As title, and here's why I'm asking:

I met a girl at university, and have been together for 2 and a half years. She lives in Essex, I live in Cornwall. We both work now (having graduated) so visiting is hard (the plan is eventually to move somewhere together), I've managed to visit once since graduating (I have visited 3 times in total, the other 2 during summer breaks before graduating), but she has never visited and continues to refuse to visit ("I hate Cornwall, "there's nothing there","too expensive to travel" etc). I asked her to come down over this summer, she won't. She is expecting me to visit her in September though.

Now, she puts her lack of visitation down to suffering from an anxiety disorder. I put it down to being inflexible.

Anyway, long story short I'm growing increasingly frustrated at apparent the lack of commitment. We were supposed to be compromising on a place to live (somewhere between the two locations), but her idea of "compromise" is another area of Essex, or no further West than Berkshire. A real compromise is more likely Somerset/Wiltshire (or even Bristol/Cardiff), but she refuses to move too far away because she likes London too much (so much so that all other cities are "boring" by comparison).

So my dilemma is thus: I really, really, really love this girl, but whilst she loves London, I despise the place. I don't want to move to Essex, and TBH I don't like what it says about my character if "compromise" basically means bow to her wishes.

What do I do?

Have this conversation with her.

Seriously, if she's not willing to compromise and you're not willing to do what she wants then it's not sounding good. You need to have this conversation with her though. Explain calmly how you feel and how she's making you feel and then give her a chance to explain it from her POV. If you can't agree then I'd say it's probably not worth it.

I know people say (and probably will) that LDR can work, but I say only for some kinds of people. It doesn't work for me, I need common ground and shared experiences, not hearing about someone elses life over the phone all the time. If you're the kind of people it works for then great, but it doesn't sound like it to me.

My 2-penneth-orth.

I would, except every time I say something she doesn't like to hear (such as this) she becomes dismissive, and generally seeks to end the phone call ASAP. I tried it about an hour ago, and all I got was "I guess this is goodnight then". I could only respond with "I'm starting to think this is increasingly one-sided, and you never take my concerns seriously".

Then send your post above (slightly edited and tailored specifically to her) in an e-mail or other kind of message.
If she doesn't respond or chooses to ignore it, then I guess you have your answer.

Mark

Are long distance relationships ever worth it?

Let answer you quite simply: my brother, my sister and I all married our respective partners after long-distance relationships.

Talk with her about this and ask her bluntly what the real problem is. If my girlfriend was in Cornwall, I sure as hell wouldn't think Cornwall was boring.

Yep.

Mark

Me i lived in London.

Brenda, she lived in N.Ireland.

We met in Corfu.


Two weeks ago we celebrated 25 yrs of marriage.
Yes there were difficult times (caused by the distance) but i know i didn't want to stay in London so when we decided to go N.Ireland it wasn't that much of an wrench to leave even though some thought it was worse than Beirut....


Having said all that if there is no compromise on both parts it aint gonna end well.
I think you need to find out what the real problem is here.It seems to me (sorry for this) that your feelings are not being reciprocated here.

There have been some good points raised by others (Zippy especially)though while i agree with Mark in essence i would put that in a letter if you feel the need to put it in a written form or,which i feel may be more difficult, a good heart to heart over the phone.


yours wecrookie

I hope so.

I'm in my second relationship, which has just turned long-distance. (The first one turned long distance and ended badly)

We've both just started our Industrial Years (year out of Uni in work) - she's in Northampton and I'm in Aberystwyth (National Library of Wales, woo!).. which is ~180 miles apart. I don't mind driving it. If I can get the car through it's MOT (Failed dismally today. [LIFTED].) then I'll be driving down this weekend coming. Then she's getting the train up here two weeks later. Etc. Sounds expensive, but we've been apart for... 4 days, and we're going insane. Hopefully it'll work out. Especially since we're living together for third year, and I'm kinda happy with the direction my life is taking right now!

It can work if you want it enough. Just takes a bit of self-control, patience and determination. (So if anyone fancies throwing in a coupla coppers to help with the £250 bill to get my motor on the road again... )

Now you see, that sounds ideal. But I'm the one who travels, she doesn't, and TBH that's starting to hack me off a little bit...

