How to survive a Long Distance Relationship, Really (Part One)

This is the definitive guide to surviving a long distance relationship! (Part one) 
(Part Two is here)

By long-distance, I don't mean a cross country sleeper train, that's a whole other survival guide

How can I say that?

Firstly, I did 1018 days of "method research". Mr and I were long-distance for almost three years, and while we probably did everything wrong, we also did everything right.

Second, I've scoured the web for guides to survive long distance relationships, teased out the common themes, and tested the advice against real life. This is an amalgamation of everything I read on the subject, peppered with my own insights. Maybe you already read other articles before you read this. If so, great. 

I've taken out the fluff and the guff: So many articles on going the long-distance start with how hard it is and how it's not for the faint of heart. Anyone who's about to, is, or has been involved in an LDR doesn't need to be told that. That's why I'm writing this now, and not a year ago. Also, it's not that rare. A lot of couples do the distance thing at one point in their lives, and I'm not even referring to military couples, who I believe are much, much braver.

I've taken out the condescending advice: I know you know how to use Skype, how to post a letter, and how to make a phone call. I don't need to suggest you might even want to email your loved one on a regular basis. I do recommend a smart phone, but you don't need the latest model. Text apps that work over data networks are useful, but email does the same job, and often better.

I've also taken out any advice about trust. In my experience that was never a question or an issue. If you are struggling with trust, jealousy, or commitment in a long-distance relationship, there is support available elsewhere. Most of these feelings can be covered in relation to communication and how to deal with arguments. Yes, arguments!

So I'm also a little bit realistic. Much of life ends up being about muddling through rather than creating concrete plans and schedules. Love is no exception. Like I said, we probably did it all totally wrong but we got there, it's over, and it's great.

I missed these moments the most

About Us (in case you didn't know)
 
We met at grad school in Glasgow, Scotland. After we handed in our dissertations we both moved back to our respective parents' homes. I headed to the East Coast of Scotland, and he went back to Pennsylvania.

Before he left we booked flights for me to visit at Christmas.

We had no plans, or so I thought (he already knew he wanted to marry me).

After he proposed at Christmas, I came back home and felt like the most ungrateful, miserable (and lonely) fiancee.

We got planning straight away: No plans on how to manage our LDR, but planning our wedding, marriage, visas, and future life together. The rest is history!

We were transatlantic, 3000 miles apart, and he was five hours behind. But we managed. So here goes…

The (definitive, kinda) guide to surviving a long distance relationship.

The Nuts and Bolts: Planning and managing expectations

This is where most guides to LDRs agree: You gotta have a plan.

For the first three months of our transatlanticism I had no expectations about where we'd end up. I'm not sure I really thought about it. And that made it worse. Mark recalls days when I refused to answer his Skype calls because I missed him too much to be able to speak to him. After we got engaged and agreed to a long engagement, we were able to plan our visits and our future lives more effectively. Skype chats could be less about missing each other and more about looking forward to being with each other.

You don't need to get engaged, but I'd recommend knowing where the two of you are going together, or otherwise.

Then: Agree a (target) end date

It's much easier to manage when you know when the distance will end, and when your milestones are. You can count back and arrange visits and chop up the time into manageable chunks. Mark and I were apart for almost three years. That's most of our relationship. But in my head it was just several blocks of 3-6 months.

For us, the target dates were intuitive:

1. Wedding day, and
2. My arrival in the USA.

The latter date was fluid but we knew it'd be a year, more or less, from our wedding date. Although our lives were in the hands of the US Government, the visa process was straightforward and predictable. We could then start to manage our expectations of our reunion, and our marriage, which was just as important as managing the expectations of our time apart.

Also: Start saving up money!

LDRs are inherently expensive, whether it's visits, calling cards, weddings or visas. Or a combination thereof. Make sure you've got a plan to finance it - together. Some of your overseas conversations may be boring, talking about the nuts and bolts. But it really helps.

Goofy Skype chat, and a picture email: "I'm at the airport!"

Communication and Skype Dates

With timezones and transatlantic communication to navigate, many articles recommend scheduling regular communication time and arranging 'dates'. Let me confess:

I am notoriously bad at keeping to pre-arranged Skype dates and schedules. I still am.

