OK, I don't usually start my own threads, or even post much but come December or January, I'm gonna have to be making a decision that will be one of the biggest decisions I've ever had to make:

My boyfriend is Mike97 3.0P and we've been doing a LD relat. since we both went to Pennstate. We've basically been dating (more on than off) for over 2 years. I'm from outside philly and hes from outside Baltimore. He is graduated and works in bmore and I will be graduating in December. SO here is where the decision comes in... He is starting grad school at loyola soon (while also working full time). So with about three years of school in his future, he is stuck in MD for that period of time. It is pretty much up to me now to either graduate and move down there with him and find a job in MD until he is done school OR stay here and pretty much watch us fall apart. LD is just so hard to do and we've already done it for so long....but at the same time I've lived near philly my whole life and i'm scared!

The Question: Has anyone here ever moved out of state to be with their SO? and if so, did it work? I'm thinking more and more that I'm definitely going to do it, it's just a little scary. The whole unkown thing....

Sorry if it's long. I'm just looking for someone else who has been in my position. Thanks.

 

my gf did and we're planning to get married next yr.

but if i was you i'd def move out of philly. that place is ghetto

 

Haha, i live OUTSIDE philly in an extremely nice area. But i love philly to death.

where had you and your gf lived before?

 

i live in seattle area. she used to live in denver area. she says its almost night and day comparison. she would never want to live in denver again.

 

Listen to your heart. What it tells you deep down to do, that is what is best. Do you love him? Do you want with all your heart to do right by him? Does he love you? Does he do everything he can to do right by you?

Making sacrifices for a special person in your life is really hard. Talk with him and see if he is really willing to make reciprocal sacrifices later. Doesn't mean that the issue will come up, just find the willingness to do so that is truly sincere.

Good luck, and I hope you make the very best choice in this...

Duck

 

i'm in toronto, she is in vancouver. we've been going out for about 7 years. 4 of the 7 years, i was in vancouver for school, and came home during the summer months.

3 years on a true long distance relationship.

we are planning to get married, and she is planning to move here next year.

she's scared about moving too. she doesn't have as many friends here as she does in vancouver. but, we pretty much can't do the LD any longer...

at least you and your b/f are a fairly short drive away from each other...

 

Yeah, I love him and I want to be with him. So it's becoming an easier choice for me the more I give thought to it. And yeah I know exactly what youre saying about the reciprocal thing.....that's huge for me. Thanks for the advice

 

Anytime, and good luck! Duck

 

Well my whole feeling is that you wont know til you try. You will love maryland!!!! So much here without the crappy PA roads!

 

deep down inside, do you really expect yourself to stay near philly your whole life? Or do you want to explore the world a little bit at a time?


Besides, you can always make new friends.

 

My girlfriend moved here in June from South Jersey to Maryland. It's been a tough transition for her because her family is just absolutely amazing. Plus she has a ton of friends where she's from and I only have a handful of friends here in Maryland. Some of my friends from college (where I met my girlfriend) also live near her in Jersey. We often talked about me moving up to Jersey but when it came down it I had a good job (or so I thought at the time; I'm resigning in two days) and she decided to move here.

It's a lot to ask of someone. You'll be packing up everything you own and leaving your friends to be with someone you love. If you absolutely HATE Maryland then you may want to consider staying where you are. But if you feel your relationship will fall apart if you stay long distance then I guess you gotta give it a shot. You can always move back.

It's a huge decision. Just make sure you are 100% confident in yourself and the relationship before you do it. And whatever you do don't use it as ammunition if/when you get into an argument. He's not forcing you to move... make sure you're the one making the decision. If you feel forced into doing it then you really don't want to in the first place so don't!

 

i moved up to edm canada and im orig from iowa. my wife first move to iowa and then after 1 3/4 years wanted to move back...so i followed

 

Thats how i feel. We are all young so its not like we pulling kids out of school to move or anything. Plus just graduating you arent commited to a certain area just yet, so you can find any location for a job. Plus if you were able to do the long distance thing with your boyfriend for 2 years, then im sure it wont be hard to see your family the same way.

If all else fails, you can pack up and move back. At least that way you wont ever wonder "what if" with the moving thing. At least you gave it a shot.

 

Thats similar to my situation. He has a good job at the moment and i have none. But all my friends from HS and college are near Philly and his are kinda spread out with just a handful in MD.

 

You can get a job or go to school anywhere... you can't pack up all your friends and move them with you.

 

Thats why I'm thinking that if I do this, there couldnt be more perfect timing then when I graduate.

