Watch it grow

So, I’m an avid poster on Cosmopolitan... a little addicted to it! My greatest success has been my ‘baby’; my thread on long distance love.

Having spent the last year of my life in a long distance relationship, making a 3 hour commute at least 3 times during term, I have realised that I used to take my boyfriend for granted. Once upon a time, if I was having a bad day, feeling really down, I would have taken it out on him. I would have argued with him, blamed him for little things, and just nitpicked at every little detail – effectively pushing him away. Now, I will complain about it but not blame him. Our phone conversations are too precious, the time we spend together too important to be filling it up with me nitpicking and arguing

I feel like I have learned a lot in the past year. I’ve learned that it is easy to find fault in something that there is no fault in. I’ve learned that it is incredibly easy to believe that someone is cheating on you. I’ve learned that sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day to talk for a lengthy period. I’ve learned that names will get mentioned that mean nothing to me. I was initially daunted by all of these things, worrying and worrying that they would cause a rift, make a void between us that would be impossible to fill but the most important thing I have learned this year is that things change. You have to roll with the punches and just pick yourself back up. I’ve also come to acknowledge fully that if he wanted to be with someone else, then he wouldn’t be with me. It’s taken a lot of work for me to come to that conclusion but I now feel secure enough with our situation to accept it. It’s a good feeling to have.

This last year has also made me much more easily irritated. If I see someone who is able to see their boyfriend all the time, is able to call them and have them arrive within an hour, but who is pushing their boyfriend away, I want to grab them and shake them for taking it for granted. I have a friend who treats her boyfriend like muck. She will text him one word replies to messages, she will avoid his calls, refuses him sex all the time because she doesn’t enjoy it, and for me the worst, for their anniversary - he bought her a Claddagh ring, a lily where the stem wraps around her finger and the lily has a little pearl in it. She got him a photo frame, printed a picture of them onto crappy paper and let it be given to him streaky because she was running out of ink with the words ‘if you want a better photo you will have to print one yourself’. Now, her boyfriend is a bit of a sinister fellow, prone to grumpiness but he dotes on her. He adores her and she continues to treat him this way. It makes me feel so angry that she can’t see what she has, and I can’t tell her how I feel about it. It’s not good. It grates on me so much, that I just find myself constantly biting my tongue.

A relationship needs to be nurtured in order for it to grow. There is little point in having one if both parties can’t put in equal effort. It can’t be ignored, left to just carry on until someone decides to end it.

Communication is such a huge part of a relationship, and I believe that the ability to communicate is what has kept my relationship alive over the past year. It was allowed us to grow, to become a better couple because we can talk about what we want and what is bothering us. Is that so difficult to do?

To quote Counting Crows – ‘you don’t know what 'til it’s gone’. Seems to me that a bit of distance would make some people flourish despite it being difficult in the beginning!