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Dear readers and forum members:

Due to the demands of a new project I must suspend our forum activity. I am so sorry.

I wish you all the very best, always.

April

https://www.aprilmasini.com
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Long Ditance and traveling issues

#1
My boyfriend and I have been dating for almost four years now. Our history go way back however and we have been best friends for 6 years. Since last year, we are doing long distance relationship where one is in Europe and the other is in America. During those year, we had lots of amazing moments and I do believe what we have is sort of magic, because once we are together every thing goes to the right place. The problem is how emotions and how the distance make every think more sensitive. He has hurt me many times with his actions and choices, and we have always talked and I have decided to move on. One of the times was when he decided to make a trip with 3 female friends and only told me about it the week before. It is not that I don't trust him or them, but the situation itself is not comfortable. We talked after, he understood and apologized. However, now, after one year, he booked another trip with the same girls and also told me 4 days before. It really disappointment me. Besides that, he chose to go to a place that was my dream place to go. I have dreamed to visit this city since 2004 and it was like a tale to me. We had made plans already but I always told him I didn't mind waiting to go there, just wanted to be perfect once I was there (the place is up North, so very cold even during summer). It was my dream and I made it ours. It really hurt me that he went there with other girls. What however was the biggest problem to me, is that when he told me, we fought and I told him about how the situation was repeating and what the place meant to me. I told him how hurt and how upset I would be, and in the end he still went. I'm very hurt and disappointed with this situation. I don't know if it is me overreacting, or seeing problem where there is not, or if I actually have a reason to be disaapointed.

Re: Long Ditance and traveling issues

#2
You're 22, he's 23 and you've been in a relationship for almost four years now. It recently became long distance, and that changes things. Long distance relationships are a lot tougher than in town relationships and require a lot of patience and understanding to make them work. It sounds like he's taking his second trip in two years, with these three women, without you. And he tells you about the trip -- but not until the last minute -- and this makes you feel that you weren't part of the decision for him to go, or the planning, which would have made you feel better. It sounds like this trip with these women makes you feel like your relationship with him is less sacred -- whether they're platonic or not. That he's now taking this one trip to a place you always wanted to go -- without you -- makes your relationship with him feel less special. :( I get it.

If you want this relationship to work, then you have to take a different attitude. Instead of seeing his going on this trip with his female friends as a takeaway, be positive about it. See if you can get him to invite you! Ask him, in a flirty way, if you can come, too! And/or, see if you can brush this trip off as just part of who he is. If you can, he may do so, too! Sometimes when we give something uncomfortable attention, it becomes worse. You've tried to get him to change. That didn't work. See if you can be the one to make some changes. ;) So, ask, in an upbeat, flirty way, him if you can come with! His answer will be revealing.

If, however, you can't let this go, then maybe it's time to see the relationship as less serious, from his point of view, than it is from yours. Some 23 year old men are not ready to settle into monogamous relationships and this new long distance situation has given him opportunity to test the waters beyond the relationship.
April Masini is a relationship and etiquette expert, author of 4 books and the #1 relationship advice forum, blue-chip corporate spokesperson and preferred go-to source for the world’s most prominent media and news outlets.

Re: Long Ditance and traveling issues

#3
Thank you April!!
We never lived in the same city. We lived in two cities very closed by. We would meet every weekend and sometimes during the week.
The first trip happened when I had a travel with academic propuse with my university, hence I was not around. Now, the problem is that i am too far away, and it is impossible for me to go on a weekend trip on Europe being in America. He cannot invite me.
He tells me that going on a trip with those girls are a topic we don't agree upon. He says that he wouldn't like the idea of me traveling with 4/3 guys, however that it is different with those girls because they are very closed friends to him and I have met them. He says he just knows nothing would happen. However, if I think about how we have met in boarding school and how we were very close friends, and how I could only perceive him as a brother for two years before we actually start to date, makes what he says have no sense. He answers me back that it is different, because since the first month we have met, he has liked me and he has wanting to stay with me. He always wants to make out of what he does an exception.
what has hurt me the most was not the trip and the place themselves (although those things have left me pretty hurt) what was worst was the fact of this situation repeating after we had already gone through problems and above all, the fact that he knew going wouldn have hurt me and our relationship.
I just feel that if he is to choose someone to left aside or to disappoint, it will be always me.
As if he does not prioritize us..

Re: Long Ditance and traveling issues

#4
I'm sorry you're hurt. I get it. :oops: It sounds like the two of you just disagree on this. You can make it a deal breaker, or you can let it go. To make that decision, think about how you would feel about breaking up with him over this issue, and if you think breaking up is the right thing for you to do, then this is your opportunity. But if you don't want to break up with him, then I think you have to accept that this is something he does that you just don't like. Lots of couples have these issues. If the two of you go the distance, then perhaps down the line, he will let this behavior go. But for now, with the two of you in different countries, I think this is a problem you have to let go. I know it hurts your feelings, but he's not going to change his behavior. Lots of times couples agree to disagree and then find ways to take care of themselves in that mutual disagreement. So while he's away, be kind to yourself. Get a spa treatment. Visit friends. Do something nice for yourself, and understand that relationships (and especially long distance relationships), require understanding, patience, flexibility and creative solutions. You're in one of those situations where you need to evoke your patience, flexibility, understanding and creative solutions. ;) You're not going to get what you want in this situation, so you have to make the best of the relationship, given who you both are -- if you want to keep it going.
April Masini is a relationship and etiquette expert, author of 4 books and the #1 relationship advice forum, blue-chip corporate spokesperson and preferred go-to source for the world’s most prominent media and news outlets.
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