Lefty Answers

Dear Panel,

Two and a half weeks ago, my girlfriend of two years decided to break up with me. We met in law school when I was in my tthird and final year and she was in her first year. We have been long-distance since August of 1998.

We were doing fine with the long-distance thing. We saw one another every two or three weeks. I had been planning on moving to NY (where she lives) for some time. I took the NY bar exam and have been interviewing in NY for the past couple of weeks. I finally received a second interview from a law firm and when I told her, she didn't seem very excited.

She told me that she was feeling "too much pressure to get married" and that she didn't want me moving to New York. [...]

Her parents went through a bitter divorce some five years ago and she has never really dealt with it. She is not close with her siblings and she has what I consider a huge fear of commitment. She said she doesn't know if she wants to get married, which is OK. [...]. I am trying to give her space, but I don't want to give her too much space for fear that things will fade away. What should I do??

Moving to NYC Anyway

Lefty Answers:

Dear Moving to NYC Anyway,

It's a great city.

Maybe your girlfriend wouldn't believe that anyone would WANT to move to NY.

All my relatives have moved away from there. Oops, except for my favorite Cousin Mikey, that is.

You've had a long distance relationship for over a year, which is a pretty long time in my book. I couldn't quite figure out how long you both saw each other day-to-day, but it doesn't seem like it was that long.

She is pulling back. .

Reading between the lines, maybe she isn't as crazy about you as you are about her, and she just hasn't communicated that to you. I know that you say that your long distance relationship has been beautiful. But I'm reading into that because my feeling is that if a long

But I was in a similar situation and it worked out..

distance relationship is really that good for a long time, why wouldn't both parties want to make the change to close distance?

OK, so let's say you're correct and the problem she has is a result of her parents' bitter divorce. What more can you do than move to her city and try to make it work? I guess you can try to force her to go to therapy, but that's a long-term thing and she won't go unless SHE wants to.

It seems to me that if you're moving to NYC for many reasons other than her, as you've written here and repeatedly said to her, that you can't go wrong. Reestablishing a meaningful non-commuting relationship with her would be big big big bonus points, and what your heart desires at present. But being close to her might mean you could keep her as a good friend (without a 1000 mile commute), or as just another friend to help you relocate to a new city.

Lefty, if you don't know the difference between a friend and a long distance girlfriend you should read the anser gave to MikeyG from Alaska

I don't know if you could deal with having her as "just a friend", but if it's acceptable to you, that could happen, and it's also how I characterize most long distance relationships anyways.

I do think you're right about this "too much space" thing. Not only might she fade away, but if you're constantly having to back off from more than you feel like in order to give her "more space" or to lessen the "pressure", then this relationship is probably not what you are looking for. Good luck in the Big Apple.

Lefty

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