But we figured out a groove for remaining in contact. It wasn't pre-arranged, it just happened organically. An average day went like this:

Morning GMT: On the bus to work I checked my email, often a lovely 'good morning' message Mark had sent the night before with a run down of what he watched on the news chatter, so I could listen to a podcast and catch up, and read the morning news on Twitter.

Lunchtime GMT: On my lunch break, I knew Mark was getting up and ready for the day, so I'd email him the most interesting articles from my bus journey. If I wasn't too busy he'd phone just to say hi.

5-6pm GMT: I'd be on my way home, and if Mark wasn't too busy he'd give me a call to tell him about my morning, and I'd talk about my day.

8-11pm GMT: If I wasn't out, busy, or too tired, and if Mark could snatch some time early, we'd chat on Skype. Almost every day. And if we couldn't, we'd let each other know. An email: "I'm at an event tonight, so I might not be able to chat",
or "I need a bath. I smell. Later ok?", or
"did you get my Facebook message about the voicemail about the Skype message you sent when I tried to call?" or:

Him: Why aren't you answering your phone?!
Me: It's upstairs on silent. I was writing you an email.

Yeah, it wasn't perfect. Wires got crossed many times. If I wanted to watch TV with my family, we'd type to each other instead. If one of us was busy, we'd wait. I often got tempted to stay up super-late just so I could get a meaningful conversation. I sleep so much better now that I'm in the same timezone as my husband.

Dates, such as simultaneous cooking dates, or movie dates, never worked for us. I didn't want to pretend I was with my partner when I really wasn't. But there were times for planning (wedding, visas, trips and visits), times for mindless chatter, times for helping each other with job applications, times for speaking to the whole family, or watching each other open birthday presents, times for political discussions and rants. Times for arguments, which I'll cover later.

Being yourself and living your own life

And there were times for ourselves.

Articles about LDRs all agree that you need to take time to grow as an individual, to have a social life, to stop focusing on how much you miss your partner and get out living. Basically, don't be a hermit.

It's all true, but I'm going to be realistic. Yes, couples who live together have their own interests. But doing it as one half of a transatlantic couple is something else. You want to share experience with your partner, you don't want to miss out on what they're doing, you feel guilty if you're having fun and you know your partner isn't. Maybe you feel more alone when you're out with other people.

On the other hand, it's not hard to get out and about, especially when you have friends who want to see you (and whom you want to see), when getting out and doing stuff is fun. When you don't miss doing things with you partner. You miss doing nothing with your partner.

So in these cases, I think you can be picky about the things you do and don't do. Examples:

Things I did:
- Got into photography, which is a skill I could work at alone. And I could share my work with my husband.
- Visited friends for tea, dinner, drinks. Spent the weekend with them. And called Mark at intervals. Let friends say hi to him.
- Traveled for work, a lot. It kept me busy, sometimes took me out of phone signal range, let me see the country (which I still want to share with Mark one day). And it helped out the organization - I had no kids, and no husband to get back to as our relationship was already phone-based. So it worked.
- Applied for, and was accepted to the International TV Festival Network, and then did an internship with the BBC. Because I wanted to, because I could, and because I had the freedom to.
- Attended weddings and other important events.

Things I didn't do:
- Go out with single friends exclusively, or go out on nights with couples. My girlfriends were brilliant for arranging girls' nights.
- Join a club or do a random activity like ballroom dancing.
- Go on holiday without Mark.
- Watch certain movies.

I made sure to do one thing every weekend. Just one thing. Whether it was meeting a friend or taking photos of flowers. Similarly, Mark got involved with civic/political activities here and since I've moved I've joined in. He baked and did martial arts and traveled for work.

When we were busy, we'd let each other know. We'd support each other in our endeavors as best as we could.

Since we've been together we've done our rustic weekends - those little things we didn't want to do alone. Those things we said we couldn't wait to do together, but we did wait, and it didn't do any damage. Promise.

In Part Two, I cover romance, visits, fights and shifts. And the advantages of a long distance relationship!

I'll also tidy this up a bit too. I promise. Please let me know what you think, what makes sense, what doesn't, and what else do I need to cover?

This week on the Glad Blog: Reflections of an expat

Time to reflect!

It's been (shock!) five months since I packed up my five boxes and two suitcases, laptop, camera and hat. Five months since I stepped on US soil to start life anew.

