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You are here: Home / Archives for long distance

A Love That Keeps You Hanging

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A beautiful woman and a man are sharing a romantic kiss in front of a fountain - love concept.One of our dear, sweet readers is in a back and forth romance with a guy that disappears on her and then keeps coming back, and she's wondering what she can do to finally move on. She has signed her letter "Anonymous", so I've called her "Beauty".

Here's her story:

Good evening Jane,

I know that you are very busy and I looked through the posts and there isn't anything that really answers my question and I truly hope you could answer this. I am in a very unfortunate predicament and my heart really needs healing.

It all began two years ago.

I was backpacking across Europe when I met the one, who I believed and hoped, was my soulmate. We had this instant chemistry, something so rare.

He was with a friend and I was traveling alone, the three of us decided to travel together. We met in Venice, we would spend the day on the water taxi, he held me in his arms and from the very beginning, I had warned him that he shouldn't fall in love with me and that wouldn't be allowed.

Right away, he was afraid it was too late, he was worried he would never again meet someone like me.

A couple days passed and we were now in Rome, we still had not kissed. He brought me to the fountain of love, my eyes were closed and when I opened my eyes I saw this brilliant and beautiful fountain and we shared our first kiss. my oh my was it beautiful. We then kept traveling and about a week in, we needed to part ways. I knew I would never see him again, but he really made me feel the way no one had ever made me feel.

He just clicked.

Well, that all sounds beautiful until.... He ended up realizing he would never see me again and basically ditched me in Athens late at night... I was heartbroken.

He then messaged me saying he needed to see me again, whilst we were still in Europe. I forgave him and accepted. Of course he was not very mature, and kept me waiting for 5 hours at the port in Santorini... he never made it.

Months passed, and he decided to message me again, he had confessed his love for me and said he would do anything to be with me. We then started doing long distance (he lived about a one hour flight from my home town). We skyped once in a while, though he often had excuses.

He kept telling me he wanted to come see me, or that he would pay my flight to see him.

Well, he did neither.

I bought a flight and went to see him and stayed with him for two weeks. Met his family and spent two nearly perfect weeks with him. He seemed so doubtful, he often had this look in his eyes as if he was thinking, contemplating. He told me he loved me, I believed him and loved him so so much.

Fast forward a couple of months and he begins to ignore me, for weeks at a time. Thinking that was okay to do. Finally I tell him I can't sit and wait, he was supposed to come see me at Christmas, but told me he was not able to. He then kept me holding on by saying he loved me and didn't want to lose me and that he would try harder.

It was in October of 2012 that I said, I couldn't hold on to these broken promises anymore and that it was time for me to move on.

I have spent now two years, doing amazing things, working with children with special needs. Went to Kenya twice to work on projects for sustainability for local centers in Africa. I have done wonders. I was very happy without him, but still felt a bit empty, still missed him often and longed for the love we had.

He would often pop in and say "hey lets catch up soon, you always cross my mind and I miss you". I would respond and not hear back from him for months. He would then do that again and again.

This lasted two years.

One month ago, he contacted me.

He seemed to have grown up and seemed to really have a lot to say (he knew that I would be returning to Kenya for six months in November).

He told me that he loved me, that he has not and will never find someone like me and that he needed to find a way to get me back. I reassured him, saying that he had in fact never lost me. he was so pleased that I would yet again forgive him and give him another chance.

He explained to me that he had moved provinces, that I could finally go live with him and we could start our lives.

He was so quick to talk about having a family together and really starting our future. I was skeptical, but so thrilled. I would see him before leaving for Kenya then return to Canada to go live with him, and start our life together.

It was incredible, it was a feeling of ecstasy. I was in amazement. He had grown up and wanted to be with me. It was so easy for me to once again drop everything and go right back to him ... after everything he had put me through.

Well, this is where the story gets even more messy.

He then begins to act sort of different and I know for sure there is something going on.

After ignoring me for a couple of days he finally confesses that during those two years of not speaking to me, he had gotten a woman pregnant. This was just a couple of months ago and that she was in fact carrying his child as we speak.

