Dealing with family who don’t want you.

One of the things I’m always telling couples who write to Miss U is that long distance doesn’t end when you close the distance. Sure, if you were high-school sweethearts and you had an LDR in college there might be an end point, but for those of us who fell in love with a voice on the phone or some text on a screen (as a disgruntled ex once put it) that ocean never goes away.

There is always going to be someone missing their friends, family and culture. Always one of the partnership carrying that burden.

And then you have kids.

Throughout the different stages of our long distance love story family, friends, and randoms who think I care about their opinions have weighed in on the different decisions we’ve made. Most just need to talk about it, to understand, while others seek to influence our decisions (which, hey, that’s kinda flattering!

I’ve lost friends, and more recently, family over it

I’ve been told by a covenmate that my friendship wasn’t worth fighting for because “you’re not coming back anyway” (I was gone less than two years) and informed of my own stupidity by customers at work who wanted to know why I had an accent. I’ve got mates for whom I cease to exist entirely when I’m offshore, and these are just a handful of examples that spring to mind… incidences that pale in comparison to the burn of being told:

“Sometimes family live on the other side of the world and you just have to accept that.”

Mmm, cool story bro, but I wasn’t on the other side of the world, I was a twenty minute drive down the road. There’s nothing quite like knowing you’ve flown fifteen fucking hours over the ocean with a toddler on your lap to see someone who wouldn’t step over a puddle for you.

Right there is something no one tells you when you’re knee-deep in an internet romance: some people aren’t going to want to invest their energy in you or your ridiculously adorable children if you’re not local. They can’t see the pay-off in that.

It’s enough to make a mother feel terribly guilty for depriving her spawn of those family connections; that and the “we won’t get to be part of their lives” comments, which for the most part have stopped in our situation but you can prepare yourself for them if you’re only beginning to breed.

There’s a lot of negativity. A lot of hurt on all sides. It’s the kind of thing that makes Dear Hart and I glad that we tried so damn hard not to be together; because if there was an option to not have put ourselves and innocent kids through this, we would wish we’d taken it.

And then there’s Old Brumby.

Out of the clouds of despair and the mists of unshed tears strides the goddess’s Grandpa, restoring my faith in the meaning of family. I want to share our parting conversation. Amidst words of gratefulness, punctuated with Elen’s protests at being in the car, he did some math with me.

Old Brumby keeps track of how many weeks out of every year we see each other. Not only does this man get on Skype with my kids instead of complaining about never seeing them, but he flies down as often as possible too. This year we’ve cobbled together three months’ worth of visits. Ninety days.

Doesn’t sound impressive yet? Think of it this way: there are fifty two weekends in a year. Spread out, Old Brumby has seen us every single weekend, both days more often than not.

“That’s more than other grandparents I know!” He tells me. Other grandparents get what? Five hours on a Sunday afternoon? I’m not saying that it comes easily, but wow. At least one full day – from breakfast through to bath, books and bed – every week. Seems like a sound investment of time to me!

If you’re reading this Old Brumby, we love you! Thank you for everything you do xx