Long distance
And why it’s been shit for me
Long distance relationships are shit. Without the sex and the physical contact in general, you are left only with your feelings and thoughts. If these are good, everything is OK. Add some Skype, emails, Facebook messaging or any other type of communication the 2000's has brought to us, and you are set. But, what if everything is pretty much fucked from the start?
I’m currently in the most complicated relationship of my life. It never was easy. We met in Santiago last year and we got together a month before she left. In total, we spent less than a month and a half dating, and couldn’t keep things alive for more than just another month through long distance. I was faithful and devoted, she wasn’t. She was traveling around, having fun, and doubting the whole thing. Cheating came as the logical option for her, consequence of the lack of communication, my constant whining and the temptation she had right next to her, while I was just this Chilean guy stuck in the other side of the world and whom she’d probably never see again.
I never stopped thinking about her, but didn’t stay at home crying. Dried my tears fast and started getting my shit together, sex-wise at least. When I could finally get back in touch with her, I had already moved on. Didn’t know she was with another guy during this awful month apart-but-together, not until we started talking again. I didn’t care at the time, I was really excited about the chance to get back with her. And, well, I was also high on emotions with this other girl that was coming back to live with me after a very good week of passion in Santiago. Then cheating, this time, came easy for me. It was the logical thing to do, a fucking vendetta for what she’d done to me.
Was it worth it? Nope. I thought I would feel we were even and from that point we could restart our relationship with a clean slate; but only got a month of mixed emotions living with another girl while loving her in the distance. Instead of leveling things, I destroyed all the trust she had in me and ended up breaking her and the other girl’s heart, creating a dark spot of guilt and regret in me.
I can’t say our relationship started off on the right foot. She fucked up, I fucked up, and stuff looks very fucked up. I’m hurting. I know what I did was dreadful, probably way worse than what she did. Yet her fault pains so deep inside I sometimes wonder if I took the right choice getting back together. But why does it sting so hard in my head and heart? Is it the simple fact of imagining her having sex with somebody else while I was struggling to remain faithful and suffering for her distance? Is it the betrayal? Or maybe the hateful comparison I am forced to do between this other fucker and me? Because this man represents everything I am not; all the strengths I don’t have, all the features she didn’t see in me at that moment and dragged her to his arms instead.
Insecure as I am, I was never jealous; not until nowadays. Ironically, I don’t believe she will cheat on me again. She’s changed. She’s devoted, caring, open, and I can really feel the love she says she feels for me is true and similar to the one I feel for her; but she can’t seem to understand my feelings about the past, nor can I get to explain them to her. It’s so fucking annoying, but, is it her fault? She traveled all the way back to Chile for me, there’s no room to doubt her commitment now. We are great together, and while she was here we had a great time; a time that showed us that this is what we both want. Even though, I’m constantly haunted by these negative thoughts, this jealousy over her past, especially about her sex life and her affair with this other person. She is willing to help me with that, but I can’t avoid getting lost in these dark places of my mind sometimes, and even more now that she’s gone again.
Long distance relationships are shit. Being apart from her is shit. Feeling like shit because of past shit is shit. So much shit in my life makes it feel like a fucking toilet. Which, now that I think about it, may not be completely bad. Toilets can be flushed, right? Now I have to find the way to flush all this shit out, once and for all.