He explained to me no more than the fact that she was expecting this baby and that he had moved to a different province wanting nothing to do with the infant.

This is a huge indication of what sort of person he is who can just pick up and leave when a difficult situation arises. He told the woman he would not help raise the child and left.

The fact that he didn't tell me this before telling me how much he loved me and that we would be together again just blew my mind.

Had he told me he had gotten someone pregnant and that he and she would not be together but that he would still take part in the child's life, I would have been a lot more understanding. Well he didn't even discuss any of it with me he just said "I am sorry for hurting you, you deserve better".

Everyone makes mistakes and I am a very forgiving person and so I said to him we can work this out we can talk about this. But he made this assumption without conversing with me, that I deserve much better and that I should just carry on.

He has not spoken to me since then. It has been a few weeks now and he has not said a word to me besides "you deserve better"

Now, my question to you sweet Jane, is how do I get closure, how do I even begin to just put this all in the past? You see it seems easy and I know I have a bright future, I am headed to Kenya in two weeks for six months to go seriously improve some lives out there.

I have a lot of people who love and care for me. But the love I have for him is unimaginable, I don't know how to see past this. I don't know how I can put him in the past and leave him there.

Please help me!

I just want closure, I want to know that it is the end and that I will not continue to look back. I have called him several times in the past couple of weeks and he refuses to talk to me. I know he also is going through a lot but he is just leaving me hanging...like he has from the beginning. It is almost like I am his safety net, he is afraid to lose me it seems...

I just want to be able to love again, to smile and feel as though I can put him in the past and look forward to a brighter day.

I just would love advice because I love him so much, my heart overflows with love for him, and he just leaves me hanging.

xoxo

- Beauty

My Response:

Oh the capacity we have to overlook and override the reality that doesn't fit with the stories we tell ourselves when we become the heroine in our own tragic fairy tale, Beauty! You are such a beautiful soul; so passionate, so full of life, so full of wanting to help the innocent, to make a difference in the world in such a meaningful way.

The depth of your love comes through so clearly; you want to make a difference in this rare soul you've stumbled across. He seems so close, you sense in him such a similar longing in his soul, too, if he could only get there himself. And this is why there is such a passion shared between the two of you. He senses in you something he longs for too, and within him, you sense that same pull too. And yet that pull has everything to do with something I've spoken about before in my posts about the Spark.

Something about him triggers in you a response so out of proportion to what the logical version of yourself would see in him, in this potential you keep coming back to.

To forgive, to have grace for, to accept, and to gloss over such important clues that are telling you the true story and giving you every possible red flag and warning sign for you to see clearly what you would be getting yourself into were you to follow your heart so blindly and become further involved with this man.

And yet I understand, Beauty. All too well, I do!

It’s the rest of the picture that only someone like you can see, only those of us who've played the part of the tragic heroine in the epic fairy tale that had the ending completely written except we forget that we can’t be the only ones writing it.

He has to want this, too.

And yet here he is, committing the worst of possible things that a man can do to show you how not on the same page he is with you. He dumps you, he lies to you, he stands you up, he disappears on you, he refuses to answer you – the list goes on and on.

This is where your focus must be.

On what he shows you about himself. On what he does, not what he promises or what he causes you to feel in your giving heart when you look at him as the picture of true potential. This is all about you, Beauty, not him. This is all about what you’ve created in your mind, not about what’s really there with him.

It’s the hardest part of letting go.

Recognizing that this is all about you. That there’s nothing loving about it on his end, and only unrequited love on yours. Why else do we struggle so much to let go? It’s because we don’t really want to. We don’t want to have to.

There’s a part of us that wants to hang on, that wants to keep seeing where the story goes, that wants to keep dropping in to find out what’s next. We’re waiting for that happy fairy tale ending!

You have such a full beautiful life in service to others which is the very best way to make you feel fulfilled. You have family and friends who love you, and adventure and opportunity all around you.

