Distance can either bring people closer together or drive
them apart. Both has happened to me. Woods describes three problems with long
distance relationships: lack of daily sharing of small events, unrealistic
expectations about time together, and unequal effort investing in the
relationship. I could not agree more with these issues. Being in the military
and shipped away can put stressors on the relationship not only creating the
distance between two people.
While I was
in Afghanistan I was able to talk to my now wife more than I could talk to my
ex Iraq. We used Skype, email, and telephone in the stan (Afghanistan). Iraq
did not have those luxuries. There was a huge time difference between the two
deployments. Iraq was 22 months and Stan was 12 months. My wife and I found new
ways to connect with each other using Skype when we could. Tried to keep the
passion and intimacy up while being so far away is very difficult, but we did
our best. Not being able to tell her about everything that I was doing there,
security reasons, was taxing. I could not share daily activities, so I spent a
lot of my time listening to her. I cannot say we became closer over the year
but we did learn how to talk to each other effectively. Which helped when I came
home.
Reading the
section made me think about my first relationship over seas. How it did not
work. We would not talk to often and when we did it was me complaining about
things going on and her telling me about the parties she was going to. Neither one
of us were very up front about what we were doing to each other. She became
more worried about me and I worried more about her cheating. Looking at the
chapter, if couples are aware of the problems they will have to face with a
long distance relationship, they have a better chance of working through the
problems.
Reference:
Wood, J. T. (2012). Interpersonal communication: Everyday
encounters (7th ed.). Independence, KY:
Wadsworth.
It's very interesting to read about your experiences with long-distance dating. It's clear that your first experience was in a more negative tone as you complained and she kind of rubbed your nose in the fact that you were gone. In the later experience it seems like you both gave an effort and shared a stronger understanding of the important things in your relationship. It's funny how we don't see these things quite so clearly in the moment. I'm glad it all worked out for you in the end!
ReplyDeleteWow 22-months is a long time to be deployed and trying to maintain a committed relationship with limited technology. However, I am sure that that experience made you a better communicator and partner the next time around.
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