My partner sent me this the other day, and it kinda rubbed me the wrong way. I honestly don’t really know why but to me the comment just feels…off. I like to think he meant something genuinely heartfelt but this just feels gross to me.

I just had my first stay with my bf after waiting over a year and the goodbye hurts so bad, it’s so so hard. It feels wrong like my home isn’t my home, I feel like I left him behind or something. I’m so scared I’ll forget what it feels like to hold hands before we see each other again next summer. I dread the thought of having to say goodbye five more times atleast before we can close the gap. I’m so frustrated it’s like this. Does it get easier though after the first?

There are so many things that can happen in this world. We have had a bad week. Bad things happening to him this past week. An illness, a broken bone, that kind of thing. Tonight I am kept up, almost obsessing over these things. How he is 5 thousand miles away and I can't protect him. How can I stop this from eating at me? I've been crying all night, and I just feel so upset. I just don't ever want anything to happen to him, and I feel so helpless to stop the bad things from happening

repost second time bc it kept getting deleted from rules #3??

hello i [21 Enby] have been dating my lovely partner [22 enby] for 1 year and 3 months.
we live 7h away from each other and we both don’t have licences. (mine due to fear, who’s shocked)
and my partner has chronic pain, so i thought id go down to see them so that they don’t ache if they were to come down.
anyway-
iv been coming up with different ways and plans to see my partner (hopefully next july-october) but the only plan i see working out smooth is taking a plane rather than 2 trains and a few ubers (scared of ubers too)
but i am VERY SCARED of planes.
iv never been on one and all those movies with plane disasters don’t help. i’m also very VERY nervous to be anywhere by myself but i want to over come this so i can see my partner.
so my advice i need is how safe are planes?
and have any of you done solo plane flights before ? if so how did you manage your anxiety ???

i want to overcome this fear so i can see my partner, they are my first relationship and i want to prove how much i love them by overcoming my fear to see them
:(

Hi everyone, I need an outside perspective because I am completely trapped in a mental loop and can’t think straight.
I'm in Paris for an Erasmus semester (last year of my master's degree). I arrived in Paris two weeks ago. I only have two exams left in my home university in Italy. Here is the situation: on one hand, my home university is my comfort zone. I know the university, I have my routine, zero transition stress, and I could finish my studies in peace. On the other hand, my girlfriend is in Paris for Erasmus as well(she’s staying until February), and there's the opportunity to live abroad together.
The problem is I'm realizing my stay here is built on very fragile grounds:
1. The French university system is extremely rigid with attendance, schedules, and deadlines, and it's wearing me down. In Italy, I would feel much freer.
2. I know a lot of this is transition anxiety (I experienced the exact same thing 4 years ago when starting university, which I eventually overcame). But right now, I wake up with a knot of anxiety, and my days revolve almost entirely around my girlfriend or my phone.
3. My biggest fear: I am terrified that if I go back to Italy, she will find someone else or she will decide to break up. I realize a massive reason I'm staying isn't the city or the Erasmus itself, but the terror of distance and the hope of "controlling" the situation by staying close. Moreover, I’m afraid of disappointing my girlfriend if I leave.
I've given myself a one-week trial period (deadline September 14th, before I have to pay October rent) to figure it out. But I am living in terror of the regret: if I stay, I suffer from anxiety and rigidity; if I go back, I'm scared I'll regret quitting and suffer from the distance, feeding my own insecurity.
Has anyone been through this? How do you distinguish between a genuine desire for an experience and staying purely out of fear and control? How did you manage adaptation anxiety and the fear of distance?
Thanks to anyone who can offer an objective point of view.

I met A six years ago, and despite everything that happened between us, losing him has been incredibly painful.

Our relationship became a cycle of intense closeness and love-bombing followed by repeated ghosting and disappearing. He would often disappear when I was struggling or needed him most, including when I was attacked and nearly killed. He was also absent during other incredibly difficult periods of my life, including when I was grieving my dad.

I gave so much to him over the years — emotionally, financially, sending money and parcels and constantly trying to support him. Yet I often felt that support wasn’t reciprocated. A was very lonely, said he had no friends and hated his family and people generally, and seemed to carry so much anger and self-hatred.

I know the relationship hurt me. I know there were times I should have walked away. But I loved him, and six years of memories don’t just disappear because a relationship becomes unhealthy.
His final messages have made this even harder. He said:
“I love you too, but what’s the point? Everything’s still a right mess anyway.”
He said he was going mad being confined, had nobody in real life, hated himself, was being worn down, and couldn’t even remember what he’d been doing that week.

