Friday, April 1, 2016

WHAT I'VE LEARNED | ONE YEAR IN A LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP



On the 20th of March, my lovely boyfriend and I celebrated our first anniversary. It was such a build up, so exciting, so scary. I’ve only ever had one other ‘long term’ relationship, so to reach the 1-year milestone, I was feeling beyond happy and accomplished! If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll see a whole lot of my devastatingly handsome, ginger, bearded Chris, but he doesn’t seem to crop up in blog posts very often. That being said, and with the fact that he’s managed to suffer an entire year with me, I decided to compile a list of things I’ve learned since being in a long distance relationship for a whole year.

Goals are essential
If your partner isn’t right by your side, it can get lonely. It can get frustrating. Luckily, pretty much from day one, Chris and I talked about how we were going to get to be together properly. The 6-hour train journeys just weren’t doing it for us! When we moved to our universities, we ended up only being about 3 hours apart. Still not ideal, but far better. We’re now making huge plans, and we’ve actually started looking for flats! I’ve moved my university place to a London university, effective September 2016, and Chris and I are moving in together! Without knowing we wanted to be together somehow, and without always planning the next time we’d see each other, I think we’d have struggled a whole lot more than we have to get to where we are now.


You need space
As much as I would love to just wrap an entire roll of duct tape around both of our bodies and force him to carry me about for the rest of our lives, space is one of the most important things for Chris and I. Being long distance, we actually seem to have a little *too much* space at the moment, but it means we’ve got a lot of time to do the things we love doing. For him, it’s music and his band. For me, it’s blogging and lazing around literally all day in my pyjamas playing the Sims 4 (the shame). We are completely obsessed with one another but we have the upmost respect for the other one’s space.

Dates are so important
It doesn’t matter if you’ve been together one month, one year or one decade, I think dates are still a number one priority for a couple. I mean, I know this is coming from a long distance girlfriend perspective, but even when we move in together, I’m going to make sure we still get the thoughtful, romantic, quality time we’re used to now. For our anniversary we went to the Shard for cocktails (Click here to watch the Vlog on my channel) AND Chris surprised me with tickets to a comedy club in Leicester Square.

TIP: Date your best friend
Chris and I have been best friends since we were thirteen; a whopping 7 years ago. Our relationship has been going on a whole lot longer than just a year, even if it is just in terms of friendship. Now, it means that we can have those hilarious bestie moments involving pizza and watching TV, or getting upset and calling him, or just hanging out together, and then kiss after (whaaaaat). Chris has always been a bit of a knight in shining armour for me, and that’s transferred itself into our relationship too. I know he’s there if I’m miserable, and I love being able to help pick him up when he’s down. Being with your best friend means that you’ll always have someone to trust and to rely on, and someone that’d rather walk over hot coals than hurt you. On top of that, it’s so handy to know that almost all the problems in his world can be cured with some takeaway fried chicken.

Lots of love,

Jasmine x

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3 comments

  1. Aw congrats on your anniversary! I'm in a long distance relationship too so it's really interesting to read about your experience! Really enjoyed this post :) x

    Rachel | Beauty and the Bird

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  2. Congratulations on your 1 year :)

    I've been in two long distance relationships so reading this post made me reminisce deeply. I couldn't agree more about the dating your best friend part. This was so crucial for me as I was in uni during these relationships.

    Thank you for sharing :)

    Ruth xx

    www.kimkimipie.blogspot.co.uk

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  3. Ah congratulations! My boyfriend and I did 3 years of long distance, and now we've been living together for two years! It was hard but worth it :) Wishing you all of the luck in the world x

    Lilies and Lipbalm
    xx

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