Dear English Gentleman,

I have recently met a young man whose company I enjoy immensely. Recently the relationship has turned into a romantic one and although we are both very content with each other, I have been keeping myself from falling for him. The main reason for this is because I am about to move nearly 300 miles away for a year and when I return will have to spend another year working 18 hour days, so I feel I cannot give my whole attention to him for two years. The more I see him, the more difficult it is becoming for me to not fall for him and now I wonder if a long distance relationship is a good idea or if it will cause more heartache than joy. As much as I long for him I want to be fair to the man because I adore him. What would you advise in my situation?

Girl with a suitcase.

Dear Girl with a Suitcase,

My first impression is that there are a lot of positive aspects in what you say about your relationship with your Young Man: you speak of enjoying his company immensely; you are both very content with each other; you are having to resist falling for him. The trick is to turn what appear to be the two negative aspects (300 miles distance, thence eighteen hour days for a year) into something positive.

In the early stages of a relationship there’s nothing wrong with time apart. Look at this as a positive opportunity rather than something which is negative. Rather than being overloaded with everything at once, such separation, demanding hard work and commitment from both sides, allows the relationship to grow deep foundations. It allows one to savour the other person as one might a fine wine; small sips rather than a couple of big gulps! We are lucky that in today’s world distance is mitigated with technology, something not afforded to those romantic couples of a few hundred years ago. We can take inspiration from one of the Victorian period’s most romantic couples, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, who during a 20-month long-distance courtship in the 1840s exchanged some 574 letters. They went on to live happily as Mr and Mrs Browning. Yet they didn’t have a telephone, let alone email or Skype, and all the potential which that brings for an interesting evening’s playfulness(!).

The eighteen-hour days are for a year; the question here is will your Young Man lend a hand, will he understand that the work is important to you? Will he give you the time and space and support? Hopefully the answer is yes (and you would do the same for him). And don’t assume eighteen-hour days will last just one year, and there’s nothing wrong with that…there’s always time for the two of you to meet: consider making time together when doing every-day things like running errands, your daily exercise routine, mealtimes, etc. As you know in an established relationship not every meeting needs to be a full-on, big production kind of date.

My advice: you and your Young Man are potentially pretty much  on your way to success – just turn those two aspects which appear negative (appear being the operative word) into positives. Three hundred miles and a year apart give the two of you a fantastic opportunity to engage in some old fashioned courting, and a year of hard work gives him a fantastic chance to show his support for you.

Of course all of this makes tacit assumption that your Young Man will think along the same lines as you…will your Young Man be willing to spend a year 300 miles apart laying down a firm relationship foundation? Will he give you the time and space and support for your eighteen-hour days? Let’s hope so. But in any case, after all, there’s only one way to find out…