to warn you....this page will probably lean towards focusing on Marine Corps relationships, since that is what I am in. But all of us, whether our DSO's are Marines, Airmen, Sailors or Soldiers, are going through the same things. So please don't be scared off by the Marine Corps references :)
I originally decided to put together a long distance military relationship page a few years ago after I became involved in a LDMR relationship myself. My (then) boyfriend had just left Virginia, where I'm from, for Southern CA to be stationed at Camp Pendleton with the Marine Corps. I didn't know anyone else that was in the same type of relationship, and after searching the internet for any type of information or support for surviving LDMRs I realized that there wasn't a whole lot out there. There were several pages for people in long distance relationships after meeing their DSO's over the internet, but none for those of us involved with a service member. So I started gathering info and links of pages that I thought were useful for dealing with the stress of my relationship, and began my first page. That page is now stuck somewhere in the blackhole of Geocities...after they switched to using a Yahoo pagebuilder I wasn't able to edit it anymore :) So here I am, starting from scratch once again! If anyone has ANY questions, advice, comments, or know of a page that should be on here (perhaps your own military relationship page?) please email me! I'm always on the lookout for helpful info to put on here. I hope that you all find this page to be helpful for you!!
I think the hardest part of being in a long distance relationship is learning how to deal with it! When you're separated from your DSO thare are so many uncertanties. Many worry that the relationship will grow old without any contact for such a long time, or that one of the people in the relationship will end up cheating. There's always the fear that you will grow apart from each other, or that you won't have anything in common anymore when you finally are together once again. I think that most people have these fears at one time or another. I think it's a natural reaction to being seperated. When Ryan first left for Camp Pendleton I was convinced that I would never see him again, that he would get out there, build a whole other life that didn't include me, and we would go our seperate ways. After awhile though I realized that he wanted it to work as badly as I did, and I decided to change my attitude about it to hopefully help make the best out of the situation. One of the best things I can say for helping make this happen is to communicate! Even if you're thousands of miles apart, you can still keep in touch so that you're still a part of each other's lives. There's many ways that you can keep in touch, phone calls, using the internet (if you both have access you can use various chat programs such as TalkCity, ICQ, or AOL IM .) You can also get free email from various places, Hotmail, Excite and Yahoo are good programs. Unfortunately Ryan doesn't have access to email or the net, so I've really gotten into letter writing since he left lol. Sometimes I write him a letter every day or 2, other times I can only write once a week. Just use the letter as a way to tell him what's been going on in your life, how much you miss him, and that you hope to see him again soon. I also buy a LOT of greeting cards, because sometimes plain letter writing can get boring. I also love putting together care packages. You can do themes (decorations and Christmas cookies for Christmas for example) or just send things that you think they'll need. Recently I put together a first aid kit for Ryan because he seems to always be hurting himself (I nicknamed him bubble boy because he needs to be in one!). I took a shoe box, put a red cross on it, and filled it with first aid supplies, cold medicine, heat pack, etc. Just have fun with it, whether it's a practical package or a naughty one :)
One of the biggest things that will help keep your relationship going strong is to TRUST each other. Without trust, the relationship won't go very far. If a guy knows that you're expecting him to cheat on him any time now, he'll be more likely to say what the hell, she doesn't have faith in me anyway. Thats how I see it anyway. I know it's hard sometimes to think that he's so far away and not tempted to cheat, but trust me, guys really aren't as bad as they're made out to be. Besides, if you can't trust him to stay faithful during your seperation, would you really want to be with him anyway? I'm not saying to be naive about it, but follow what your heart says about whether you can trust him. Don't be paranoid just because your friends say, "oh there's no way he isn't cheating", but at the same time, if your heart says he is, then maybe you're just not being honest with yourself. (I'm just saying this from my own experience!)
*Be flexible with travel days/times. It's cheaper to fly Saturdays, Tuesdays and Thursdays (sometimes Wed), and "red-eye" (early morning/late night) flights are almost always cheaper.
*If you can, consider alternate airports. Travelocity offers a feature to list alternate airports. I know living in the northern VA area its usually cheaper to fly out of Baltimore than it is to fly out of either of the D.C. airports.
Here are some links to Flight Reservation systems online. Many of them have email alerts for airline sales that are great to sign up for.
Expedia, Travelocity, Hotwire, Priceline, Cheap Tickets, Lowest Fare, ITA, United Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, 1Travel, Smarter Living (great newsletter for travel deals!).
For hotels, sometimes you can stay at base loding at his base. At Camp Pendleton, it is $35.00 a night for a regular room, or you can get a room with a kitchenette for $45.00 a night. It is so much cheaper than hotels out on town! Your DSO will have to make the arrangements for the room though, because he is considered your "sponsor" on base. For staying out on town, I'd recommend using a name your price service such as Priceline or Expedia. I have gotten some really great deals on hotels through Priceline in the past, although I have yet to use Expedia's feature.
Well, I'm a week into a new experience for Ryan and myself...our first (and thankfully only) 6 month deployment. Ryan left last Wednesday with the 11th MEU. This will be a whole new experience for me, as communication will pretty much be limited to letters, emails and care packages with the occasional phone call. I'm hoping to build a deployment section here as I go along and learn more. For right now, I'm going to just add one link...and that's to the 11th MEU. I'll add more links and more information soon.
11th Marine Expeditionary Unit Homepage
CAREPACKAGES!!!
I recently sent the first care package (of many I'm sure!), but he hasn't received it yet, so I haven't had any feed back :) It was your typical package though...junk food mostly! Can you imagine being stuck on a ship without your favoite things? I took that into consideration when making the package. Ryan doesn't like chocolate (he's strange!), but I filled the box with trail mix, beef jerky, a lunchables nacho kit (the only one I've found that doesn't have to be refrigerated) and peanuts. Just think of the things he loves, but probably can't get! I also included a micro cassette voice recorder. I have one also, and this way we can send tapes back and forth and be able to hear each other's voices. I bought them for $30 each at Walmart. Other items you could send include newspaper articles to keep them up to date on what's happening back home, books, magazines, phone cards, stamps, film or disposable cameras, movies if they have access to a tv/vcr, and little toys like dart boards (I found a great one in Target's kids dept...cost me a whole $1.99!) and squirt guns. Pretty much anything will remind him that you're thinking of him :) Before Ryan left on deployment, I gave him a travel size alarm clock from Brookstone. On one side you can put a picture (of you of course!), and the other side has a clock which you can set for your local time. That way he'll always know what time it is where you're at! Also, it has a 10 second voice recorder. Ryan says he listens to it all the time, and has already asked me to send batteries because he's afraid he'll wear them out :)
Care Packages 4 Our Military Men is a great club to join at Yahoo! for care package ideas. So check it out and join, we're always looking for great ideas! I'm cplrysangel on there :)
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