Hello! My name is Clare.
I run a Tumblr page that has enabled me to help others as well as myself cope with having a partner that is far away.
I share some of my journeys with you and fun(ny) ways on how to, "Survive The Distance."
From ways to talk to your peers and have them take your relationship seriously,to hard breakups.
My boyfriend, and half of my heart resides in Mobile, Alabama while I live in Saint Louis, MO.
So lovebirds, I’m officially married to the best man ever.
HOWEVER,
Everything that we expected to go right went completely wrong.
The original plan was to get married at the minister’s house with a small, intimate ceremony and then to later go to the beach and meetup with family and friends.
Unfortunately there was a car accident or something and it lead us to be in an hour’s worth of traffic. Don’t forget to add the fickled rain that Alabama likes to bring…
But between those two factors, we were unable to get to our ceremony in time. We informed the minister about two hours ahead of time that we may have been late getting there. So once we let him know about the traffic and everything, he was pretty cool about it! My now husband had called him since I was panicking and my cell had died, and the minister was kind enough to marry us at the beach like we both always wanted instead!
Weeks before all of this was taking place, we both teased that the other would cry during the ceremony!I had talked SO MUCH crap. I kept saying how he would be the first to crack and etc. Lo and behold, I cracked first. I was so embarrassed! But I wasn't ashamed to show my feelings for once. He ended up crying too but only I could see it. I was so mad. lol
Afterwards we were able to take a few nice photos thanks to our family!
Little did we know though that during this entire ceremony, there were two rainbows in the sky!
I mean it was amazing! The sun was setting, the waves crashed, the wind blew furiously and we had many loved ones there that meant a load to us.
I mean there’s more to the story, but I’m far too lazy to really go into it at the moment. I might make a video to go a bit more into detail later.
We still have a long way to go in our journey together, but every single effort we make together has been worth it. I can’t wait to share more of our milestones together as we reach them.
So on one bad day a few weeks back... Paul and bumped heads over Lord knows what and we just gave each other space and the silent treatment for a while. I was huffing and puffing for a good little bit, and decided to remind myself why on earth my crazy behind fell in love with his crazy behind.
This was the outcome in less than I want to say...10 minutes?
So with that being said I HAVE A CHALLENGE FOR YOU LOVERS OUT THERE!!!
Know how you get mad at your loved one at times and get so irritated that you wonder how in the heck you two ever went without bumping heads when you first met? Well here's nice little thing to do while you're burning your death stares into the back of their head.
Write down a list, however many come to your mind, of reasons on why you fell in love with them in the first place.
Here's the catch though, you only have 10 minutes.
See how many you can come up with! I came up with 68!
Reasons Why I Fell For You
(In ten minutes or less)
You get me when no one else does
You remind me of my father
You know how to make me laugh, even when I'm mad at you
You are so affectionate at the most random times
...You never give up...
You love God
I just feel better when attending church with you
You helped me get through my miscarriage
My mother and grandmother actually LIKE YOU
My DAD actually likes you
DOMINIQUE ACTUALLY LIKES YOU!! He never likes anyone I date
The children love you to pieces
...We had a child together...
How affectionate and loving you were to me while I was pregnant...
You help me clean
You clean when I don't
You do the dishes without me asking
You take care of the kids needs most of the time without me asking
When you cook I've never been disappointed
You always appreciate my cooking even when it's something you're not fond about
You appreciate the little things
I love how much of a kid you turn to around my children and others
I love your sister as my own
I love your mom as my own
You've made me feel welcome with your family and friends
You blend in well with my family and friends
I fall in love with you all over again when you smile at me in dim lighting
I love the color of your eyes
Your scruffy beard
Your face when it's shaved
How you smell. Even when you don't smell your best.
I'm not grossed about by your feet unless they stink
You've always taken care of me when I get sick
SOMETIMES when you nag at me, I need to actually hear it
Even though it might TAKE you a while to do so, you apologize when you're at fault probably more than I do.
I love your broad shoulders
Your round belly
Your nose
I dig how hairy you are even though I hate hairy men normally.
You actually have decent teeth. Not messed up ones.
You've actually smoked less at TIMES for my own sake.
You play cards and game with me
You actually have rhythm and always laugh or are humored when you dance
Even when you annoy the CRAP out of me almost always do I find myself laughing
You refused to give up on me when I was more interested in someone else when we first met
Even though you sounded insane, you didn't make me feel uncomfortable when you basically told me you fell in love at first sight.
How FAST we connected just talking in those first few comments on facebook.
How FAST we connected when we started talking on the phone.
How quickly I grew to have feelings for you when I at first didn't.
How I actually fell for your personality before your looks.
I love your laugh. It reminds me of Seth Rogen's.
I love how soft your hair is when it grows out a little and I run my hands through it.
