July 16th, 2007The Problem with Long Distance Relationships
Over the last 18 months, my fiancée and I have been in a long distance relationship. I am in Vancouver, Canada, and she is in Kakamigahara, Japan. Looking at the maps, there is a whopping 7300 kilometers between us, with 7250 kilometers of it being the Pacific Ocean.
We both knew what we were getting into before starting this relationship. The stories have been told for as long as people could talk. Long distance relationships require an incredible amount of trust, and just as much patience. The key to both of these relies heavily on open communication.
So during these months we have kept in touch with email, MSN Messenger, phone calls and even hand-written letters. While these mediums work well enough for most one-on-one communication, there are times when these technologies are infuriatingly insufficient.
Case in point being the recent earthquake that shook Japan.
Every morning when I wake up I have a particular routine that’s followed. After getting out of bed I make my way to the computer. From here I check on recent email, read the daily Dilbert, check the stats on my blog, as well as a quick glance at the headlines on both Bloglines and Digg. By the time I make it to Digg, I’ve already been awake for about 15 minutes, and I’m just starting to become coherent. But when I saw a Digg reading “Major Earthquake hits Japan. (happened 10 minutes ago, not on the news yet)” my heartrate shot through the roof.
Feverishly clicking on the link and shouting at my internet connection as though it would compel the binary stream to move faster, I find out that this is a relatively old Digg … 8 hours old. I hadn’t heard from Reiko. Her cell phone wasn’t responding. I didn’t see anything about it in the Canadian news sites. It seemed as though I couldn’t find any information on the natural disaster to calm my nerves. After five of the longest minutes of my life, I found an article on the BBC site saying that the event had occurred on the western side of the country, hitting Kashiwazaki at 10:13 am local time, with a follow up centred farther out to sea an hour later.
I was talking to Reiko on MSN with our webcams when this occurred … she didn’t even mention anything about the ground moving. She was safe.
During this quake, houses collapsed, thousands were evacuated and some even died. Hearing about these things and not being able to contact the people you care about is terrifying. I hate the feeling of helplessness that comes when you think to youself “Even if I paid the $5000 right now to fly over there, it would take a full day to arrive.” That’s just too long for most of us to wait.
While it is still some weeks off, but I will feel much better when I am living in the same city as my fiancée. Despite all the technologies we have to communicate, nothing is better than a real face-to-face conversation. I want to be there for her when she’s angry or frustrated about something. I want to be there for her when she’s excited. I want to be there when she’s bored. But most of all, I want to be there to help and protect her.
Perhaps it’s my old-fashioned thinking, but I strongly believe that it’s my duty to protect her from all harm … whether it’s from the skies, the ground, or everything in-between. Regardless of all the technological advancements we make, if I can’t even do this, then I will feel as though I failed as a husband.
[...] of the Vancouver area so he should feel right at home with some of you. Jason discusses the problem with long distance relationships as his fiancee is in Japan. Being new to Jason’s site, I enjoyed reading 8 things about him [...]
I totally agree on this, no technology in the world would better a face-to-face approach. This is more-so relevant in a long distance relationship like your’s. But the good thing about all this, is that it makes the love for each other so much stronger. Hang in there, Bro
Yep, only a few more weeks to go. Then we’ll be together so much that she’ll likely get sick of me
First thing I did on Sunday morning was email my parents to let them know the typhoon sidestepped Kakamigahara (as usually happens), and the quake was in the next prefecture. We did feel an aftershock later in the day which had my wife and I looking at each other in silence with expressions of helplessness while the walls rattled around us, but it seems other people didn’t even notice the aftershock!
I always say that if you can get through a LDR then you can get through anything. Anything that comes up in your marriage will be a piece of cake compared to the distance factor.
@Spud - Reiko didn’t even feel the earthquake or the aftershock, but I’m glad that everyone was safe. I’ll be sure to remain calm the next time I hear about a natural disaster in Japan until I can get some specific information on the event … I think I might have over-reacted a bit when I read about the earthquake online….
I really hope that Kakamigahara remains nice and stable for the next few years (hahaha) because I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you or your family, nor Reiko and I. Natural disasters are hard enough as is. It’s even harder when someone you know loses family.
@Diva - Yep, lots of people say the same thing. I’m hoping that Reiko and I have no problems in our marriage, but after so long apart, I’m sure we’ll be able to work through them together
Gomen…I didn’t even feel the earthquake that day, and knew about it much later. I didn’t know that you were shocked that much…..
You want to be here for me when I’m angry or frustrated, ne? When did I get angry??? I never get angry Jason….