Do I win the prize for long distance?
I met my first husband in Malaysia in 1972 while I was on holiday there staying with my parents who lived there. He was Australian and in the Airforce. We corresponded when I came back to university and this went on for a couple of years, remember we had no internet and phone calls would have been prohibitive, he came over to England late in 1973 for a few weeks and then in 1975 I saved enough by working all summer of 1974 in a bakery to go out to Australia. I had a wonderful time and we flew to Papua New Guinea to meet his parents who lived there at the time before I returned home to finish my degree.
Sadly in December 1975 he had a serious accident and was nearly killed. His parents sent the plane fare for me to go out there which I did and things got a bit hectic , all very emotional and they organised a very speedy wedding which my parents were not thrilled about.
Things were okay but it was difficult for him getting used to having only one arm and I began teaching and coping with the legal problems resulting from the accident. He then had to leave the Airforce and living on a disability pension didn’t suit him. He was very bad tempered and quite violent at times. To cut a long story short after thirteen years of stress and violence I came home to England with my two children then seven and four years old.
Did the relationship work? Well yes but other circumstances became involved and I think his accident changed his personality. I had little support from my family and although his mother was pleasant his father was very weird.
My son appears to be following my footsteps as he met his partner in Toronto about six years ago. They kept up over the internet but not really in a relationship but then she came to England one summer and they hit it off again. He paid for her to come again at Christmas. My son went to Australia to stay with his father for a year and she went out there for a couple of months. Once he arrived back in England he had already sorted out a Young Person’s working visa for Canada and arrived there in 2011 on Valentine’s Day.
He has got himself a good job and she also finished university and has a good job and they now live in a flat in central Toronto. They seem very happy and her family live not too far away. We went around for a meal when we were staying with my sister and met Julia’s family in 2009 and they were quite delightful and very hospitable so who knows that seems to have been a successful pretty long distance relationship over about six years.
My step son met a girl at a club in derby. She was at Leicester uni and only over in Derby for the night. They got on well and phoned and interneted as well as met up from time to time. She lives in Wellingborough and he still lives in Derby but they spend an awful lot of money on petrol and train fares. She works down near her home and gets the train up here each week on her days off and my step son goes down there in his car when he has time off as well.
Unfortunately he has just been made redundant so he might have a bit more time off and less money for petrol so hopefully he will get a job somewhere near to where she lives, or in fact any jib at all would be great in the present climate.
My parents late on in life had to spend quite some time apart as my father was on contract employment in various countries and my mother was a teacher here. Every holiday and half term so would fly out to where ever he was to join him which was totally exhausting for her. The places he lived over the years were Ivory Coast and she had to fly via Paris, Jamaica and lastly St Kitts. It was very hard on Mum as she has the house here to maintain, the teaching job and preparation that goes with that and then the long distance flights. Dad could only come back to the country for limited periods as he was paid as a non- Dom but he did come back once a year for the time allowed and to help a bit with the jobs around the house like painting and so on.
The sad thing is that Mum was looking forward to retiring and joining Dad in St Kitts but sadly ended up with cancer and so Dad resigned and returned to England and Mum’s last two years were full of pain and suffering as Dad couldn’t handle the situation and became an alcoholic and Mum had a horrible couple of years of pain, worry and stress. Their relationship lasted through all the years of being apart for long periods of time but Dad simply could not handle the fact that Mum was so ill and dying.
So in my family I think that we can say that the long distances proved an obstacle but provided you are determined to make things work and you are prepared to sacrifice a lot as I did leaving all family here and my son has at present too then it can work. The world is becoming a smaller place all the time and travel although it is expensive is possible much more easily that it was in the past too.
I think it depends on the people involved, how the job situation works out and how the rest of the family feel about either one of you making the big step to move to another place be it a different county or country. I do think that sometimes cultural issues can be a problem although I do know many muti cultural marriages that have been very happy so it isn’t always an obstacle.
Thanks for reading. This review may be posted on other sites under my same user name.
©Catsholiday
Do I win the prize for the longest distance? 
Yes, I believe it can work. depending on the couple and on the circumstances I would guess. I have some friends who were in the armed forces spending months at a time overseas. And during the war, like many married couples, my parents were apart for the best part of 4 years or so as Dad was stationed overseas.