And yeah, I dont want to deal with the "what if" if I don't do this. I guess the biggest thing holding me back would be that I wanna know, in 3 years, if I decide I wanna move back to Philly, he'll come with me. I can't make such a big decision and feel like he wouldn't do the same when it's fast-forwarded 3 years.

 

Do what your heart tells you!! My girl lives a few hours away, which isnt too bad, but it seems like months when we're apart. She's trying to get relocated up here where I'm at and I think life (and our relationship) will be a beautiful thing

 

my gf's situation was similar also. i was the one with a steady job while she was finishing up college (cs major) and i told her that seattle has a much more jobs available than denver so that helped. and she did find a great job here.

 

My sister moved to Canada to be with her boy friend. They were engaged for a while, drove each other nuts and now will never talk to each other again. The problem is that when she moved all the way to Canada, she was very far from her friends and family and relied heavily on her boyfriend.

You're moving from outside Philly to outside Baltimore. You can make that drive in less than 2 hours. My wife moved from Brooklyn to Jersey to live with me and I can argue that sometimes that was a longer commute. What I'm getting at, is that since you will still be close to Philly, it's not that big of a deal. ANd you're a recent graduate, so it's the best time to do it.

 

You shouldn't consider it a sacrifice, rather you should consider it a privilege to live with me

But seriously, I think it can work, if it doesn't it would be a year commitment (lease), and since the place we choose will be cheap enough that I'll be able to afford it myself comfortably if anything happens, we won't have that issue hanging over our heads.

Now after 3 years, she wants to move back (as of now) so should we etch that in stone, or play the "let's cross that bridge when we come to it" game? I mean ANYTHING can happen in 3 years. What if she wants to stay and I want to go somewhere completely different? Long term planning could essentially leave me with a bigger dilemna than her, since that could possibly mean being there for the rest of my life, as opposed to 3 years.

 

I moved from VA to CA to be with my boyfriend. Then 4 years later I moved back to VA for a year, and during the year we were apart, we got married.

Now I live back in CA with him, and couldn't be happier. Well, unless he was Fabio.

 

I like to think of it this way: If the tables were turned, would he do the same for you? Be willing to move away from his friends and family to be with you?

 

WOW I didnt knew there was this much woman in AZ I guess you all are just hiding

 

My high school gf graduated a year before me and left Dallas for Johns Hopkins in B'more. No way was I standing in the way of that opportunity. I looked for a college in B'more and moved up there to be with her after I graduated HS, against Dad's wishes. We did B'more for 4 years and moved back to Big D when I got a job. 12 years, three kids, a house and countless cars, later, I'd say we're doing oky-doky. I'd only been to B'more once before I moved up there. Yikes!

 

LDR's eventually wear really, really thin.

Moving can be unsettling, but it can also be very freeing. You get to redefine yourself a bit, create a new you, one free of the automatic assumptions that your friends and family have. That can be a challenge, but a positive one.

If this guy is "it", or it feels like it is, this is worth the risk.

As for homesickness, set up a deal in advance with close friends/family for return weekend trips (maybe scheduled around the time your SO is studying for finals, prepping for a major paper, etc, and could really, really use some concentrated solo time) back to your old stomping grounds. Then, preplan those trips carefully; plan lunches, dinner, expeditions, etc so that you get to go to your favorite places and see your favorite folks. What is reversing is that you now have a constant in your relationship with your SO, while you have a LDR with your family and friends in suburban Philly.

And, it's already been noted that the travel time between Philly and B'more is a couple of hours; not a big deal to drive back for a weekend. Moreover, both cities and their surrounding suburbs are Mid-Atlantic; they have a lot in common,a nd there are some stunning areas in and around Baltimore. The city itself has a neat Inner Harbor area, lots to do/see. If you open yourself up to the excitement of new experiences, it can take the edge off the unfamiliarity of it.

I had a LDR with a woman for four and a half years, returned to Philly to be close to her - giving up a promising job with a prominent firm in Denver, close to the ski slopes - now married more than twenty years. Well worth the transition time.

 

I say graduate from college and follow your career, if you can get a job in Baltimore then go. I got married my last semester of college, graduated and move to be with him. I wished that I would have followed my career because now I feel cheated out of my career because every where we move I am unable to find work in my field. I think that my relationship is really taking a hit because of this and I feel like I gave up on my dream. It's hard, I think about that every day and I am angry and very bitter about it. Again I say follow your career.

 

thats what i need to ask him of he to himself. I've said to myself over and over I WILL NOT move unless I know he would do the same.

