Could use a bit of coping advice....

Hi...I'm new here and so happy to have found this forum. Good to know there are others out there in this crazy situation! Met my English boyfriend online over a year ago. Since then have made 3 trips to the UK and have spent a total of 3 months there. We are absolutely perfect together, madly in love and every moment I've spent with him has been more amazing than I ever could have imagined. Due to our situations - family and work and stuff - relocating isn't even an option and probably won't be for a couple of years. I would so appreciate any advice about how to cope with this craziness...half of the time I am completely out of my mind missing him and half of the time I am in a completely irrational panic. And sometimes I wonder if I don't have any perspective because right now it's all romantic and wonderful and exciting and sometimes tragic. How do you fit a LDR into you're day to day life? I also worry that this heightened sense of everything being so intense and exciting is not actual reality and worry about how you make the transition to real life in the long run. I'm sure that I will be the one to move there and am working towards that but meanwhile....help! Sorry to ramble. I could really use any advice, support, guidance, direction...therapy??? Thanks!

Kudos to you for understanding that what you're going through is not actually permanent or realistic. Sounds like you're having a wonderful time in the heights of passion and deep emotion...but you're very right that it's temporary and a good thing to bear in mind when accepting your future. Sooner or later, you'll be sat with your other half on the couch in front of the telly, having a normal existence and the LDR stuff a thing of the past.  Forewarned is forearmed...sometimes the letdown is a bit devastating to those with unrealistic expectations or without a good check on realism. The drama and intensity all goes.

But back to your question..the best thing to do is live your life fully in the States and enjoy what you have there until you move. So many people seem to waste their lives just sitting around pining and not making the most of their time with their families or towards their jobs, friends, etc. You are there now and that's the reality, but it sounds as if you're very keen to move and make the jump, which is great!  Plot, plan, talk to your boyfriend....but don't forget the life you have there or the people you may be leaving behind. Can be devastating for them, especially Mums.  Really, sooner than you'll realise, you'll be here and missing the people back home and all the little things. It may not seem a posibility but it is. Enjoy your life there while you plan. That's the most sound advice I can give on the subject.

As someone who spent 6 years in an LDR before moving to England, I have to wholeheartedly agree with StephanieLea's advice.  Enjoying your life, friends, family, etc. does not diminish your LDR, and being miserable (and making everyone miserable around you) adds nothing positive to your relationship.

I guess the only thing I would add is that hanging here will be helpful, as there are many people who have "been there, done that" and are proof that through all the joys and challenges, long distance relationships can, and do, succeed!

My best advice would be to make sure that your life is full with other things, work, friends, activities. Try to make the time you are apart fun, and the time you are together even more fun! Enjoy the day to day, enjoy the special feeling of being apart, enjoy the reunion sex! Don’t spend too much time dwelling on being miserable, that will make the whole thing a lot worse than it has to be!

From my own experience, I loved my LDR, I had a great time with my friends at home, and while I missed my then bf, it made the time we were together oh so much more fun! After 10 years of marriage, I would give my right arm for a month of LDR again, life now is a big mix of mortgage payments, juggling work and children, cleaning! I would give anything to have the romance back again!!!

Good luck! Enjoy!

Thank you such much everyone! I feel alot better just having found this forum. I really appreciate the advice. Until just now I hadn't even thought about missing my friends here because I'm so obsessed with being there! And honestly, I am sure they are more than tired of being dragged to "pubs" here for Guinness and fish and chips to humor me, where I will pull out my iphone and make them watch slide shows of how fabulous my "other" life is. And won't shut up about all of it. I don't think I'd want to hang out with me right now!
But that's where my heart and my head is 24/7, how do you escape that?

It is very comforting to hear success stories. Does anyone have any regrets? Do you feel isolated or was it easy to blend in to a different world? Would you do it any differently?

Thanks again..I appreciate the advice very much and am definately taking it to heart.

I have no regrets at all. There's no doubt I traded my old life for one that is better in every way. I'm very happy with how things have turned out.

...but...

(you knew that was coming, right?) It's hard being a foreigner. Harder than I expected. Because we watch so much of each other's TV, we most of us think the US and the UK are more alike than they really are. Though I 'commuted' back and forth for a decade, it really is different being here full time.

