My GF (20F) and I (21M), together for 2.5 years, are trying to stay friends for our long term, this happened recently and I'm not sure how to feel.

This is a bit of a long one but please bear with me. I met my girlfriend two and a half years ago and we've been deeply in love for a majority of that time. I genuinely believe that she is the ideal person for me, and she believes the same (I have tried to think, as objectively as possible, if this is actually true and I really do believe so). Unfortunately, 5 months after starting to date, I had to move away to college and a year later she did too, I'm studying in the US and she in the UK. So far, we actually managed to do long distance successfully and we were very happy as we got to talk everyday and genuinely be ourselves completely. We would also meet every summer and winter break, which would be a good 2 - 3 months a year. We were more than satisfied by this and would gladly live the rest of the time apart.

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Recently, however, her parents (and hence she) moved to a different city (we're both from India), which means we'll probably only get to meet for maybe a week in a year. We've known this for a couple of months and still thought that although it'll be tough, we'll make it work. Unfortunately, this increased the 'bad' part of long-distance which is the sadness, when you experience things and wish that person were there for example, and the general emotional attachment.

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We both see a future together, however our careers will probably lead us to different places and although it might be difficult, eventually we know we will have to make sacrifices to be together. But since we don't have any certainty on where we will be and what the situation will be, it has been emotionally challenging, and we want to do whats best for the long run. So recently we thought its probably better to be friends, so that we can lose some of the emotional dependence, and when we're more certain of things we can start talking about getting to be together again. Ultimately, we want to do this so that the relationship doesn't end due to the emotional turmoil of the situation, and just be part of each other's lives, even if in a lesser capacity. The transition will be difficult but I'm confident that we can make it.

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So that is the current situation. Personally, I'm a little but conflicted by this just because after being so deeply in love I realised that ultimately this person makes me happy and I want to have them in my life and I genuinely think that no one else can this much (she also honestly agrees, and we do have an understanding that we don't even have with our respective best friends.) and I realised that money, career, etc isn't the only thing one needs to be happy, and due to this I also feel like just continuing to be in this and just take the strain of not knowing and meeting less often. But, I do see how it can be emotionally taxing in the long run. Just to clarify, we are doing this to continue being in each other's lives first (as we have also become each other's best friend), and then once we are more certain about our lives look to get back as we feel that we will still think of each other as the best person for us.

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I know that no one else can completely relate or understand us or our situation. So I guess I just want to hear some thoughts and opinions and make sense of things.

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TL;DR: Girlfriend and I are in long distance and decided to be start being friends so that we can sustain our relationship in the long run.

Submitted May 26, 2019 at 06:50AM

This is a bit of a long one but please bear with me. I met my girlfriend two and a half years ago and we've been deeply in love for a majority of that time. I genuinely believe that she is the ideal person for me, and she believes the same (I have tried to think, as objectively as possible, if this is actually true and I really do believe so). Unfortunately, 5 months after starting to date, I had to move away to college and a year later she did too, I'm studying in the US and she in the UK. So far, we actually managed to do long distance successfully and we were very happy as we got to talk everyday and genuinely be ourselves completely. We would also meet every summer and winter break, which would be a good 2 - 3 months a year. We were more than satisfied by this and would gladly live the rest of the time apart.​Recently, however, her parents (and hence she) moved to a different city (we're both from India), which means we'll probably only get to meet for maybe a week in a year. We've known this for a couple of months and still thought that although it'll be tough, we'll make it work. Unfortunately, this increased the 'bad' part of long-distance which is the sadness, when you experience things and wish that person were there for example, and the general emotional attachment.​We both see a future together, however our careers will probably lead us to different places and although it might be difficult, eventually we know we will have to make sacrifices to be together. But since we don't have any certainty on where we will be and what the situation will be, it has been emotionally challenging, and we want to do whats best for the long run. So recently we thought its probably better to be friends, so that we can lose some of the emotional dependence, and when we're more certain of things we can start talking about getting to be together again. Ultimately, we want to do this so that the relationship doesn't end due to the emotional turmoil of the situation, and just be part of each other's lives, even if in a lesser capacity. The transition will be difficult but I'm confident that we can make it.​So that is the current situation. Personally, I'm a little but conflicted by this just because after being so deeply in love I realised that ultimately this person makes me happy and I want to have them in my life and I genuinely think that no one else can this much (she also honestly agrees, and we do have an understanding that we don't even have with our respective best friends.) and I realised that money, career, etc isn't the only thing one needs to be happy, and due to this I also feel like just continuing to be in this and just take the strain of not knowing and meeting less often. But, I do see how it can be emotionally taxing in the long run. Just to clarify, we are doing this to continue being in each other's lives first (as we have also become each other's best friend), and then once we are more certain about our lives look to get back as we feel that we will still think of each other as the best person for us.​I know that no one else can completely relate or understand us or our situation. So I guess I just want to hear some thoughts and opinions and make sense of things.​TL;DR: Girlfriend and I are in long distance and decided to be start being friends so that we can sustain our relationship in the long run.