Here’s the thing, the more selfless and supportive you are towards someone you love the more suited you are to be together. Sure, every relationship is different and every one has different needs but I can tell you that my girlfriend finds ways to show me how much she loves me and it’s effortless and she gets the same from me. If, tomorrow, she decides to quit and come home will I rejoice and be the happiest guy on the earth? – Absoultely!..but at the same time I am already happy and get what I need because of the nature of our relationship and how confident I am that we are meant to be together. In many ways we were bred for this and are extremely lucky – but perhaps there are a few specific things I can share that will be of help in how we are managing this:

1. When she first got to Guyana she was pretty down but used that depression to look out for me and wrote me the most sincere note about how she wanted this to be the happiest 2 years of my life and how if she could take care of me every day she would but that I needed to take care of myself. She told me to be free, single but when I came to visit in July I would be far from a single man. She was not trying to release me so she could be free but so that I could be and it’s that sincerity that is at the heart of why i love her so much and still feel free even in my commitment to her. Within a week of writing this letter to me and me letting her know I would do what I could to be ‘free’ we both realized it was never going to happen in a sense that I would be single, hit on girls or what not. I just don’t have a need for that because she is all I need and she feels the same way about me. Did I offer her the same freedom – yep – and did she take it – definitely not and every time I hear from her she finds new ways to make me feel secure of her commitment to me.

2. Luckily, I have spent a good bit of time traveling and a year overseas as well, so I realize the commitment and also how beneficial an experience like that can be to a person. If you haven’t had a similar experience on your own to relate to just try and keep your focus that they do in fact need this, that you supporting them in whatever fashion makes sense for your relationship will reap rewards. don’t be needy, evolve as time goes by to fit your relationship and give them their space if they need it. if you are unsure if you are doing a good job, ask them. Nothing wrong with that.

3. She writes me every night – this has become her journal in a way. Sure, we email, skype and chat on occasion but the letters are much more intimate and important to me. It’s further reinforcement that she needs this experience but that I am the most important thing in her life and she wants to share it with me.

4. Plan trips and break it up with milestones. I’m going to see her for 2 weeks in July and then we will meet up again the first week of December and she has already commited to come here for a full month next year. I did not push her taking off a month of her vacay to come back to the states – this was her idea and i think that’s an important point to make.

5. if you don’t have the money to visit throughout these 2 years then I have pity for you and your relationship. I honestly don’t think it’s a good idea to try and stay together if you can’t visit – that will just be too much on any one person. Yes, I suppose it can be done but it will be incredibly hard.

6. No matter what, know that it’s going to be tough. Make sure you take care of yourself and don’t get away from what makes you you.

In closing, I realize it may sound like good advice but also premature for someone only 6 weeks into this, but I hope my confidence and advice is stll helpful. She has made it clear that even if things are going well that if I saw ‘when’ and need her to come back she won’t blink. It is for this reason and the others that I laid out that I want to keep going.

Good luck everyone!

Drew