When I was doing my Industrial Year in Camberley, Faye was living in Aberystwyth (~230 miles apart). We had met in Aber, lived in the same house for the first year, lived with each other in the second where we got together.
Moving away was hard, we used Skype pretty much every night, if she went out she'd always ring me and vice versa. I visited her once a month, and if she could afford it (both time and money) she'd come visit me. It was hard living back together, going from my own personal space to sharing everything...

The both of us have been very open from the start, I'm a hopeless soppy git who had grand plans of children and marriage before getting into a relationship, so when we first got together these things were talked about. Home for me is a boring and increasingly violent town in Wiltshire, home for Faye is mid/south-Wales which I'm happy with, but when we finally move away from Aber, it won't necessarily be to somewhere like Cardiff, it'll be to wherever the work is (possibilities are Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, York, Australia, etc.). Faye is keen to stay fairly close to her Mam, which is understandable after Christmas, but we both know the next step is going to be determined by a job.

I think our strength in this is that we are not going home, we are looking to move forward together and I think had we gone home, we'd have felt rooted and been unwilling to move. When we did have a LDR we both knew I was coming back to Aberystwyth and she was staying on to complete a Masters, so that was easy.

I'm not saying you should bow to her every whim, but how important is location to you? Why won't you move to Essex (I'm sure there are some nice parts)? Why isn't she travelling, is she out of work, etc.?
On the other hand, if she can't even talk about it, things that really do need a compromise could be difficult in the future.

Any relationship is built on good communication, trust, and compromising (plus other things of course) but a long distance relationships really puts stress on it all

Whatever happens, I wish you the best of luck.

I can understand this is a heck of a difficult situation, probably far beyond my lack of wisdom, but I do see the issue.

With my girlfriend I may just be a few chapters behind a story similar to yours. If certain circumstances change within her family she might have to move to Wales, which I don't know how we'd deal with it.

For yourself I can understand that you can find yourself in a difficult situation regardless of whether you stick, twist or fold.


If the long distance continues at her convenience then you’re still in the same situation as now.

However if you move to Essex you may find a relationship that doesn't work due to her lack of compromise and will find that you have invested a lot of your heart and sacrificed parts of your life for a dead end.

Then again if you end this relationship being single after a long enough relationship is never easy, personally I’d prefer to be in a relationship.

She seems to have stuck and to me it seems she has made her mind up. Maybe talk about it from a different angle maybe from a more emotional perspective than situational.

It seems to me you have something to lose in each situation and this is one of those decisions that may be looked back upon as a life changing moment; I hope that the choice you make is the one that turns out best in the long run. Whether you move to her area, continue in an effort to compromise, keep it long distance or end the relationship.

Personally I’d be doing the best I can to keep it going.

But of course I’m only 18 but I sympathise with this situation and I can see how life changing decision can be for your near and long term happiness and future.

This.

It appears she doesn't want to be with you enough. Normally, I would think about this a lot and write down the benefit of my experiences, but in this case I feel that Jim's sentence really sums up your problem.

As much as it's hard, you need to call her on this. I have a sneaking suspicion she may realise it'll never work, but she doesn't have the balls to pro-actively end it because she doesn't want to hurt you.

You're young. Anything could happen in the future and as hard as it is to move on, you deserve to be in a relationship that makes you feel good. Somebody who "loves" you not wanting to come see you, won't do that.

I'm sorry you're in the situation.

Sounds like you're starting to resent her. Never a good thing in a relationship.
Are you prepared to move to London soon? If not she's going to keep treating you like this. Even if you do move she may continue to treat you like this, just in different ways.

If that was my situation I'd (and this is an oil industry phrase) plug and abandon.

+2

I've been in several long distance relationships and they can work, but they are hard work and they need to be worked on and they need commitment from both sides. It is unfair for one party to have to do all of the travelling.

None of my relationships failed because of the distance, BTW. They failed for other reasons. The last distance relationship? Well, we've been living together for over 2.5 years and have bought a house together.

If she isn't willing to work at the relationship, then it will be ever more exasberarting for you. You need to have this discussion with her, even if she doesn't want to have it - email or snail mail might be a good way to do it, as suggested.

That was an alarm bell for me I must admit. My wife and I were "an item" for 5 years long distance before we got into the same location at the same time. A total pain to do but a well worth while investment as far as I'm concerned.