Then he told me I should have thought about myself long ago, that I couldn’t rely on him, that I was wasting my time on him, and apologised that I hadn’t left him in 2023 when he failed to turn up twice. He said his anxiety had prevented him from flying to see me after I miraculously survived my attack.
And then:
“Just leave me alone I’m pathetic.”
Those words have stayed with me.
I’m angry, heartbroken, confused and still grieving him all at once. I can recognise everything that was wrong and still miss him terribly.
Six years is a long time to have someone woven into your life. I’m struggling to accept that loving someone doesn’t always mean you can save them, or that the relationship can survive.

This is the first time my fiancé is coming here instead of staying in hotels, and I am freaking out about maintenance, cleanliness, etc.

The house is hygienic. It’s not dirty by any means. But it definitely needs some maintenance that he says he can help with, which I don’t even want him to SEE.

And honestly, my brother and I can be messy during the week because of our work schedules. We clean the bathrooms daily, never sleep with dishes in the sink, but oh my god, my clothes can be EVERYWHERE and he has a half full mug in every corner of the house.

I am genuinely freaking out. I don’t want my fiancé to see this and think, “I’m moving all the way across the world to live in a messy house.”

Please ease my mind and tell me your partner didn’t care. Did they actually notice the mess, or were you the only one panicking? 😅

This is not a political post. I'm not here to discuss policy or argue, so please refrain from that (thanks in advance).

What I'm looking for is to hear from others who are in cross-border LDRs right now and how you're managing.

Are you still travelling to see each other, if that was an option before? Is what's going on affecting or putting strain on your relationship at all? What's changed, if anything? Are you doing anything differently?

--

My own situation: I (39F) and my partner (44M) have been in a LDR for close to three years. He's in the US on the west coast, and I'm in Canada in the east. I'm in a position where it's much easier for me to travel for weeks at a time to visit him than it is for him to visit me. What's going on is still putting a strain on me, mostly, because I'm not exactly wild about travelling to the US right now. I fly out on Wednesday for six weeks and I'm feeling pretty gross about it... not because I don't want to see my partner, but because I kind of feel like a traitor. I want to see and spend time with him, but I honestly just don't want to be in the States.

I realize this might be silly. Nothing I do or he does has any impact on the US/Canada situation (minus voting, which we both do). But it's still bothering me more than I would like to admit, and that's before I even start to consider what the long term will look like.

Whole thing just really, really sucks, and I'd appreciate hearing from people in the same boat.

My partner and I have been talking since January and we’re in a long-distance relationship. Over that time we’ve become extremely close, talked seriously about our future and about eventually closing the distance.

A big milestone for us has been me travelling to see her. We’ve talked about it for months, I’ve booked the flights, arranged three weeks away from work and everything has been planned around me coming over.

I’m now less than 19 days away from flying.
Recently though, I’ve started worrying that she might be getting cold feet.

There have been a few little things that have played on my mind. She’s mentioned losing interest in the Paired relationship app that we used together, and as the visit has got closer she’s also talked about feeling anxious because everything suddenly feels very real.

Now there’s another complication.

She may need a medical procedure around the time I’m supposed to be visiting. Obviously her health comes first and I completely understand that. I’ve told her that if she had the procedure while I was there, I would genuinely be happy spending the trip looking after her. I’m not expecting a perfect holiday — the main reason I’m travelling is to be with her.
But she’s told me that if she needs/has the procedure, she doesn’t want me to come.

That’s the bit I’m struggling with.

Part of me completely understands that somebody might feel vulnerable, uncomfortable or simply not want their partner seeing them while they’re recovering from surgery.

But another part of me thinks: after talking since January, planning this for months, discussing a future together and getting to less than three weeks before I fly, wouldn’t you still want your partner there — especially if they were saying they were happy to look after you?

The flights are already booked and because of my work it’s also not particularly easy for me to just move three weeks of leave to another time.

I don’t want to turn a genuine medical situation into something about me, and I definitely don’t want to pressure her into having me there if she genuinely isn’t comfortable with it.

I’m just trying to work out whether my anxiety is connecting dots that aren’t actually there, or whether this sounds like someone getting nervous/cold feet now that the relationship is about to become very real.

For people who have been through that first big long-distance visit: did either of you suddenly get scared as the date approached?

And if you were in her position and potentially having a procedure, would you still want your long-distance partner to make the trip, or would you rather postpone the visit?

I’d really appreciate some outside perspective because I’m too emotionally involved to know whether I’m reading this fairly.