And yet, it is not enough.

Would anyone else do? We can set such high standards for ourselves, or allow others to set them for us, that no mere man can fit the bill. So we look for someone who seems almost out of this world to our own minds, who comes and goes, and disappears only to come running back like you are indeed his “savior” time and time again.

Even the amount of time that he has exhibited this type of pattern with you is confirmation that he is something of a lost soul that somehow needs your love to save him, and yet it is this very fantasy that we buy into that gives him so much power in your own mind.

And while your friends and family and anyone else you tell this story to will undoubtedly tell you to let him go and move on and never contact him again or allow him to contact you, when you are as enmeshed as you are with the fantasy of what could be if only he could see it too, the only way out is through seeing him clearly through your own eyes.

What can he really offer you?

You are an advocate for children. He wants nothing to do with his own child and thinks nothing of impregnating another woman and leaving her to have this child and raise his own flesh and blood alone. Who does that? A loving man? A kind man? Someone you could ever be truly happy with in the long term?

And so, to move on, you have to see for yourself who he truly is.

Write down everything he’s done to show you his true colors since you’ve known him. Write down everything he can’t offer you. Write down so you can see it so clearly on paper how easily he can disappear and ignore you,  then tell you a story that will admit him back into your life.

And then don’t make this about trying not to contact him.

Reach out to him as many times as you need to so you can see firsthand for yourself what he is really made of. So you can see the reality and separate it from the fantasy that only you can see. Rarely can we get over someone like this without allowing ourselves to see as clearly as we can what they are truly made of.

Don’t run from it.

Face it. Face the reality of what your life with him would be like so that you can feel the power of making your own choice here. That’s always a part of this too. The feeling of not being in control, of not being able to have someone when we are offering so much and expecting so little in return, can trigger us to keep holding on to an even greater degree.

Only you know why you allow him to have such a hold over you, Beauty.

But it could be he holds the illusion of a love that you don’t have to commit to yourself. It may be that the idea of being with him allows you to try to rescue him - just like the children you are so passionately helping - that he falls into that category as well.

When we give and love and care so deeply, when we’re willing to forgive and overlook the most blatantly “wrong” of behaviors, this tells us so much more about ourselves than we can ever know. Let yourself see who you are, and what you deserve. Let yourself imagine what life with him would be. Because when you've seen enough, you’ll know.

Take back your power, Beauty.

He can’t leave you hanging if you don’t allow him to. Don’t doubt your own strength; with a word from you, he’s gone. It’s only in your own mind that you have to be sure this is what you truly want to have happen, and it will be.

You are just that powerful!

What do you think? Do you have any additional words of advice or encouragement for our dear friend Beauty? Share them with us in the comments!

It's Become a Long Distance Relationship, and I'm Devastated

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A beautiful woman sits on a balcony overlooking the city devastated that her relationship with her boyfriend has become a long distance relationshipOne of our gorgeous readers, who calls herself "V", is in a great relationship with a guy that she loves. The problem is that it's suddenly turned into a long distance relationship because of a job that he's taken.

Here's her story:

Dear Jane,

I am having a really tough time right now.

I moved last year to a small town my retired parents and never expected to stay. However, I ended up starting a business here, one I'm hoping will eventually afford me the ability to travel when I choose to.

For the past 6 months I have been in a friendship that slowly turned into a relationship. It gets better every day, but it didn't start out as him wanting anything more than friendship so we haven't been officially dating for very long.

The man I met had been focused on getting out of this small town he grew up in and making a name for himself outside of his family business. We have very similar hopes and dreams and that is how we bonded in the first place. We are both in our twenties, he is a few years younger than me.

This past week he finally got a job that is really wonderful for him. It's a huge raise, but he will be traveling all of the time and probably working 10-12 shifts. It is a really great opportunity, however we are both just realizing how much we want to be together and how important our relationship together is.

