Jumping into a long distance relationship freshman year of college wasn't the smartest thing to do. My relationship completely consumed me, compromising my grades, my friends and even my family. My boyfriend thought himself to be the epicenter of my life and disregarded everyone else who was important to me. He would get mad when I chose my friends over him, or if I said I couldn't come visit him that weekend because I had too much work. I really wanted our relationship to work, so all the free time that I had, I spent with him.
Eventually, I started to feel suffocated. My grades were suffering, I hadn't seen my girlfriends in months and I barely spent any time with my family. I felt like I had failed everyone around me that I cared about. Eventually our relationship fell apart because of jealousy and distrust, and all I had left to remind me of my eight month relationship was excess car mileage and over the top phone bills.
Everything is good in small doses. Long distance relationships take up all your free time. My boyfriend and I would alternate weekends. One weekend I would drive the grueling two and a half ours to see him and the next weekend he would do the same. We would spend every moment together on the weekends, which was fun at first. Later, it was one of the factors that contributed to the demise of our relationship. If you are in college and thinking of staying in a relationship with someone who goes to a different school than you, think again. It may not always be the best solution. Finding someone closer is best.
When you and your significant other live within close proximity of each other it is much easier to maintain a healthy relationship. You have the option of pacing your relationship so that both of you have enough time for school, family and friends. In a long-distance relationship, both parties end up spending too much time together all at once because they don't have the luxury of living near by. Some consider this a benefit, but I don't. A relationship is more exciting and spontaneous when you frequently see each other at repeated intervals instead of once a week for three days.
Long-distance relationships are more distracting than regular relationships. During the week when you should be studying or focusing on various important tasks, you find yourself on the phone chatting away with your significant other. As a result of not seeing your boyfriend or girlfriend throughout the week you catch up on the phone. When you are not talking to them you are thinking about them, which is even worse. Thoughts about your significant others' whereabouts may consume you. You might find yourself feeling frustrated and jealous because you are unfamiliar with the environment your significant other is exposed to at his school and what he or she does when you are not there.
This is one factor that my boyfriend could not overcome. As a result he would call 25 times a day or more, and leave at least 10 messages, as if I wouldn't get the point after one. Most of the time, I didn't pick up his phone calls because I was in class or I was somewhere where I couldn't talk. In his mind he thought up twisted scenarios of why I wasn't answering his calls and persistently harassed my friends, parents and voicemail. For some reason, he imagined that I was cheating on him during the week. He would persistently question me and I had to constantly reassure him that I wasn't and explain to him why I couldn't pick up his phone calls; it was pathetic.
Every time we spoke, he wanted a detailed play-by-play of my day and there was no way that I was going to deal with that. One day, when I was looking at my call log and deleting all the messages, it hit me that this was crazy and a waste of time. This was not what I wanted to be doing in college. Clearly, the distance was driving him insane; there was no longer any trust on his part. As I saw it, there was no point in continuing this kind of relationship.
Lack of trust is one of the main reasons why long distance relationships fail. When someone has trust issues and they think that their boyfriend or girlfriend is going to cheat on them, problems are bound to occur. College relationships are usually exciting in the beginning, but then slowly start to deteriorate as a result of endless fights and jealousy. Due to the lack of dating experience, trust is usually underdeveloped in relationships between college students. If your boyfriend or girlfriend doesn't trust you they will constantly call, checking up to see if you are doing something they don't approve of.
Who wants to spend supposedly 'the best years of your life' explaining yourself to someone else who doubts your faithfulness? Who wants to deal with a million phone calls a day that question your loyalty? I know that I don't want to waste time on the phone trying to convince my boyfriend who is hundreds of miles away that I am not cheating on him. College is about education and having a good time, and that's all I want to be thinking about. A long-distance relationship, especially with some one who has trust issues, adds stress and anxiety to your already hectic college environment. It's better to take things slow whenever possible, focus on school work and friends and when the time is right for an honest relationship, it will unravel all on its own.
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