Here are a few things I've done for the first time since moving to the USA:

1. Driven on the right hand side of the road.
2. Driven an automatic.
3. Crashed said automatic (I allude to this frequently, but it really wasn't bad. The garage jumped out at me, and the car came off worse).
4. Eaten: Black and White Cookies, Square burgers, Pumpkin pie, Pumpkin beer, S'mores, Okra (yes really!).
5. Smashed a pumpkin and decorated the house with corn.

There have been loads more new experiences. As I say when I do something mundane for the first time, every day is a new adventure. It really is.

However, what I'm noticing now is that I am starting to find it harder to distinguish between things that are 'American' and things that are are 'British' or universal. Just the subtle things, such as the way the drivers here take corners faster than in the UK, or the way some smalltown Main St stores look like little houses, and more I can't think of now because they are the new normal for me.

Next week is Thanksgiving, and that's going to be a whole new event for me as well. I'm very excited! But more than that, my mum is coming to celebrate with us, and it's going to be interesting to see just how Americanized I am now in comparison!

So this week I'm going to reflect on my expat life:

From doing the long-distance, to packing up, moving over, and trying to settling in.

What we did, what we didn't do, things we would've done differently… and, of course, things I still want to do! And there's a lot of things I want to do.

The day I went to the polls and didn't vote

In the USA, nobody votes for President. People vote for Electoral College delegates. It's a quirk of the US electoral system I like to point out when Americans ask why Brits don't directly elect their leaders. Technically, Americans don't directly vote for their leader either!

But I didn't vote at all. That's because I'm not a US Citizen. Green Card holders can't vote and registering to vote here would be a crime. Cue ironic jokes about taxation without representation.

I did, however, go to the polls to see how democracy works in rural America.

Voting took place in the local volunteer fire station. A large hall with fire trucks parked at one end, next to walls filled with fire hoses and firefighters' jackets. There were rows of tables piled with kids' toys and books, which the station was selling on a 'pay what you will basis'. Kids would run into the hall and make a bee-line for the toys. Parents would follow, ushering their kids away and explaining "I've got to vote first."

The two parties had pitched their signs on either side of the entrance. Democrats were on the left and Republicans were on the right. This made me smile. Party volunteers handed out leaflets with their respective ballots to guide voters. During voting lulls, they bantered with each other, across the aisle, about local planning measures, American Football, and the residual damage of the storm last week.

The voting machines were in another room. These electronic machines allowed voters to pick straight tickets or choose their candidates before pressing the satisfyingly red "VOTE HERE" button. Then the machines would beep and the lights would go out - the sound of a modern democracy. The UK still uses pencil and paper: You mark your X on the ballot and post it into a locked box which is later emptied and counted by hand.

Polling staff asked each voter, "do you have photo ID?"

Answers and attitudes were mixed. Those who refused were reminded they would need it next time. This year Pennsylvania had put through a measure to require photo ID from voters at the polls. It was challenged in court, and the court decided it would not go into force until 2013. But this lead to confusion and concern - commercials and mailers had already told voters they needed ID and a last-minute effort had to reassure them that they didn't. Would some voters without ID fail to turn up?

After the morning queues, voting remained steady. Comments from staff and volunteers indicated that turn-out seemed high.

There was some confusion about the voter ID issue though. There were reports of signs in polling stations falsely telling voters that photo ID was necessary. Voters occasionally asked if they needed ID after all.

But generally it was jovial. Kids played with the toys. Women stood in huddles and gossiped. Neighbors consoled each other over fallen trees or continuing power blackouts from the storm. People voted. Some strode in and avoided the party volunteers. Some talked about voting.

A lady, handed a Republican ballot sheet, glanced at it and exclaimed "Oh I'm not voting for Romney. I'm female."

But one older lady, who took ballot lists from both parties, was pensive and uncertain. "This is hard," She whispered. "It was hard last time, but it's hard this time. I just don't know."

Others confidently praised one party's presidential candidate but showed uncertainty over the local candidate. Some voters took the ballot sheet from one party volunteer but smiled at, or even winked at, the other.

Pennsylvania is a categorically purple state. As a state it votes for both Republicans and Democrats. Counties, neighborhoods, families vote for both. Individuals vote for both.