The reason we didn't start dating right in the first place was that he thought a girlfriend in his home town would tie him down. I accidentally changed the way he feels on that issue, at first because I'm just living here but I'm not attached to the town, and then because he sees how free and good we are together, not that it's a ball and chain- I guess we both matured a lot together already .

Unfortunately this job might take him all over a state about 12 hours away for the next several years. He would only be able to come back here for a few days every few weeks.

I am devastated.

We both want very badly to be together and don't want to let go of each other, but it seems like we're being pulled apart. It sucks because we both want to travel and would love to travel together, but it just doesn't seem like it will work out. Him not taking this job is not an option for either of us.

He has worked at getting something like this for years and I understand completely how he feels.

I just escaped my small hometown myself.  If my business takes off I would have more money to visit (he also said he would pay to fly me down to him).

I just don't know what to do.

From what I think you've said, this just isn't the right relationship for me because I don't want to be away from my love all the time. A week or two wouldn't be a big deal if we were sure to see each other for a few days, but we're pretty sure it'll be like that all the time.

I don't want to let go of something that would be so wonderful for us if only it was a LITTLE different. When I say it, it sounds like this is going to be something that everyone tells me to move on from.

I don't know what to do.

I don't want anyone else, I want him. People say that there are other fish in the sea, but how could I just give up on our life together when it's something we both want and just can't figure out a way around it? Or if it's meant to be, it'll be.

That's so awful to hear all the time. I'm scared because we haven't had a huge amount of time together and I feel crazy for being so completely attached already. Right now we are on "snooze" while he's still home for another week (traveling for four weeks after that and then home for two long weekends) because neither of us wants it to end.

He doesn't feel like it will be fair in the end to be absent from my life all the time physically, even though he says he selfishly wants to stay together.

I can't stop crying and I'm so stressed.

Trying to distract myself with activities has not helped. He is such a good man, but we are both young, still learning, and not settled in one place. He is also the only guy that I've been with that is 110% trustworthy.

The issue is the distance. Please, please help because I am at a complete loss.

I can't handle having my heart broken this time.

- V

My Response:

Dear V,

I understand how much you want this to work in spite of the distance, and I have some great news for you. You’re not the only one in this relationship. There’s two of you here, you and him.

And what that means is if you both want the same thing, if you both want to be together, then the distance won’t be enough to keep the two of you apart. If it’s only you who wants to be together more often, than you’re definitely right that I would say that this isn't the right relationship for you. Because it would mean that you want more than he’s going to be able to give you.

Life in general, which includes relationships, is always about what you can live with and what you can’t.

Don’t worry about trying to distract yourself. I know full well just how hard it is to distract yourself by focusing on your life when something like this is occupying so much of your time and energy.

But you’re not the only one in this.

This isn't only up to you. It’s in recognizing what is yours that you can control here and what isn't, that you can accept the reality of what’s really going on that can bring you some peace here.

You can’t change him. I suspect that because you mention that you've changed his opinion of dating someone from his hometown, that you want to believe you can be enough to change his desire to take this job that would take him away from you for so long.

The reality is, it’s not about you being enough – you’re always enough! But this one isn't up to you. It’s up to him to see this for what it is, to recognize that you can only make decisions and be in control of what is yours to control.

When it comes to this job opportunity, if traveling and being away from home are a priority for him right now, then this is a part of who he is that you’re now finding out more about.

Of course you don’t want to let go of someone that’s ideal in every way except the distance part. But that’s no small thing if you’re not on the same page here. If he’s content to move forward with this even if it means the two of you won’t see each other very often, then this is something you have to decide if you can live with.

Focus on the day to day reality of what that will look like to you. What will being in a long distance relationship with someone like this look like and can you live with that?

I suspect that underneath what you’re feeling here, you’re questioning why you can’t be enough for him to not take this job that will take him away from you. You’re feeling like you've invested so much of yourself already that you can’t bear the thought of letting him go.

And you’re hurting not so much because of the fact that you may not be able to be with this man, but because you’re realizing that you may be the only one who wants this to be something more, who sees the potential the two of you have to be so much more. Yet you’re sensing he’s not there. And you’re heartbroken at the realization that you might be the only one on this page.

