriage at least) while on vacation or over the computer. In my opinion you would need at least a year of seeing each other at least a few times a week, and not only at your best to truly know if you want to spend the rest of your life with someone.
WWS. This sounds like a whirlwind, fantasy romance that’s fracturing now that both of you are trying to make it into something more. There’s supposed to be a solid base in a relationship, so when that “lovey-dovey” feeling fades, you’re still firmly on deck instead of drowning in the water. It unfortunately doesn’t sound as if you & this man have that stability, LW.
I’m thinking the part of you that is “so glad [you] found this wonderful man to settle down with” is larger than the he-is-wonderful-and-I-am-so-happy part. There are other men in the world, & you don’t have to commit to one across the world–whom you fight with all the time–just because at one point, you each saw a future together. You say you miss a relationship without all the baggage, so I’d recommend that you MOA & keep searching.
I will echo what JK said: wendy, this really was absolutely beautiful. and it is very true that the mundane moments are when your relationship are truly made, and i have been noticing that, and it is making me feel much more confident about marriage in the future. (wendy has basically completely helped my fears about marriage, everyone. i highly recommend her advice. haha)
LW, wendy is totally right. if what you had was real and strong and good enough, you wouldnt cheat, and you wouldnt be all hurt about potentially having to move to his country. when people are in this spot, they do *everything* possible to make it work. and your willing to do…. maybe 30%, i’d say, of what it takes to make it work. and honestly, thats ok. it really is ok. long distance relationships, and especially cross country long distance relationships, are not for everyone. they are really, really hard, and if you are not willing to put in that work to make it work, just recognize that and move on. there is nothing wrong with saying, this relationship, and good as it is and as much as i love you, is not working for me because i need a much more active sex life and i am not willing to move abroad. you are allowed to say that.
so, LW, i would say you just need to make a choice. you either marry this man and devote your life to him 100%, which means no more cheating and figuring out a way to end the long distance (whether you move to him or vis versa), or you part now and go find a guy who will match up with the life that you want now. you obviously, as your life is evidence of now, cannot have it both ways. you have to pick the life you want, so really pick the life you want, you know?
Angry phone calls and 3 vacations per year does not a healthy relationship make.
Look, LDR are hard. Very hard. They require a huge amount of communication and scarifice and compromise. None of these things appear to be happening in your relationship. Please listen to Wendy and find someone who fullfills all of your needs.
When I studied abroad, I met an Irish guy and we dated for the remainder of the semester. At the end, he said that long-distance relationships are too hard (which I agreed with), and it was over. Like Wendy suggested, it’s been nice to be able to look back on the time we were together and how much fun it was, and sometimes email each other at random, without a cloud hanging over us because we ended up being mean and terrible to each other.
Aside from all that, it sounds like you got engaged straight from your LDR, which I think is risky in any circumstance, fairy tale or not. It seems like it would be hard to commit your whole life to someone who you’re not even sure what it’s like to live near. Anyone can be a good fiance (or fiancee) when it only involves a few visits and some phone calls. Plus, it sounds like there’s no good way for you both to be together as a couple and happy as individuals, finding work, etc. Sounds like it’s time to move on.
If you aren’t willing to make the sacrifices in a relationship you are comfortable asking of your partner – then that is not the relationship for you. That is not to say that everything has to be ‘even’ or that some-one’s reasons for staying or going or whatever won’t trump at some point but it cannot be all about you all the time and still be successful. My husband lives in Canada now because of me even though we met here – if he had his druthers he would be in Texas in a heartbeat. I appreciate the sacrifice on his part and, in turn, I’m open to moving there one day if our reasons for going trump our reasons for staying even though I love Toronto and think truly that no where else in the world can hold a candle to it (I mean the winter isn’t great but you can’t beat the diversity and the friendliness of the people). And moving to Texas would mean a whole new career for me and walking away from my business – but it is still on the table because at the end of the day I go where he goes and he goes where I go – everything else is just logistics. That is what commitment is. Wendy is right, marriage takes all kinds of commitment – not just sexual fidelity. And while you may have love, it doesn’t sound like you have the commitment you need to be successful. So visit one more time and have a sweet good-bye before you go on with your lives.
