I'm guest blogging at
A Day in my NYC today! Please check out Patty's blog, she is one of my long time blog readers & one of my good blogging friends!
My guest post is about
long distance relationships, something I am very familiar with! :-)
Here is the post I wrote:
Hello! I'm Sarah Lynn from the blog '
Tunay Na Mahal' (which translates to "true love" in
Tagalog,
the Philippines national language). Patty asked me to do a guest post
and I wanted to speak from something I have a lot of experience with.
Long distance relationships!
If anyone is the queen of
long distance relationships... I am probably it. My husband and I dated
for 5 years long distance before getting married in
December 2009. We even spent the first year of our marriage apart due to immigration.
And
when I say long distance... I mean it! My husband is from the
Philippines. A whole day ahead from Philadelphia. 12 hours apart- (13
hours during daylight saving time). Somehow during our 6 years apart, we
made it work. And now we are finally together in the same time zone!
Long distance relationships are not easy but they can work if you put
enough time and commitment into them. My husband and I are proof of
that. We have been together seven years now and married almost two.
How
did we do it? LOT'S of communication and trust. Unfortunately it's
pretty expensive to call the Philippines ($1.99 a minute!) My husband
and I only talked on the phone for special occasions (birthday's,
anniversaries, etc). I kept a phone card handy for those times because
the rates were cheaper.
We made time to have a "date"
every weekend. This took some commitment from both of us. We would meet
online every weekend on Yahoo messenger. We would meet on my lunch break
at work; while in the Philippines it was 12am and my husband's day was
ending.
We texted. A lot. We emailed each other
several times a week. We wrote letters and sent packages for special
occasions. My husband didn't have a webcam because he had dial up
internet, but I'm sure if we had both had a fast internet connection
that would have been another way for us to connect. We were able to chat
sometimes through headsets on Yahoo messenger, if the connection
behaved.
I traveled to the Philippines almost yearly.
And yes; it was very expensive. I worked all year long to save up enough
money. I would get 0% APR credit cards and buy my plane ticket and then
work hard the rest of the year to pay off that $1,200.
Sometimes
it sucked and we really missed each other. Going out with friends and
seeing them with their significant others, while yours was hundreds and
hundreds of miles away was not easy. Sometimes we just wanted to be a
normal couple, to be together in the same place; but it wasn't the right
time yet. We persevered. Patience is huge thing in long distance
relationships.
When we did get to spend time with
each other in person it was exhilarating. They say to live every day of
your life like it's your last, and the times we were together, we
definitely did that. We would have to cram so much into a small amount
of time.
One book that really helped us both during our time apart was
The Long-Distance Relationship Survival Guide, by Chris Bell & Kate Brauer-Bell. We each had a copy.
Long
distance relationships require 100% commitment & trust from
each partner. They require loads of communication. Sometimes, years of
patience and perseverance. But they do work. And if anything sometimes
they are even richer when you finally are together, because you've put
so much work & communication into your relationship.
*~Sarah Lynn~*
Tunay Na Mahal
http://www.tunaynamahal.com
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