Month: March 2013

Is talking costing the Earth?

Free call apps for smartphones

Personally, Rebtel works well for me as most companies won’t let you call Algeria mobile phones in a package, and they provide the cheapest call per minute (16.9p). But Vonage would be amazing for anyone who wanted unlimited landline calls. Prices start from £3.99/month. Bargain.

What do you do if you break up?

As horrible as it sounds to anyone, in any kind of relationship, you are more than likely to break up with your first partner (or second… or third… or fourth…). Being in an LDR puts more strain than an “ordinary” relationship. If it’s not the insecurities that get to you, it might be the lack of contact.

Splitting up if the worst thing I could think of right now. That’s not to say, of course, that we haven’t been close to going our separate ways before. Every relationship has its rocky patches, and all couples argue (though apparently the first time my friend argued with her husband was when she kicked him out. I find that hard to believe!).

Anyway, here are some top tips, and some sound advice:

1. Cut all contact with your ex. It is doing you no good to keep calling, or sending messages.

2. Get in touch with friends: Be they local friends or friends from home, they can really help you now.

3. Get a new hobby. Change things around you, do something new: a new sport, a new club, just something.

4. Get out there, no use sitting inside your flat, you will get lonely and feel down.

5. Make plans, think about where you are going to go tomorrow, and don’t leave a day in your diary empty!

Tips taken from Third Year Abroad

A University’s perspective

Taken from The University of Exeter’s Guide to LDRs

The article raises some interesting points. I do agree that you shouldn’t stay in all the time, especially if you’re in your first year. It’s just as important to make friends and join in with societies etc as it is to maintain your LDR. At the end of the day, if something goes wrong or you need to talk to someone else about your partner, you’ll have to have made close friends at Uni.

The other points are all very relevant as well. I won’t harp on about trust and commitment because we all know that they are some of the key things to keeping the relationship afloat.

Just keep yourself happy, do as much as you can at Uni and write letters/talk to your partner when you can and want. Simples.

It’s hard to understand

As much as people try to understand what you’re feeling, unless you’re in the same boat, it’s hard to do. People already regard your relationship as not quite “real”, even though you might have been together for a couple of years. The little things get blown out of proportion and the big things threaten to break you up. Being in an LDR is hard.

I’m envious of the couples who can get on a train or a plane and not have to worry about visas. Heaven forbid, if something bad happened to either one of us or our families, we wouldn’t be able to get on the next flight out. We spend months apart. Our record is just over 5, and boy was it tough going. I find that after the first month or so I accept the situation, get on with my version of life without him, and then the last month we’re both so excited that I don’t quite want to believe that we’ll be together again.

Having an Internet connection is a luxury for our relationship. Where I always have one, he rarely does. He has to walk miles to the nearest Internet café and pay through the nose. Broadband doesn’t exist there, and Facebook is sometimes censored, so sharing photos and funny pictures (you know the ones I mean) are just that little bit harder. This of course makes speaking to each other very costly. Text messages cost me 20p a pop and thanks to Rebtel I’m now getting cheaper call rates.

I hate going to bed without hearing his voice. Even if it’s one of those rare days that he’s gone to an Internet café during the day, I still need to hear his voice less than 12 hours later. Whenever I have a problem, he’s the one who knows what to say, reassures me, and generally makes me feel happier about everything. Being some 2,000 miles away only feels that far away when I’m having a crisis and all I want is him by my side.

But what do you do when you’re genuinely annoyed by your partner? Who do you talk to? You feel you can’t talk to the people who don’t think of you as a real couple. Even your best friends can’t understand what you’re going through. So I talk to my friends who are in LDRs. I’m lucky that I know three other girls, all of whom are great friends of mine, but I know that other people have no-one.

Being in an LDR has made me very cynical. I don’t consider a relationship to be long distance unless you are in different countries. Cornwall to London, whilst it is a distance away, can be done in a car within half a day. I would kill to be in the same country as my boy. Hell, I’d kill to be on the same continent! Just be thankful for what you’ve got, who you love, and who loves you. Peace out.

100 things for an LD couple to do together: Top 5

Taken from:Loving from a distance

1. Watch a film/TV program together at the same time and talk as you watch

2. Keep a journal – one person writes their thoughts and feelings for a week and then sends it to the other to add to. Keep sending it to each other to create your own journal.

3. Send video messages

4. Make babies! Using morphthing.com, unless the real one takes your fancy….

5. Fall asleep together – either on Skype or on the phone (if it doesn’t cost the Earth!) and listen to them breathing/see them sleeping.