Long-Distance Couples, You Need to Ask Yourselves These Questions!

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I recently interviewed two different couples about their CatholicMatch success stories.

Since both dated long-distance as my now-husband and I did years before them, we discussed a logical question that comes up eventually for every serious long-distance dating relationship. Should one person move closer to the other before they get engaged, OR should the couple get engaged and then one fiancé/fiancée move closer to the other? 

Questions to consider:

Spoiler alert: my final conclusion is that this is a prudential judgment; i.e. there is no one-size-fits-all answer that applies uniformly in every case. But, if you and your significant other are discerning a path forward in terms of moving and engagement, may I offer some questions to consider and thoughts to ponder in the process?

1. How long have you known each other?

A related question is, How long have you dated? If the ultimate goal of dating is to know the other person as well as reasonably possible before committing with eyes wide open to entering a lifelong, indissoluble covenant with them, length of a relationship is one important consideration, especially if you don’t live close enough to, say, see the other person at least once a week.

Should you spend several months or several years or something in between getting to know someone before you talk about moving? Before you talk about getting engaged? As one example, my husband and I corresponded for a month on CatholicMatch before we started Skyping. (Yes, Skype! That was back in the day!) Two months later, he flew 1,500 miles to see me, and by the end of that weekend visit he had asked me to be his girlfriend. Roughly one year and four months of once-a-month-weekend visits later, with a few week-long visits in between, he moved to my town. A month after that, we got engaged. Nine months later, we were married. 

One of the couples I interviewed dated long-distance (roughly eight hours apart) about two years before getting engaged this past spring while still living long-distance. A three-year work commitment ended for the woman at the end of last month, and she’s moving this month to his hometown. They’ll be married in January. 

The other couple dated over a five hour distance for about a year and a half before he moved her way. A year or so later, they got engaged. Six months after that, they married. 

2. How often do you see each other, and for how long?

Again, the goal here is to know the other person as well as reasonably possible before committing to a lifetime with them. Both frequency and duration of visits matter. Spending longer chunks of time together can give each of you valuable insight into the other person’s everyday existence rather than only seeing their weekend highlight reels.

Furthermore, for whichever of you would be moving, do you have an understanding of what living in that area would be like, and how your job, hobbies, etc. would fit into or with the other person’s professional and personal routines? If as a couple you’re considering who should move, have you spent time discussing which location will have better opportunities for the both of you, and for a future family? 

Prioritizing spending time together is a no-brainer for every serious relationship or any relationship with the potential to become serious, but it is especially important to spend consecutive days and, ideally, weeks together if you’re long-distance. 

How might you spend multiple days at a time together while long-distance? Consider your and your significant other’s particular circumstances. Is one of you more available for travel than the other? If you’re a teacher and have summers more or less 'off,' perhaps you get to see your significant other for long stretches at a time, lasting weeks or even a month or more. 

In our case, my three day workweeks as a nurse and his four day workweeks as a teacher at a rural school made for a three-day-weekend visit about once a month, with me going his way one month and him coming my way the next. Because he coached sports during the summer, his availability didn’t change much from the regular school year. 

If one of you travels for work, perhaps you get several days off at a time between trips. Or maybe you’re able to swing brief visits as part of a trip. Regardless of your circumstances, what would each of you say to the question, "How familiar am I with my significant other’s daily routine?"

To the greatest extent possible, I highly encourage making every effort to blend your daily routines in any way possible, even while dating long-distance (more on that here). That is, enter as deeply as you can into the other person’s everyday life now. This can both help you discern whether to move and also make the transition more smooth if and when one of you does move. 

3. How far is the distance between you?

Dating across large geographic distances, loosely defined by how many time zones apart you live, and especially international dating can muddy the waters when it comes to discerning whether to move first or get engaged first. Certainly, something as big as moving to another country presumes that you’ve met someone you’re ready to spend the rest of your life with.

But do you need face-to-face time living in the same area, let alone time zone, to decide whether you really want to marry this person? Would being engaged first before moving make you feel trapped or not able to discern freely and without pressure? Does the idea of getting engaged before you move or they move to you make you feel overly anxious, as if the step is too big or getting ahead of where you are in terms of the seriousness of your relationship? 

4. What do your friends and family think?

The opinions of trusted family and friends can be especially helpful for long-distance couples, as they may see potential red flags invisible to an excited boyfriend or girlfriend. Opposite of sounding the alarm, an objective third party may help cut through the ‘analysis paralysis’ that a woman in particular might experience, saying, "everything looks good! It’s okay to relax and go for this good thing!"

If you’ve already decided to get engaged before one of you moves...

Here’s one of the few absolutes I’ll offer on the question of moving or getting engaged first. At a minimum, if you are getting engaged first you should absolutely know as a couple which one of you will be moving.

In-depth, lengthy conversations on having children, finances, past wounds and traumas, families of origin, goals, and dreams should already have happened. Certainly, you should have had all these conversations before getting engaged even if you’ve always lived in the same town, but they’re especially important in the context of living far apart while making a plan for a permanent future. 

Whatever you decide, don’t let the practicals dictate your decision.

St. Ignatius’ 5th of 14 rules for the discernment of spirits cautions, “In times of [spiritual] desolation, never make a change.” I’d argue that this advice applies well to couples considering whether to move first or get engaged first as a response to outside pressures.

Maybe one of you has a lease coming due, or perhaps a work visa is about to expire. Might the ‘most logical’ thing to do, given the time-sensitive circumstances, be to move now or get engaged now, etc.? I’d strongly encourage you to resist the urge to let these circumstances dictate your decision, as opposed to being just one variable among many that you consider. 

Additionally, after one of you experiences a major, unexpected life change such as loss of a job or loss of a loved one, you might be tempted to react by going and making a big decision about moving or getting engaged. A man deciding to propose after surviving a near-death experience, for example, might sound romantic in the movies, but, please, resist the urge to do this

We humans make our best decisions through prayer, reason, and after devoting time proportionate to how big the decision is. We do not make our best decisions in pressure-cooker situations or when we are at our lowest or most emotionally volatile point.

Give yourself or your significant other time and space to process the major event they’ve experienced without piling another emotional biggie on top. Something so important as a decision to make a cross-country (or cross-continent!) move or get engaged deserves to be considered on its own merits and with proper time and space.

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