Spill the Tea with Tashi #8

SPILL THE TEA | COLUMN | ADVICE | RONGOA / DRUGS

Answered & illustrated by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Feature Editor

Q: 18 she/her

I started dating this guy over summer, we met at a party in Auckland and spent basically the whole summer together. I really like him, and we had that intense, movie-montage kind of romance. It was so great, but he had to move to Wellington because he’s going to Vic, while I’m stuck here at AUT. We said we’d try to make long-distance work, but it already feels like we’re living completely separate lives. We barely have time to call, and I don’t even know when we’ll see each other next. Flights are so expensive, neither of us have cars. I feel guilty for thinking about ending it because it’s not like he did anything wrong, but I feel so stuck. How do you know when to try harder or when to just call it quits?

A: 

There are two aspects to your question that jump out at me. One is that you’ve made it this far through the year in a long-term relationship. Congratulations! Not everyone can boast that amount of commitment. The second is that you said, “It already feels like we’re living completely separate lives”. 

On this occasion, I have no advice for you to take immediate action on. I’m not going to tell you to dump your Summertime Boy, and I’m not going to tell you to stick by the FaceTime version of him propped up against your pillow every night. I’m going to ask you some questions. 

But let me explain myself. The fact you’ve lasted five months since summer means this is a fairly long-term relationship you’ve got going, considering (I assume) you’re both fresh out of high school. If you’ve stuck with it this long, I’m guessing you have a pretty strong attachment. 

What I picked up from your question, especially, was that “separate lives” comment. If proximity wasn’t important to you, would you have mentioned it? You say you barely have time to call each other, so it sounds like you’re living a pretty full life. Sometimes scheduling really does make or break a relationship. 

So my main question to you is, do the pros outweigh the cons? It might seem like a simple task: get a notebook and some sparkly gel pens, make a graph and fill in the blanks (at least that’s how I did it, circa 2013). But I want you to really think about these questions. 

Does this relationship still bring me more joy than stress?

This is the first year in your relationship. Ideally, this is the “honeymoon period”. Having difficulties this early on could be a bad sign, or it could be a testament to your devotion to one another. Ask yourself if the joy you get from this relationship, including your amazing summer months, is worth the stress of not being close to each other daily. 

If nothing changed, if the distance stayed hard, and the calls stayed sparse, would I still want to be in it?

If the infrequent calls are because you’re both living busy lives, that's one thing. But if the calls are lagging on one end more than the other, it's probably cause for concern. In my opinion, if you’re both just caught up in living busy lives, it’s all the sweeter when you get some precious moments together. But if you’re scheduling times that he doesn't show up to, or he’s waiting for you to call, but you get caught up with other things, it might be worth asking yourself if that truly is fulfilling.

Am I staying because I’m genuinely fulfilled, or because it feels easier than the disruption of leaving?

One of the worst places you can find yourself is in the ambiguity of a relationship that is just good enough. Of course, they can’t ever be perfect; there will always be road bumps. But when a relationship is not bad enough for you to feel the urge to leave, but not good enough to feel the pull to stay, it can be really tricky to figure out what you want. Now that you’re already in a relationship, leaving it feels very dramatic in comparison to just soldiering through. The latter is also accentuated by the long distance.

I’ll leave you with one other point. Something I think we’re missing in today's social climate. In our TikTok-advice-fueled world, it’s easy to absorb pseudo-therapy slogans like “if it doesn’t serve you, let it go” and take that as gospel. But that kind of thinking can flatten the messy, complicated reality of human relationships. Real relationships aren’t vending machines that either “serve you” or don’t. They’re living, shifting things that you co-create with someone else. They require effort, care, and communication. They can be hard. They should take work. But that work should feel meaningful and reciprocal, not like a constant uphill battle. If you’re feeling depleted more than you’re feeling connected, it’s worth asking why.