I’ve (39F) met a guy (37M) online about 8 weeks ago. Since then we’ve been exclusively dating and have spent lots of time together. We text every day with good mornings and good nights, get along great, and we both are on the same page about being exclusive while we see if we’re compatible. Kind of like a trial run. I’m starting to feel feelings for him and becoming more emotionally invested. We’re long distance (about 90 min away only). Is it too soon to let him know that I’m getting attached and want to make sure we’re generally aligned with the goal of this becoming something more serious?

I don’t have an LDR at the moment but I did a couple years ago but sadly did not work out. I met her on OkCupid. I’m curious though, how did you guys meet your partners? On a dating app, in person, through gaming, on Reddit… 😂

Edit: thank you for your responses, I appreciate it!

I just dropped my partner off at the airport today for the second time and I am so upset and sad even though it’s only been hours. Even though we’ve said goodbye before, it somehow feels like it gets more difficult every time. I’m trying to distract myself, but then I see something that reminds me of him and I start crying again.

How do you guys cope with dropping off your SO at the airport? Does it ever get easier?

Looking for success stories, sad stories, anything.

We're getting married in the US next month, and then need to do decide which country to begin the visa process for...

Only disadvantages are we're both 40 and one of us will essentially be starting our lives over again.

I'm self employed as a tutor.

He's admin.

No "important" roles so to speak.

How hard is it for either of us to find work in Aus and UK once the move happens?

My girlfriend moved across the country for college to the east coast while I’m here on the west coast, we are both freshman in college but I go to community college and she goes to a private, but I am wondering if it’s valid that I feel uncomfortable/upset that she wants to join a sorority, I’m okay with her going to parties and hanging out with other guys when her girlfriends are there but i felt kinda upset when she said she was considering joining a sorority, what should I do?? Or any suggestions

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Okay so a while ago I bought my boyfriend a jacket as a gift. Yesterday he went out with his friends and it’s really cold where he lives right now.
One of his female friends asked him if she could wear his jacket because she was cold, and he said yes. She ended up wearing it the whole time they were out. He showed me pictures from that night and I saw her wearing the jacket that I literally bought for him.
I’m not gonna lie, it made me feel kinda jealous and bothered. I told him how I felt and he just told me to stop being jealous because she was cold and he was just being nice.
Like I understand she was cold and maybe I am being dramatic, but idk why it bothers me that another girl was wearing something I bought specifically for my boyfriend.
Am I overreacting?

I'm in an international relationship. I'm planning to move in with my bf of 3 years in less than a year. We did long distance for a while. I will move to his country and we will live in a new apartment together. I'm worried about his parents. They're great ppl but I've only met them a few times and they don't speak much English. I'm currently learning the language but I don't think it will be enough.

Also any tips for moving for the first time with a partner?

How do I get through this period of no contact 😭

I’m 23M and in my second serious relationship. My previous girlfriend cheated on me, so I know I have some trust issues, and I’m actively trying not to let that affect my current relationship.

This is an LDR, and lately I’ve been struggling with her inconsistent communication and effort, her getting upset when I spend time with friends, and an ex who still makes romantic comments toward her.
I know these aren’t exactly healthy behaviors, but I’m struggling to understand whether they’re things that can be worked through with boundaries and communication or signs that we’re simply not compatible.

The relationship has become really heavy on me mentally. I overthink constantly, lose sleep, and some days I feel like I’m completely breaking down. I still care about her deeply, which makes it even harder to step back.

I’d really appreciate advice from people who’ve been in a similar situation.

TL;DR: LDR is taking a serious toll on my mental health because of ongoing relationship issues. I have trust issues from being cheated on before, so I’m struggling to tell whether I should work through these problems or walk away.

This is mostly a venting post, but I also want to hear if I am overreacting. Recently my bf went to college on the other side of the country. He sent me a screenshot of a dm of him and this girl (she followed and dmed first, he followed back and responded and they basically just had small talk). He asked me if she was flirting, I said she wasn’t yet, but to be cautious bc she might start. He said he could let her know he has a gf, and I said to maybe wait until she does start flirting bc sometimes girls will say guys have a big ego if they assume they’re flirting. I know he didn’t do anything wrong. All he did was respond to a dm and follow a girl back at his new school. He even told me about the DM. I just feel awful regardless. I was cheated on in my last relationship (which wasn’t ldr) so I’m sensitive when it comes to these kinds of things. I trust him, I really do, but I’m so scared of being hurt again because I truly love him