When Your Long Distance Relationship Falls Apart

By

So one of you is leaving for college. One of you is staying. You’re sure that the late nights, the fond words, the exchange of clothes, the memories…you’re sure that it will be enough to keep you together when you’re 3000 miles apart. Yet the doubt is there. You’re terrified of the relationship falling apart in the most painful way; the slow way where one person stops trying, but the other cares too much.

For a time, everything goes smoothly. After all, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Your evenings are filled with Skype calls. You wake up to “good morning honey <3.” Every thought and sight you see is shared with the other person. But then, life happens. Both of your evenings are filled with homework; no time to Skype. You wake up to no new messages. You share your thoughts and snapshots of your life with the other person, but are met with no reply.

You get in arguments.

“Just because I don’t spend every second of the day giving you attention somehow offends you.”

There is misunderstanding.

“You don't understand. You’re not trying to understand.”

“I’ll admit that I can’t understand. Just put aside any vulnerabilities you may have and tell me exactly what it is that you want.”

You know what you want, but you don't want to be demanding, so you marginalize your wishes.

“I just want you to say good morning and good night.”

That doesn't happen. There is confrontation.

“You don't care about me anymore.”

There is accusation.

“You’re a catastrophically self-centered bitch. Someday you’ll learn that the world doesn't revolve around you.”

You know the world doesn't revolve around you. But they never stopped to think that maybe your world revolved around them. Without the sun, the planets would be lost in space. Drifting, free falling into the unknown. That’s how you are now.

You never knew missing someone could feel like this. You thought it'd be a dull ache on the rare occasion you saw something that reminded you of them. You thought it’d be a cold spot next to you in bed. You thought it wouldn't hurt this much. Oh, but it does. You see them everywhere you turn, and when you do it’s like the air that you've gathered is suddenly knocked out of you.

They were a beautiful picture, a beautiful part you never saw coming. That was when your lives intertwined as easily as matching puzzle pieces lock into place. Then life carried them away and now you have a “them” shaped hole in the space where an unexpected picture once had a place. The worst part is that you’re still here the same, and they’ll come back trying to slide back into your old routine. They’ll soon come to find their edges no longer fit in with yours.

Time eroded parts of them you loved; added parts you've never met. They’ve grown. Maybe you mistook their growth for apathy. All you can say is, “I thought you took a stab at me.” You made your edges sharp so you could hurt too, and now you hurt more than their childish retorts. Anger eats you both away and now you’re not the same shape. You can't see how you ever fit together.