
What’s your love and relationship problem?
Ask Meredith at Love Letters. Yes, it’s anonymous.
What’s going on with your love life right now? (Or not going on with your love life right now.) Send your own relationship/dating questions/problems to [email protected] or fill out this form, please.
Hi Meredith,
My boyfriend and I have been dating for around a year and a half. The relationship has been magical. We both have great communication and still act like we’re in the honeymoon stage. He is in the military and is stationed near me; that is how we met.
He gets out in less than a year and really wants to move back to New England. I love my life in North Carolina, I have an amazing relationship with my parents, my dream job, and am getting my master’s at a school in the area. He and I have talked about doing long-distance for a year and then possibly me moving up there. But the closer it gets, the more I don’t want to go. The main issue holding me back is my relationship with my parents. He doesn’t have a good relationship with his mother, and his dad seems to have moved on with his life since my boyfriend joined the military.
I also get made fun of by his friends and family because of my accent and the fact that I am “automatically dumber because I am from the south” (his family’s words, not mine). How do I tell my boyfriend that I don’t think he has a good support system in his home town for the transition from military to college? Also, how do I let him know I feel uncomfortable with moving up north because I will be leaving my seemingly perfect life to live in a place where I don’t feel accepted? I really love him and can honestly see an amazing future with him once we get past this hurtle.
– Why N.E.?
“How do I let him know I feel uncomfortable with moving up north because I will be leaving my seemingly perfect life to live in a place where I don’t feel accepted?”
You can say it like you did in this letter. Detail the experience you have when you visit. Explain your concerns about how you’re treated by the people in his life. Has he noticed this behavior? Have you ever talked about it?
Also talk about why he’s so eager to leave where you live now. Would he ever be comfortable making visits home and staying where he is? What life does he seek in New England? How would he help you maintain the important relationship you have with family in the south?
I like the idea of the two of you trying long-distance for a year because it gives you both time to see what life really feels like when he has more freedom and time, and you have a better sense of what he seeks from his New England life.
It might also give you the chance to see what life you could build in New England. Your boyfriend’s friends and family are his community, and of course you can share those people. But you’d make your own friends, find your own world. Some of us northerners can be very nice when we try. It’s worth exploring during a year of transition.
Honestly, maybe after a few month home he’ll be happy to return to you down there.
For now, though, I’d talk to your boyfriend about your experience here, and focus on making the visits more comfortable. I wouldn’t tell him he has a bad community (he probably misses his people very much). It’s more about where the two of you can build a good life together. You should be figuring that out as a team.
– Meredith
Readers? How can the LW talk about this? Should any decisions about location be made now? How would you deal with the New England family?
Have advice for today’s letter writer? Be helpful. Be clever. Get your comment featured here.
Meredith Share ThoughtsAsk Meredith at Love Letters. Yes, it’s anonymous.
THE PODCAST
Sign up for the Love Letters newsletter for announcements, hand-picked letters, and other great updates from the desk of Meredith Goldstein
Stay up to date with everything Boston. Receive the latest news and breaking updates, straight from our newsroom to your inbox.
Be civil. Be kind.
Read our full community guidelines.