There is sometimes a lot of focus on the political polarization in America. Just this weekend the latest episode of the NPR show This American Life told the story of Americans who felt so passionate about their political beliefs that it affected their relationships. Families torn apart by their opposing views. People who disagreed so strongly that they could not live side by side, or speak to each other.

But that is only one side of the story. The other side was playing out here at the polls in a rural, slightly conservative, district of Pennsylvania.

Later in the afternoon a middle-aged man who'd just voted lamented that his wife might not have voted the same way as he. "She listens to too much of that NPR stuff!" He laughed before leaving.

I like to imagine he went home to watch the election results with his wife, and that today they both got up and went about their daily lives, just like the rest of America.

Remember Remember

This is an explosive time of year. Fireworks are flying.

Yesterday was Guy Fawkes' Night in the UK, often just known as Bonfire night or Fireworks night. This was the reason why Mark was unable to buy fireworks for his Scottish July 4th BBQ several years ago.

The UK celebrates this day as the time a guy (that'd be Guy Fawkes) tried, and failed, to blow up the UK Parliament. It was 1605. 171 years later the New World would find its own reason to light small, colored explosives. Did settlers to the New World celebrate November 5th until then? I have no idea. I promise I'll find out for next year.

And talking of houses of representation, all my US friends and family here will be casting their votes. Expect fireworks tonight (real and metaphorical) regardless of the outcome.

In 2011 this small Scottish town, Oban, was all over the news for its 'disastrous' fireworks display. The whole display blew up in seconds.

It was hilarious. The pyrotechnics company apologized and held a free display for the town later in the year. The display was unexpectedly popular and there were rumors they would offer this one minute display as a legitimate package.

I did wonder at the time if it was a PR stunt. I became more suspicious when a similar thing happened in San Diego this year on July 4th. They managed to outdo Oban's 'premature ignition' with a whole display in half the time.

This year Oban didn't hold a fireworks display at all. However another small Scottish town, Oxgangs Brae, did.

The BBC reports that this was an accident caused by a rogue rocket.

Another tradition I remember from my childhood in North East England is the bonfire with a burning effigy of Guy. Children in the neighborhood would cobble together a crude effigy, drag it around the street, knock on doors and chant "PENNY FOR THE GUY" before it got chucked on a bonfire. Sounds quite morbid when you think about it, but not as much as what happened to the real Guy and his accomplices.

In the UK, during week of Halloween and Guy Fawkes, you'd never know what to expect when the doorbell rang: It could be a crowd of witches asking for candy, or young guys in shell suits asking for small change for their Guy, also wearing a shell suit. Hey, it was the early 90s!

And shell suit fabric was particularly flammable. In October the local firefighters would visit schools and set bits of shell suit on fire to discourage kids from wearing them to bonfire night. TV would be replete with public service broadcasts on firework safety, something I didn't see at all here in the USA in July.

In Scotland, where Halloween is a slightly bigger deal, they have a different tradition: Guising ('disGuising').

It's not all that different from Trick or Treating: Dress up in a costume, knock on doors, receive treats. The big difference, however, is that Scottish kids are expected to earn their candy. One year my friend and I played ditties on our recorders (we probably got paid to shut up), but reading poetry, doing magic, and singing, are all acceptable. The Scots also make it harder on the kids by carving turnips to light and carry from house to house. We tried this one year instead of a pumpkin. It's bloody hard.

I prefer the concept of earning candy far more than the scenes I saw on Halloween last week here in the USA. Kids, and older kids, some of whom were not dressed up, knocking on doors and receiving candy: No question. Some kids were driven from house to house and up driveways by their parents.

Living in rural PA during Fall I've also seen many a scarecrow on the farm or adorning porches. It never fails to remind me of Guy Fawkes, though I don't think that's the point.

The cynic in me would suggest it would be timely to watch V for Vendetta, but I know that tonight we'll all be watching the political fireworks taking place in real time instead!

Happy Halloween…From the Cat

Halloween's over; I got it. But this gem is probably the most ridiculous thing I've seen since moving to the USA.  I just couldn't post until I was sure that the US Postal Service had done its job.

It's always a bit hit and miss sending greetings across the pond: Things can arrive in a week, two weeks, or not at all. When Mr and I were long-distance we'd be sure to send each other at least three Valentine's and birthday cards in the hope that at least one would arrive.

