Dear Agatha,
I want you to advise me on something of extreme importance to me. There is this guy I am dating. Doubtless we are very much in love with each other. He has visited my parents. But his parents don’t want me for the simple reason that we live very far from each other. They maintain that the distance is not healthy for our relationship. My question is, can distance be a barrier to love?
I am very confused.
Confused Lady.
Dear Confused Lady,
It could be a huge problem for two young persons still struggling to build a solid and viable relationship. Being in love is just a step in the entire process of building a relationship. Without all the necessary tripods to peg the growth of love, it won’t work.
In clear terms, a dating couple needs the advantage of closeness to observe and form an understanding necessary for peaceful coexistence between them. The essence of a courtship is to provide a couple the practices and bonding period. Just like sportsmen and women need constant practices to excel so is a dating couple. This is because marriage is lifetime journey, one, once made is often very difficult to terminate due to all the complications and diverse interests of other people involved in the process of marriage.
This could be the fear of your boyfriend’s parents who from experience know the monumental danger of having two young persons in a relationship living too far from each other.
The major challenge between you and your man is the issue of temptation. You must convince yourselves first that you both trust each other enough as well as the necessary respect for yourselves not to be tempted by other interests. This is primarily a matter for both of you to think, discuss and arrive at acceptable compromises.
There is often a thin line between love and hatred. Without both of you being honest with each other, it might be difficult for both of you to travel far in this journey. Long distance relationship requires tremendous commitment, openness and constant communication of even the smallest details to keep its wheels well oiled. Partners must never take each other for granted or assume that the trust between them is enough to completely erase the ugly head of suspicion from rising. Being humans, suspicions would from time to time rear its head hence every question must be treated with maturity, and down-to-earth honesty to disallow whatever may have brought about such questions from developing further.
The advantage of long distance relationship is the opportunity it provides, partners to develop the relationship along the line of unquestionable trust and frankness. More than the regular relationship, it gives partners realistic values to peg the survival of their relationship. It equally gives the relationship the required benefit to focus on other areas of strength beyond sex. Frankly, this type of relationship once it survives the initial hiccups can withstand any storm thrown at it because of the enduring foundation provided by the long distance. It also helps the woman to develop a strong sense of character which enables her survive in situations where women who have always had their men besides them cannot.
However, his parents have no right to make up his mind for him except he isn’t sure about what he wants. So the major task is before you and your man.
With the opposition from his parents comes the need for him to really appraise his feelings towards you as well as for you to adjudge the strength of his feelings for you.
One thing is clear, if he really feels something deep for you, he would stand by your love for each other despite what his parents feel. He would have the determination to influence his family into accepting his choice.
Sincerely, there is nothing for you to do here if he is unwilling to fight for the love of his woman. Before making up his mind to bring you to his parents, he must have discovered some precious qualities in you, things uncommon in the other women he has so far met. He now has the audacious task of convincing his parents what those qualities are and how distance would never change those things or what he feels for you.
Truly, if their concern comes from the ability of both of you to manage the extra-challenge long distances put on your relationship, the assurance provided by their son could thaw their rigidity in the matter except of course the excuse is a mere smokescreen for something else.
At any rate, every relationship needs an opportunity to chart its path in life and to find its strength as well as weakness. If you are both not given a reason to put your love to test, there is no way any of you would be able to determine the workability of this relationship.
Your boyfriend must plead with his parents to understand why you and he need all their support to make it work.
But like I said earlier, management of long distance relationship is more complex and challenging in that it takes more doses of trust, tolerance, patience, understanding, self-denials, deeper sense of responsibility and prayers to make it work.
Having an open mind would help you overcome whatever comes your way in this situation.
Good luck.
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