Of course, I've only been here full-time for six months, so I'm climbing up the steep side of the learning curve. But every day I am inconvenienced in some way by my own complete ignorance. It wears you down...

The only thing I really don't like is being a novelty.  I think if I lived somewhere like London where there are more foreigners per capita, it would be easier.  But out here in the sticks, I'm the only American for miles.  In the village where I live, the only other non-English person is a man who came from Italy more than thirty years ago.  They still call him "the Italian." 

As far as romance and the LDR, you're right that the excitement dies down once you're together all the time, and obviously the more mundane aspects of life become issues in a way they weren't before.  But there are compensations.  I am still delighted by the fact that I get to hug DH every evening when he gets home from work, and if I want a cuddle at night I just have to roll over.  I also love the fact that we're really a "we" now.  In an LDR, the couple is together, but their lives are separate.  I've really enjoyed the process of meshing my life with DH's.  As people have mentioned before in other threads, having had an LDR makes you really appreciate the benefits of not having one.  It's hard to take someone for granted when you still have vivid memories of how crap it was to have them thousands of miles away. 

Here's a suggestion to help you use your remaining time in the US to its best advantage:
Why don't you think really hard about the things you would miss most if you lived in the UK.  Make a list, and try to appreciate at least one of those things a day.  Think to yourself "I'm really going to miss this because . . . . "  Then make another list of things you've always wanted to do in the US and never done.  Try to do one of those things every week or every few weeks.  That way, you'll have lots of good experiences and memories stored up, and you'll have something to keep your mind off missing your BF. 

My LDR is finally coming to an end. After 6 1/2 years of being together, yet apart, I'll finally be living with my Husband forever in just over 2 weeks.

I have to agree with everyone else: Live your life. I started dating Vincent while I was still in high school! At first it was tough, and I did get depressed and spend a lot of time at the computer, but I pulled through it and stayed involved, doing practically every music-related activity you could think of. And Vincent was there to see me graduate and celebrate with me.

In college, it was more of the same. I spent time with friends, I sang in the operas, did a bunch of other ensembles, had a job... After a while, Vincent fit into my life naturally. I didn't have to force it... That being said, I spent the second half of my final semester student teaching in London, away from my family and friends, and even missed my own graduation by choice. But I have no regrets about that... That was the most wonderful time in my life, to date.

And while we were apart, it was hard. I cried a lot... But my friends helped me through. I wasn't a downer to them, because no one could fathom going through that kind of separation... And I can remember every single reunion in the airport: the running, the hugging, the kiss. Those are some of my sweetest memories. It's a very bittersweet situation, but if you're that in love, then you will find a way to get through. Just don't let it rule your life. Have some fun and let loose...

Because I am the queen of unnecessary pining, I can't offer you any practical advice about enduring the distance - I never figured it out. The only thing that helped for me was having a plan for being together in the end, and knowing exactly when that would be. I told my now-fiance that either we were going to be together in the very near future or we weren't going to be together at all (that's how bad my unnecessary pining was). For long-distance relationships, they really have to be worth it! And, since you're willing to even contemplate the prospect of years without being together, in person, I take it that your relationship is definitely worth it! 

Ok, now that I've said that, I want to wax philosophical for just a sec, even though I'm sure you've already thought this through. We tend to live our lives like we're going to live forever. We think nothing about putting off our lives for years because it's inconvenient, or seemingly impossible, to get what we really want. But is it? I guess everyone has a different answer for this question, but for me work wasn't something that I was going to let stand in my way of being with my love; that was one place where I was willing to compromise and not get exactly what I want. Family is definitely important - but what if you want to start a family of your own? Do you want to put that off for a few (or several) extra years? 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that at the end of the day, there is always a way to be with your beloved. Our time here is precious (ok, somebody just shoot me now), and I personally would rather have spent every possible year with my love than put it off for a "better" time. Of course, I don't know the details of your situation; I'm just talking about the own seeming impossibilities in my own life that I had to overcome to be with my fiance.

Just some stuff to chew on.