 

I know they do. It was ok in the beginning, but now after all this time traveling back and forth, only seeing eachother a couple weekends a month, It's made me realize that we can stay together and that obviously there's something keeping us together. But now the LD part is just annoying. It brings up arguements bc sometimes were both busy and cant visit, then we fight about not seeing eachother and we'd both be more sane if we lived near or with eachother.

I could def see myself with him for a long time. I'm not a huge risk taker by nature but I am way more than he is. So to me? It's not really a big risk.


I feel I'm pretty open. The only thing holding me back really, is him. Like his post seemed to say: he's like a scared child about moving with me after hes done school. The more Ive thought about moving to be with him while hes in school, I've realized it's really not that big of a deal. But it will make me very unopen to the whole thing if i feel hes acting like a child who never wants to leave home ya know. (btw mike im not insulting you )

 

Hmm interesting. Mind if I ask what field are you in (or trying to get into) and are you sure you could have gotten a job you wanted even if you didn't move?

 

Forensic Science specializing in DNA analysis, it’s my passion; I am contemplating leaving to go and pursue my career. He has said that if I decide to do that then he would support my decision even though he doesn’t want me to go. But in my heart of hearts I think that would lead to divorce because if I get a job in my field I am not going to want to give that up, his job would not allow him to just move to where I am (he’s in the military) and I don’t want to be divorced at 26. This is my dilemma, and I am positive that I would have got a job in my field. Sorry not trying to high jack your thread.

 

Is this an excuse to leave him or somthing?

Why cant you just find that career where you are at now, what is changing locations gonna do? Unless you stuck on a military base or somthing....or does he move around a lot?

 

No, this is not an excuse to live him, yes I am stuck on a military base that doesn’t offer my job and we are overseas so we can't work out in town. This situation would be different if they did offer my job; I wouldn't even have this issue. We move where ever the military send us base on where ever his job is needed.

 

I was admist some plans to move by spring over 1000 miles away but i am very glad i didnt. No one person is just like the other but I would think your move might be a little more liveable because youre just a short car ride away from where you call home.

 

just remmeber that anything can happen and shit can hit the fan real fast. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

 

Stick with your hubby, Fabio's getting old
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Back to the topic... like someone else said earlier, your coming to Baltimore, which is only a short drive to Philly. If you decide to come down, you have to start building a life so you aren't totally dependent on Mike for companionship when you can't run up to Philly. I think that's a pretty important part of sustaining a relationship when someone moves to be with their mate.

Good luck to you both!

 

Are you talking about money? Because we will be maintaining separate checking, investment, and credit accounts.

 

Money notwithstanding... it is amazing, the issues you find when you move in with a person. Arguments over how to fold towels, how long clean dishes can be left in the dishwasher, whether Skippy or Jif is the better peanut butter... it really is amazing. You laugh now, to think that you and your beloved may scream at one another over the issue of towel folding. I laugh at you, because you are laughing.

Also, separate money is great, but what if she comes out there and loses her job? Will you help her stay afloat for a couple of months if the only other alternative is for her to move away again? Will you resent her for years afterward if you do help? What if the tables are turned? What if she gets REALLY SICK and you have to take her to the ER at 4 am the night before a big exam? Can you handle that?

The theory of moving in together, especially when one person is moving to a new location altogether, is great in theory, but there are always a few unforeseen kinks that have a way of rearing their ugly heads when you least expect it.

BTW, my best advice to you is to decide before you move in, who will be the clean freak and who will get yelled at. Also, who will cook the most, where will you buy your food, whether you'll cut coupons (and whose job that is), what kind of furniture you want in your place and how much you're willing to spend on it, etc. I swear, it doesn't SEEM like these will turn into fights, but I PROMISE YOU, they will. They really, really will.

Speaking of which, damn it, Scott, you need to unload the dishwasher before you go to bed or ELSE!

 

he better be willing to take me to the ER, damnit

Me: messy and only folds things once i can't see the floor....where they end up again 20 minutes later.

Mike: folds towels like a fancy hotel maid. he might even fold the ends of his toilet paper into seashells when i'm not looking.....

I'm gonna have to try and be neater and hes gonna have to not be so anal. Basically.

 

word my wife always would be like "your not folding them right" so we eventually came the agreement i help fold clothes by doing stuff that does not reqiure folding ie underwere and sock and i put the clothes she folded up (which i hevent done in a few weeks thanks dear) and i cant even think of all the stuff we got into at our last place 1 bathroom

 

not talking about money, preferences can clash easier when living together than simple money issues.