[myself]

I’ll try to tell my story with more details.

Me and my boyfriend met 2 years ago. We are from different countries. A few months after we met we saw each other again and we spent an amazing night. Then he traveled back to Australia (his home country) and for 6 months we stayed in contact, writing every single day. We decided to go on a trip together to Thailand last year for New Years. We spent amazing 11 days and we fell in love. Then he started an internship in America and we decided that we are so much in love that we want to be together. I got a visa and after 6 more months in a long-distance relationship we started living together in America. The plan was to stay there for 6 months, then spend 2 months in my home country in Europe and then go back together to Australia so he can graduate. Nice plan.

After we started living together i had serious issues that leaded to many ugly arguments, hurtful things that i said to him, all of them started by me. Apart from having to live with housemates in a total mess bcs of them, i think most of my issues were actually some pain and insecurities from past relationships. My boyfriend was trying EVERYTHING to make me happy and i seemed like i never can be happy no matter what he does. He was getting very upset after each argument we had and he never argued with me even when he thought that i was wrong bcs he was scared that i’d leave (i almost did a few times). This, i guess, built up a lot of resentment in him. I started getting distant and cold. When we went last month in my home country it went even worse. I went to the point i started asking myself if i even love him, if i’ll ever be happy and at some point i even told him that i don’t know what’s going on… He was very upset and he left (he has relatives in a country close to mine). The moment he left, i can’t explain to myself what happened to me, it was a total twist. I suddenly realized how much i loved him and i couldn’t even believe that i was so numb just the day before. We talked and i apologized and asked him to come back. Before he did, he let me know that he’ll come only for 3 days bcs he needs to get back to America for 6 weeks to his work. He confessed that he didn’t leave his job there bcs he believed that we won’t stay together. I felt betrayed that he did this behind my back, that he changed the plans, that he never told me… Anyway, i told him that i understand why he did that and forgive him.

I spent a lot of time thinking about everything that was bothering me before until i realized that it wasn’t him, it was my old issues. This made me to be able to start communicating with him in a totally different way. I changed so much that he’s surprised. He finally receives the understanding and support and love he always wanted. And now… He says that he doesn’t feel like he used to… Well… fair enough.. He thinks that he fell out of love, but he says still loves me, that he just.. can’t look at me saying to himself that i’m the woman he wants to spend his whole life with (as he believed before) and that he’s not willing anymore to do all those things he was doing while he was in love. He wants to give us a chance. In 4 weeks we’ll go on a trip to Thailand again for a couple of days and then we’ll go together to Australia, living with his parents and try to work things out. In another 5 months he wants to go back to America. We talked to go back together and spend there 1-2 months and see if things between us will work out until then and if he doesn’t feel in love, we’ll separate. He is extremely scared that he won’t get back his feelings to me and that he’ll break my heart. When we talk about it he starts crying.

I try to be positive, i tell him that it’s normal, that we’ll work it out but he’s so afraid… His fear stops him from being positive and… i don’t know if he believes that we can work it out. He is still very kind to me, we talk every day, he tells me that he loves me and that it’s harder now to say it… We make skype dates every week, having a drink and candles and talking. Once a week we try to make something like “counseling” just between each other, talking about the current issues (we don’t have any now, except his fear), making appreciation lists, playing some couple games to know each other better and so on. He also agreed to try seeing a therapist in Australia.

He is very confused about his feelings (he says so)… Except the fear that seems to be his biggest issue right now, he also feels pressure, that i probably expect him to act like he did before and he doesn’t feel like it. He also is in a big stress right now, because he finally told his bosses that he wants to graduate and he wants them to let him for 4 months to be in Australia (still working from there, but less).

So… I think that this is our story and problems. I would be happy to hear your opinion and what can be done.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

It sounds like you’ve realized that long-distance relationships and internet relationships are a lot different than in person relationship! 😉 While it’s a little hard to keep track of the timeline you’ve mentioned, and I don’t know your ages, it does sound like the two of you are trying to see if you’re compatible for the long run or not. I think it’s important not to commit to someone before you really get to know them, and the way the two of you are dating, by spending long stretches of time living together and then going back to your respective countries, there’s a lot of pressure on both of you to make it work. If you were in town dating, that pressure wouldn’t exist. My advice to you is to relax your expectations. Instead of seeing this as a relationship in danger, try to see it as a relationship in progress, and don’t talk about marriage or a future together, beyond getting to know each other. 🙂

I hope that helps. And if you do write again, please include your ages. That always helps!

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