Anyway, this is a card I recently sent to my mum in Scotland. It's something I'd never seen until I moved to the USA.

I found in it Hallmark, the infamous US greeting card store. I found it in a subsection of cards entitled HALLOWEEN - FROM THE CAT.

Let me just clarify - this was not just one card. It was one of several cards. There was a whole section devoted to Halloween cards FROM THE CAT.

FROM THE CAT.

HALLOWEEN CARDS FROM THE CAT.

I only went into Hallmark to buy a plain ol' birthday card, which it turns out is impossible.
Happy Birthday from your second-cousin-in-law? Sure!
Happy Birthday to my favorite neighbor two doors down? Probably!
Happy Birthday? Just "Happy Birthday"? Nope. Nothing. Can't be done.

I didn't even know that giving people Halloween cards was a 'thing' until Hallmark told me it was.
Before I moved I already knew that kids in the USA like to give their friends Valentine's cards, which is not entirely acceptable in the UK. I've even heard of "Bosses' Day" which I get the impression Hallmark invented entirely. There was a whole aisle of Halloween cards.

Halloween cards? Really? And Halloween…FROM THE CAT? Yeah, come on in! We have a plethora of Halloween cards that your feline buddy can send to - send to who?

That's the thing. Cats don't even have opposable thumbs (yet, as this wonderfully funny UK commercial for milk suggests). They can't write a Halloween card. They can't even open an envelope should they receive one. Where are all these socially active kitties that need to send spooky greetings to their feline friends?

And yet I bought it.

I don't even have a cat. (Note: I used to, but I left them in Scotland.)

But that's why Hallmark works. Hallmark is like IKEA - it creates a useless product and convinces you that you really need it. Only in IKEA it's magazine racks for the bathroom, and in Hallmark it's Justin Bieber Halloween greetings and Halloween messages FROM THE CAT. The next thing IKEA should invent is display racks in the bathroom for all your Hallmark Halloween cards FROM YOUR CATS.

And not only that. Not only was this one card of many available in the HALLOWEEN - FROM THE CAT subsection of Hallmark, but this very card was the winning entry from a Hallmark greeting card design competition.

You can view this award winning card at the Hallmark website

I love it! I love it so much I bought it and sent it to my mum, albeit filled with a tirade of wonder at why we need our cats to send Halloween cards.

I even addressed it to the cats. I totally bought into this. Hallmark saw me coming from an imperial mile.

Maybe we need Halloween cards FROM THE CAT so we buy them and send them filled with questions about why we need Halloween cards FROM THE CAT.

Either way, Hallmark, you won. And I'm actually totally okay with that. There is no end of amusement here.

Now I need to stock up on my "Happy Thanksgiving from the rogue groundhog in the backyard" cards.

Bonus Spooky Photos

From a Halloween Zombie Zumba photograph assignment I did this week

I have to admit that we went out for dinner on Halloween. We're at that awkward age where we are too old to go to slutty Halloween parties, and (far) too young to take kids out trick or treating.

abandoned church with tree growing in the steeple, Scotland, January 2012

When Winston met Teddy

After Teddy met Winston, he wrote that he thought Winston was "a rather cheap character".

The only photographic evidence of their encounter in the year 1900

At $2.50 for a pumpkin in a store desperate to get rid of them, he wasn't wrong. 

With Sandy causing a ruckus outside, we stayed in for the most traditional of October activities: Pumpking carving.

We chose leaders from our respective countries: I did the Winston Churchill pumpkin, and my husband did the Teddy Roosevelt pumpkin.

When the storm kicked in and the power went out, we sat in their soft glow, checking the news on Twitter on our phones.

The director of Sixth Sense, M Night Shyamalan, sets his movies in Pennsylvania. The Sixth Sense is set in Philly, and the rest, including Signs and The Happening, are set in rural PA.

Sitting out here during the Frankenstorm felt a bit like an M Night Shyamalan movie: High winds, no power, fields of corn swaying in the darkness, no traffic lights at intersections, trees down and no traffic on the roads.

Luckily our corner of PA came out of the storm relatively unscathed, and we only lost power for a day. I hope the most affected areas can recover and rebuild quickly, especially Seaside Heights and Coney Island.