If you’re both here, V, if you’re both on the same page, distance won’t matter. But it sounds like this is about more than distance, it’s about him.

If he’s truly right for you, distance won’t change this.

But don’t sign up for something that isn't about distance, but instead is about two people on two different pages, looking for two different things using the distance problem as a disguise to cover up what’s really going on.

You’ll know because it won’t be an issue that can’t be overcome. You’ll know because even if he chooses this job, there will still be a willingness to make this work in spite of this great opportunity. He doesn't have to give up this job opportunity to give you what you’re looking for, but he absolute does have to give you enough for you to know that he’s on the same page and wants the same thing as you.

If you look closer, if you see through eyes that are willing to look beyond the fantasy to the reality of what is, your answer will become clear. As much as we can deny it, deep down we always know.

I hope this helps give you something to think about from an outside perspective.

Love,

Jane

Do you have any other words of advice or encouragement for our dear friend V? Share them with us in the comments!

It Seems Like He's Lost His Feelings For Me

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A beautiful blond woman sits against a wall in Spain thinking that he's lost his feelings for me.Our beautiful friend Emilie is in a long distance relationship, but her guy is drifting away and becoming emotionally distant.

Her email:

I've met this guy two years ago in Spain and we went out, there was clearly a spark there. We kept in touch and I went back to Spain this summer and we fell madly in love, it was crazy. So we were able to keep our ldr but now he started university and he seems to have lost his feelings for me...I really want him back so please give me  anything!

My Response:

Know that you can't make anyone love you or want to be with you, Emilie. You can only give him the time and space he's asking for and let him fill in that space himself by contacting you, by making an effort to continue with a long distance relationship.

And then you can keep living your own life, and focusing on you, and reminding yourself that love is about two people who want to be together, who are both on the same page and are willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen.

I know it's hard to accept that he might not be there right now, that he might be focused on starting university and this new life he's begun for himself that makes him more distant than close. But know that if it's meant to be, if he wants the same thing as you, it will happen.

But in the meantime, accepting this, realizing that you only want to be with someone who wants to be with you, you can see this as an opportunity to see what else is out there for you, to be open to what shows up and what resonates with you.

You deserve someone who wants to be with you as much as you want to be with him, Emilie, so know that whether it's this guy or not, you'll always know who's right for you because he'll want this too. It's never about you having to convince someone you want to be with him, it's about him discovering this for himself and wanting to make sure you know he does!

I know this is easier said than done, when your heart only wants him, but if you can keep this perspective, you'll eventually come to see this for yourself, too. Don't take what he does or doesn't do personally, this is only about him and where he's at and not you!

Love,

Jane

Can you relate? Share your story and words of encouragement with Emilie in the comments!

Long Distance Relationship? 3 Questions to Ask Yourself

14 Comments

At some point, every long-distance relationship needs to have two people be together to see if this is really going to be the relationship it promises to be. A beautiful woman is walking through the airport looking at her phone dialing her long distance relationship boyfriend hoping for commitment. So many of you have come to me with questions about long-distance relationships and how to make the best of them and what to do when you’re in them, that it’s time to delve a little deeper into what makes them work or not work. Whether they’ve turned into a long-distance relationship because he’s gone into the military, because he’s taken a job somewhere else, or whether you’ve been apart from the start, the reality is they’re never easy to be in, especially when your heart wants to be with him. You just never seem to have enough time to talk about the things you want to talk about when you don’t see each other on a regular basis.

So how do you make it better? How to get through this? What do you with the insecurities and doubts that this type of relationship often brings up? There are always so many questions, but few answers.

Here are a few questions you need to ask yourself:Continue Reading

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About Jane Garapick

Hi, I'm Jane Garapick. I'm here to provide inspiration, support and empowerment on the journey to true love. I know what it’s like to have a broken heart, a broken dream, and a broken you. And I know for a fact, that your dreams can still come true! Read more...
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