If you “fell in to old habits by being unfaithful a number of times,” THEN YOU AREN’T REALLY IN LOVE WITH THIS MAN. Period.
While I can respect other commenters’ points about needing to know someone longer to be ready for marriage, the time needed to be truly in love varies from person to person. But I can’t see how this does. Let’s say that he did in fact completely forgive you, harbouring no future resentment. Well, maybe, maybe not. But either way, you were so in love that you cheated multiple times. Sorry, that simply isn’t love.
Take that point and add everyone’s advice on top of it. Move on before you hurt him and yourself more than is unavoidable at this point.
Having been in a LDR in the past, there is a big difference between succumbing and having crushes. Yes, I did have a number of crushes when I hadn’t seen him for a while, but I never acted on them. Of course, we had very good communication, and tried to talk regularly to help us avoid feeling lonely.
The easy fall into unfaithfulness by you, LW, is a huge red flag – for him. This is not what a mature person who is truly in love with and committed to another person does. Period. To yearn for the early, fantasy stage of falling in love and to bemoan the baggage that you personally created, thus damaging the relationship, is fruitless – you are waaay past that…
I love a good Wendy response like no other, and this one was pretty darn good. But I can’t get my head around this comment: ” life isn’t going to stay as exciting as it is in the first few months of a new relationship” <—– LIES, ALL LIES, LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES. LIFE WILL STAY AS EXCITING AS IT IS IN THE FIRST FEW MONTHS F-O-R-E-V-E-R. (When I speak in all caps, it means I'm definitely right about that.)
Younger couples can sometimes make marriage work, but the fact that you call your fiance “perfect” gives me serious pause about whether a marriage would be right for you. Also, the fact that you cheated, multiple times, says a lot.
Please stop making this about what you think he deserves (God I hate when people do that to their partners) and focus on what you want. That’s the best way to be fair to both of you.
When you handle relationship problems by cheating you are not ready for marriage.
Beautiful response, Wendy! I hope the LW takes it heart and really listens.
There is not just this one person for you. He is not the only person out there that you will feel happy with, have great sex with, see a future with, etc. There are many chances for love in a lifetime. You do not have to stop and marry the first man you fall in love with- and you shouldn’t if you aren’t ready to make the sacrifices that the relationship calls for.
Hmmm. I wish HE had written in. I know I probably wouldn’t wanna give up my entire life to move to a far off land where I had no guarantee of employment — just so I can marry my partner who has already cheated on me a couple of times… Especially if we were now frequently fighting all the time…
It seems to me that he is trying to back away from this relationship. Let him. Slow things down a bit. This all sounds like too much too soon…
I’m a Canadian who met her European husband in grad-school. We had a whirl-wind romance too, there was long distance when school ended, and then I moved to Europe to be with him. Hoops to be jumped through for immigration whether him to the US or you to Europe are probably similar: they’ll recognize your relationship, and you get to move based on that. That will include a work permit, it includes a visa (slow down on citizenship- that’s not a requirement of living in another country, you can be a life-long immigrant), and I have no idea what you mean about government collateral money so I can’t comment.
When I moved here, we’d been together for 2.5 years, 18 months of that long-distance, and it wasn’t an easy transition. I had to learn a new language, sure, but that’s actually pretty cool when you think about it (and do you mean you wouldn’t be learning his language if he moved to the US? Selfish much? You have no intention of ever communicating with your in-laws and future nieces and nephews? Little kids don’t learn English right away.) I had to get a job, make a brand new group of friends and let me tell ya, making friends as adult is not easy. But there will be expats like you all over the country and I’m blown away by the amazing people I’ve met through the expat community.
