How To Make It Work When Work Gets In The Way

Work.

It pays the rent, makes life comfortable, and allows for playthings, but what about when work turns into the troublemaker in a relationship? It sucks when your significant other lives miles and miles away, but what can make it worse is when your significant other also happens to have a 12-hour job he can't (or won't) get away from.

It's work or me

I once said this funny thing to A.T. and he loved it for about a minute. Then reality set in. "Why don't you just call in sick today? I'm off, you call out, we talk all day long!" Yeah, he laughed and said how great that would be, almost as sexy as spending the whole day in bed naked and ordering pizza when the urge hit, but what he said next had me rethinking my whole relationship to a workaholic. "But I have rent to pay, and bills to keep up with." And that was that. I could almost hear the "It's called responsibility. Look it up sometime." Though he never said it. He went to work, I used my vibrator.

You see, when you're stuck in a different city than your boo, it helps to fantasize about unlikely scenarios, and it helps when your boo is into it too. Otherwise you're just a crazy girl with crazy daydreams that go nowhere and do nothing to further the relationship. A little imagination goes a long way, but reciprocity goes to the moon and back.

It really doesn't get any more lonely than a long day alone at home with your cats and armadillo, and a long distance boyfriend stuck in a 12-hour shift. (Well, I mean you could die, or get cheated on, or get fired from work, but you know what I mean.) By the time he goes home, he's usually tired (like always) and irritable. But he calls, and we talk, and after a few laughs he's back to his normal sweet self. We take our good in with the bad.

So, yes work sucks. It sucks the life out of him, especially because it's not his preferred line of work, and because it involves intense 12-hours of hard work, but it's his job, and he makes it a priority and I respect him for it. Sexy time can wait. Talking on Skype can wait. My needy tendencies can wait. And they do, because the texts he sends me, the messages he leaves on my phone, and the time he devotes to me when he's not at work is invaluable.

It's not work or me; it's work AND me. It's a balancing act. It's giving time to those you love freely, and selling time for money. It's responsibilities and goal setting. It's going out of your way to make your partner feel special and loved even when he's enduring a twelve hour shift, it's calling your girl during that ten minute break you get in between work to tell her you love her. It's living your life and including her in it. It's learning to feel loved even during those lonely hours, and knowing he's out there working for a better future for him, for you, for both. It's unconditional love. Love past the barrier of space and time, and holding on to that despite the distance that separates you.

So, send him that little cute text when he's at work, and tell him how much you love and appreciate him. It's one of the best things you can do for your long distance relationship, because love and appreciation is the glue that holds everything together.

#workwoes #ldr #longdistance #relationshipadvice #loveandromance