Your snores are loud...TERRIBLY so...but I can hardly sleep without hearing them.
You randomly hold me in your sleep and give me kisses smiling
You never let me talk about how ugly I am.
You're ambitious.
You always look at the future with a positive mindset
I love that at times I can randomly jam with you in a car.
I actually believe that stupid saying that I am in love with my best friend.
Even though you slip at times with me, you truly do respect women in general.
You ALWAYS treat little old ladies respectfully and as if they're your grandma.
Your southern accent.
How you fuss about the silliest things like the ice tray not being filled and unfilled the way you like it.
How passionate you are over football...even when you get slightly annoying talking about it so much.
Your drive to be a good stepfather despite your fears.
So many of you are wondering why I divorced my past LDR partner, but I do ask for more time on that.
It's not that it is painful to think about or anything along those lines, but the idea of typing up a whole book or essay on my past just sounds incredibly exhausting. lol
I'm too cyber lazy to go into my half of the story.
But anywho, to those wondering how the heck I moved on, that is what this post will be about.
In the future I will be writing about personal experiences, my adventure this summer when my boyfriend came to visit me for two whole weeks and when I went to visit his family and friends for a week. Also on ways to cope with the distance, raging hormones and those hard times saying goodbye. One thing I will look out for is people that have questions. If I don't write something, I'll TRY to make a video response! (Gonna start getting back to that...)
Just feels a tad bit embarrassing honestly since my last LDR relationship was just a mess and that, "beautiful," video I created to inspire so many people just went wasted. I feel like I failed a lot of people at times. I also want to let it be known that I am by ANY means far from perfect. And I think that this post will prove just that. I just ask that you don't judge me and keep an open mind and an even more open heart.
Okay so I'm rambling on now SOOOO let me pick this up.
I met my boyfriend honestly by chance. And I actually have the screenshots of the conversation. (Took some serious digging.) But I'm saving those for if I decide to make a video of our summer together.
Anywho.
My ex husband and I were fighting horribly the beginning of the year. To the point where there were actual physical altercations. I never felt like my life was in jeopardy, but I was tired of feeling miserable.
We would fight about the two years he had been a catfish to me, and never once told me the truth until I finally cracked and caught him in all of his lies. Or how he had cheated on me while he WAS a catfish. Or how he made me spend so much money on him during those two years. Or how he didn't have a job the entire two years that we were working, only me. Or how he wouldn't really clean the house but only pick things up and around. Or how he still cheated on me when we got married. Or how he was a mama's boy and always ran to his mother when we got into arguments....You get the point.
Oh the irony of finding this picture...
I was depressed and I felt alone. I had completely withdrawn from him to the point where I used my computer as my outlet again. I was looking for friends both male and female on sites, to hang out with nearby. (I had actually made a few) But by doing this, my ex thought I was cheating on him. Every time that he would try to look at my conversations with people, I would hide them. Not delete them or anything, but I hate when anyone hovers over me when I am writing, drawing or talking to another person on any sort of device. I'm strange like that for some reason. No clue as to why. So honestly as I look back now while typing this, I can see why he to an extent, thought I was cheating on him.
The thing was though, I wasn't! He accused me so much to the point that when I'd leave for work and come back, he'd want to see my work schedule to see if I had been telling the truth. It was ridiculous. I offered him to look at my phone, facebook, tumblr, getglue, etc. Whatever accounts I had be it old or current, I had opened up and put in his face. I told him, "Look, this is everything. I have nothing to hide. Now since you told me this earlier to be fair (he had a password on his phone) may I see your phone and facebook?"
As soon as I would ask that question, that's when a part of me knew something was wrong. He would hush about accusing me temporarily. And he wouldn't offer his phone to me whatsoever. It got to the point where we got into fights over it.
We got into so many fights afterwards that one day I did something that I truly should not have... I deliberately cheated on him. I didn't do it because I felt lonely or because I was secretly in love with this individual that I knew for years. I did it out of COMPLETE spite.
Spite? You may wonder. Spite because in all of the four months that we decided to give our marriage another try, he had punched me while drunk and shoved me. He verbally ridiculed me every day. Calling me a slut and whore and other demeaning things because he thought that I was constantly cheating. I knew I wasn't any of those things. But if he called me them so much, did it really matter if I didn't do them anymore? (That's what I was at least thinking at the time)
I was constantly accused of being all of these demeaning names all of the time, at that point it made no difference if I was honest or completely faithful at that point. It was truly sad and wrong for me to do, but at that point I really didn't care. And I knew deep down that I'd never, EVER be in love with him ever again.
It didn't take even twenty-four hours of us arguing once more for me to just flat out spit it out to him in the middle of an argument. What surprises me to this day is that he cried. And what surprised me was that I laughed at him hysterically because I couldn't for the life of me understand why he was hurt. Why? Because deep down I knew that it was HIM who was doing the cheating.