The most difficult are the things I didn’t realize I was giving up when I moved here: I don’t have a close relationship with my sister’s children (who weren’t even a gleam in their mother’s eye when I moved away); I’ve given up being a part of big events for old friends like marriage, divorce, death, illness; I’ve given up having my mom make me a birthday cake for my birthday; given up Christmases and holidays. I didn’t realize how much I valued these things before I’d already given up on ever having them. Still, now, I think the trade was worth it. But I never had a doubt, we never had these fights, I knew he’d give all this up to come back to Canada with me if it really didn’t work out.
Truly, if you’re not willing to give these up for your future husband, you can’t expect him to do the same. Some have already commented on this, but from his point of view: Should I move overseas to be with my fiancée who’s already cheated on me many times, who had no interest in learning the language of my family, with no guarantee of a job, to an economy worse than the one I’m from, to see if we can stop fighting if we’re in the same apartment? Dear Wendy, is it worth it?
I say it’s not.
I’ve been in this exact situation, except it wasn’t Europe, it was the Middle East.
I’m guessing she expected him to move to the States not because she is selfish, but because he said he would and that was the plan. I’ve lived in three countries and I speak a lot of languages, but for some reason, Arabic was insanely hard for me and, given the chance even to live in a much safer Middle Eastern country with my fiance, I wouldn’t do it without a definite end-time attached. Like, a year.
My best suggestion to them, if the fights are really all about the logistics and there’s no greater issue underneath, is that they look for a third country that the fiance’s company is affiliated with and try to go there on a work visa. Not only do they both commit equally to the move and being outside their comfort zones for the sake of the other, but this third country, if at all possible, should be more easily accessible, language-friendly, and equally capable of sponsorship via a work visa for one or both of them.
Good luck to you guys!
LDRs and marriages both require major commitments, and it doesn’t seem like you have that. It sounds like you want him to make all the sacrifices to make this work, but it just doesn’t work like that, and it sounds like he’s tired of forgiving you and working on it himself.
LW, I’m pretty much your fiance.
I was in love with a foreigner for over 4 years, and we did the meet ups, the skype, whatever, the plan had been for me to move. When push came to shove, I just didn’t meet the qualifications for jobs abroad, and thanks to my boyfriend’s continuing schooling, he couldn’t move to me. I was making the effort, I was trying to be realistic and compromise with him. And he cheated on me, and eventually broke up with me because he just couldn’t handle the distance/didn’t want to move/the temptation of those around him.
So, as the party who is faithful, trying and failing to move, and waiting for you, here’s the cold hard truth: if you were happy, if you were as in love as you say you are, there wouldn’t be this level of confusion. The fact that your fiance keeps forgiving you indicates that he is really invested in this relationship but the fact that you keep cheating and second guessing indicates that you aren’t. If you’re waiting for magic to fix this situation it’s not going to happen. You can either hunker down and actually dedicate yourself to this relationship – or you can end it now. And frankly, as someone who can kind of relate to your fiance, he’ll probably keep taking this emotional beating until you end it. I really think it’d be in your best interest to really figure out what you really want. Don’t drag him along any longer if you’re this confused.
LW, I was pretty much you. In a LDR, with the love of my life, if things didn’t work out then there wasn’t a man for me. Time would stop when we were together. I would sob at airports when we separated. I spent countless hours skyping, calling, making beautiful albums of our time together. Then, about 18 months into the LDR part I cheated. I didn’t tell him, I managed to take the situation and put it in a box and put it deep deep down where I tried to ignore it. Then I cheated again. That one I couldn’t put in a box and lock up. I went to a therapist, who told me you are who you are. And who I was was a person who cheated on her boyfriend, then fiance, with two different people. There was so much confusion, and noise in my head. And brutal, overwhelming anger at myself for my actions. It took me a long time to reconcile the fact that love wasn’t enough, and time after that to realize that my life’s story didn’t have to be one where I fucked up my one and only love, and I ended up alone. I am not alone, and I’m a better person and a better partner for having gone through the whole mess. You know the answer to your questions LW, you just need to figure out how to be strong enough to go through with them.