By: Liz Welborn
Waiting. Anticipating. Waiting. Anticipating that phone call. For some people this is how they describe their relationship with their significant other that lives miles away.
Long distance relationships are hard enough without the element of stress that college brings, so how exactly do fellow students of High Point University conquer the battle of distance while maintaining a healthy relationship with their partner?
Love Overseas
Chelsea Wocoski, a junior at HPU, never thought that she would be dating a soldier in Iraq. When she started dating Trevor Hunter it was before he enlisted into the Army in April 2007. Hunter was just originally sent to Alaska where, upon arrival, he was informed that he would be going to Iraq that June of 2007.
The hardest thing for Wocoski is not hearing from Hunter for days. When first arriving in Iraq Hunter was stationed in Tal A’Far, a town near the Turkish border that had plenty of internet and phone access. Wocoski would receive a phone call from Hunter almost every day.
That all changed when Hunter was suddenly moved to the less stabilized Iraqi town of KirKuk. Now, because of less phone and internet connections, Wocoski is lucky if she gets a phone call weekly from Hunter. “Now when Trevor calls you can hear how much he misses home in his voice, and it makes me cry”, Wocoski says.
The scariest thing about datin
g someone in Iraq is that “you never know what is going on over there or if he is hurt”, Wocoski says. The one thing that helps Wocoski during the lonely times is the military support group that HPU supports. This support group is made up of students involved with soldiers in the war.Wocoski is also involved with an online military support group: Militarysos.com. This website is dedicated to the loved ones of soldiers. They send helpful messages and lend a shoulder to cry on when the worry gets to be too much.
Love Between States
When Kim Baumgartner, a senior at HPU, decided to go to HPU she had broken up with her boyfriend of three years. By the time she was accepted, they were back together and have been ever since. Her boyfriend, Matt Davidson, was angry that she chose a college so far away from their home state of New Jersey. “He got very angry with me, he could not understand why I wanted to go so far away from him”, Baumgartner says.
At the time, Baumgartner wanted a new start in a new state. However, now that Matt and she are back together she sometimes wishes she had chosen a closer college. Even though she talks to Davidson three to five times a day via telephone, she misses the “comfort that seeing him brings me,” Baumgartner says.
Although
it is difficult at times, Baumgartner says the distance has caused their relationship to strengthen. “Now that we have been apart for over a year, we know that our relationship can pretty much last through just about anything”, Baumgartner says.When Baumgartner is having a lonely day she relies on her good friends to get her mind off of being away from Davidson. “People here at HPU surround me with positive reinforcement that always encourages me,” confides Baumgartner.
Statistics on Long Distance Relationships:
According to Education Portal
- Couples live an average of 125 miles apart, and visit each other 1.5 times per month.
- Phone calls are made every 2.7 days; the average call lasts 30 minutes.
- Letters (not counting emails) are exchanged 3 times per month.
- Most couples expect to be separated an average of 14 months.
How to Make It Work
According to a recent study done by Southeastern University, over 40 percent of undergraduates in a long distance relationship believed in the statement “out of sight and out of mind” when it came to how they felt about their spouse that was far away.
So how do you make a long distance relationship work with these statistics?
Distance is what you make of it, if the person is worth it, then it is worth the loneliness of a long distance relationship agrees both Wocoski and Baumgartner. One motto that Wocoski lives by is “don’t take anything for granted…you never know when something is going to happen.”
In order for a long distance relationship to work Baumgartner says that you need to know that your partner is trustworthy and willing to communicate on a daily basis with you. Without the basic foundation of trust and honesty the long distance relationship will most likely not last.
Baumgartner emphasizes that a relationship in its stages is always the hardest when in a long distance relationship. However both Baumgartner and Wocoski agree that with distance, their love has grown into something beautiful.
Military Significant Others and Spouse Support was founded in January of 2004, and was created by a wife of a solder. The website is a place where solder’s significant others can communicate through message boards, chat rooms, e-mails, and blogs.
The website used to be called NavySOS, mainly for Navy significant others. However due to several requests, in 2006 the website converted so that it is now for all branches of the military and their spouses.
The motto of MilitarySOS is to “provide a comfortable, positive environment for military spouses and significant others to not only receive support, but to also vent, celebrate and come together in a place where everyone has something in common - a Military Significant Other .”
In order to become a member of MilitarySOS there is a yearly fee of $20 or a monthly installment plan of $2.50.
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