Long Distance Relationship, Part 2
Friday, October 29th, 2010Well, part 1 for me.
A year ago, Raph guest posted at Nancy the Gnomette about her (and therefore, my) Long Distance Relationship. This month, we hit our 3 year mark*, and only for the last 6 months have we living bearably close to one another.
So, now that we’re no longer a LDR, now what? When you move on to the next stage of your life and move in together? Is it that much more challenging when you have gotten used to a relationship dynamics when you don’t see each other that much?
The first big challenge is your expectations
In this field I was far more hung up on something than Raphaëlle. The relationship worked. But did it work despite the distance or because of the distance? There was only really one way to test that though. Of course, some people might think it wise to move closer together first, increase frequency of visits, duration of visits and so on. We? Well, we just moved in together.
And to be honest there were some tensions at first. We went from one extreme to the other. Before we could find our current apartment, we stayed in Raphaëlle’s company’s officetel – a single 15 square meters room where we slept, ate and worked. Together. 24 hours a day. We are both unapologetic introverts, and while we love each other dearly, spending that much time on top of each other was unnerving, to say the least. But no throats were ripped, no one ran back to the airport and we didn’t suddenly realize that we actually had no business being together at all.
It’s nice to know I didn’t waste 3 years of banging other girls for no good reason.
Money matters
We discussed it lengthily with our families and friends back at home before we moved, but couldn’t really find a satisfying role model around us. Though lots of examples of how not to do it. Neither of us felt comfortable having completely shared finances, but what are the alternatives when most of your expenses are shared, and when your income one-sided?
Raph moved to Seoul on her first real position, as opposed to living on grants or intern compensations. Whereas I always used to have a job and have been paying my own way for a fair few years I am now broke. Very broke. So our first budget to manage had output on both sides and on shared stuff and input was scarily unilateral. This meant that letting go of the idea of separate finances fast, obviously.
So, not only did we have to deal with how to get the money in to equal or supersede the money out, we also had to deal with whatever psycho-babble floats around regarding gender roles in income. I was now pretty much fully at the mercy of Raphaëlle for my food, drink, dry place to sleep and all other things where money is involved (and in today’s society, where isn’t it). We found out our inner demons chasing our ids and egos about. Our first months were tight but Raphaëlle could justify splurging on something she wanted every now and again but she had problems letting me do the same. And I had it confirmed that I really didn’t like being dependant on hand-outs.
Next to this, is of course the solid conviction that the man should provide the money and the woman is there for . . . well . . . I’m sure they’re useful for something. Now, I’m a modern enough man to not worry too much about having her earn more money than me, as I’m sure Raphaëlle hasn’t gone looking for someone with a bigger bankroll than hers just to fulfil some macho rule about how they’re supposed to earn more. But it’s been interesting changing the state of this condition from academic to reality, and Raph found out some preconceptions she had regarding the matter she wasn’t aware of before. For me? Having a sugar momma might sound nice if it’s for . . . well, the sugar, the icing, the extras. When you have to ask someone for money to buy tomatoes the shine soon fades.
Within 3 months we were settled in though. After the initial tightness money wasn’t as much of a problem and with a new rhythm we went about our lives. Life has been good and stable now for 3 months and hopefully, within a few months I can change the current status again when I get a job.
Now, a relationship is between two people. People tend to be individuals, which only partly conform to gender stereotypes. Here’s some nasty surprises: I was looking forward to the same game I’ve played for years regarding cleaning the apartment. She would be more about the cleanliness and I’d try to get away with doing as little as possible. I’m not the slob in this relationship, that was a surprise. (Not that Raph is, it’s just fairly unusual for me not to be)
The other is that I wouldn’t give Raphaëlle free range to paint our walls blue. Go figure. I may not know art, but I know what I’d run away from screaming.
Life rhythms
So we spent 2.5 years of our relationship living apart. One of the things Raph mentioned in that guest post was to develop your own life independent of your partner. You either succeeded in this or you’ve been living a lie. So here we are, two people in a relationship that are quite good at living our own life. Sure, the whole reason we moved in together is because we wanted to be together more. But you have to create some time apart. If nothing else, to provide dinner conversation. If you spend 100% of your time together, how many funny anecdotes will you have to share?
So we have different hobbies. Some of which can be done in the same room. We read the same books and different ones, we read the same sites and different ones, we watch some series together and other apart, we have the same friends and . . . well, we haven’t really developed a social life wide enough to truly have independent friends though there’s is already someone I meet on occasion that Raph really doesn’t remember.
Also, we know when to involve the other and when to go on our own merry way. I like to dance the night away and Raphaëlle just doesn’t. So when my path was crossed with free tickets to the Global Gathering (with special thanks to Wyatt and James) my leaving Raph alone to recover from a hard week by curling up in bed with a series to go party the night away instead was no worries. If we had morphed into some freaky Wally-Raph being neither of us would’ve had that.
One of the areas in our joint existence where we’re out of synch is travel. I have been in Korea for 7 months now and have yet to leave Seoul. I didn’t come here for the city, I can for the country (and the girl). Raph, on the other hand, spends a lot of her time travelling. To the country’s industrial capitals, so not a lot of touristing, enjoying the scenery or cultural experiences. Raph isn’t really keen on using the weekends to go out explore, and I really am.
There are a lot more things to be discussed on how the relationship has changed. But we’ll keep it at this
The Future
It’s uncertain. I am looking for a job here, but let’s face it, job markets right now are tight enough without the market being run in a language you don’t speak. We have discussed this at some length and if I were to find a really cool job in a different country it’d be an option to emigrate again. So what do we do with our apartment in the meantime? We decorate it. And within a significantly finite amount of time it may all be sold off for a 80% loss. I don’t really know if we should be investing in it, but Raphaëlle seems eager to do it and it means I get to play with powertools so . . . . I suppose it’s all good.
The future of us? Well, I don’t really think about it. And when I do Raph is in it.
* completely arbitrarily, we decided a posteriori that our relationship started during that trip to Kyoto.
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