Not long after that situation happened, we had decided for him to go home and separate once more. But I wanted a divorce if he were to do so. He wanted to see what would happen if we were apart for awhile again. But we had already done that. And we both knew that things would only get much worse.
Well for those last two weeks that we lived together, we actually got along pretty fine. It was almost like we had gotten our old friendship back. And I to this day...cannot express how much that I miss him as my friend.
....But that was ruined when I finally saw his phone with all of the texts he had sent his ex from the time he and I decided to try our marriage again. The entire time (before I deliberately cheated on him four months later) he had been cheating on me by talking to his ex girlfriend that he still had feelings for. It hurt me bad. So when he left, I felt completely worthless. The day that he had left, I was somewhat okay.
We gave each other a hug because we were both sad to see us end, but we knew it was for the best. Especially if we wanted any chance of us ever being friends again. I had went to comic-con not even ten minutes after he had left, but once I had finally gotten home and realized after my children went to bed that I didn't have anyone to talk to before going to bed at night... I didn't feel so well.
I cannot recall if I cried or not. I don't think that I did honestly. Either way, I ended up sulking for about 24 hours when I decided that enough was enough and it was time to stop feeling anywhere near sorry for myself. So I went on an app called hot or not and talked to a few people I had became friends with.
One of those guys I ended up sharing a few interests with, and we continued to talk for awhile over the phone. His name was Paul. He was pretty cute and kind. Eventually we decided to hang out a few times. We acted a lot like a couple eventually without the title, and although I didn't truly care what we were for that matter as long as we were friends, it did begin to bother me on if this would last or not.
Eventually he became very occupied with work and our contact became very limited for a few weeks. I followed my close friends advice about not just talking to one person, but maybe going on dates with others.
Well I had been a member of an interracial page on facebook for quite some time because my ex and I happened to be one. I had always enjoyed seeing other people's stories and children on the page. It wasn't until I had a few good discussions with eventual friends that I realized that the group page was also used for dating. But I didn't really care, I had only used it for socializing and making new friends from around the world.
Eventually I came across a discussion on if anyone was looking for love on the group page, and if you really did end up finding someone on there, would you guys take on a long distance relationship? A lot of people said no. I said that I wasn't looking for love and only friends, but if something developed from a friendship to something more on here, I'd be happy. And that distance wouldn't really be an issue because it wouldn't be my first rodeo blah blah blah etc. There happened to be another guy in the post who said he had deliberately joined the group to look for a potential girlfriend and hopefully something more. Who's name was ironically, Paul as well. And although he'd never been in a long distance relationship, he would most definitely be in one if it was someone he thought he was meant to be with.
He and I saw a eye to eye on a lot of things regarding how to tolerate the distance and moving back and forth and whatnot. It got to the point that we were conversing so much that we kind of took over the post. lol
But eventually he decided to inbox me and we became instant friends. Eventually I asked him if he'd like to webcam chat with me and a few others that we knew online, and although he was shy, he accepted!
There was another guy that I didn't realize was somewhat interested in me and I got along with through our shared love and passion for Doctor Who! ...But then Paul joined our conversation and it was pretty clear that Paul had an interest in me as well. We chatted on and on until we all got tired, and that's when I finally asked him or he asked me if we wanted to exchange numbers so we could talk more often. So later that night we did! We ended up talking from like 11 pm at night into I want to say maybe 8 in the morning. I just really enjoyed talking to him, and he was very interested in me. And I honestly was interested in him! But I did tell him about the other Paul, and that I still had feelings for him even though I had no idea what was going on with all of that situation at the time.
I also tried my best to not lead him on. But the more time I kept from talking to the other Paul from my state that was too busy to speak to me all of the time, the more I grew to like the Paul all the way out in Alabama. I knew it bothered my future boyfriend that he wasn't immediately on my mind to date, but he never let me push him away. He asked me to give him the chance of possibly being with me. Even if I went on dates with the other Paul. Until Missouri Paul and I were to put a label on us, he wanted to fight for his chance to possibly be with me.
I was a bit baffled as to why a guy would want to stick around with all of my slightly dramatic and indecisive nonsense, so I had to ask him on why he was so persistent when he didn't even know if we'd truly have a future together. (To be honest I felt the same way about him, but I was trying to use my brain) He told me he couldn't explain it, but he just knew. He knew from the moment that he had seen my profile picture that I was the one meant for him. Of course it sounded crazy, but not exactly to me. I don't know why to this day it doesn't, but I'm so glad for it. Well eventually I sat down and had a friendly talk with the Paul that lived in my state, and he said that he wasn't exactly ready or comfortable with putting a label on us. I accepted that happily and ran into my current Paul's cyber arms.
(Which I don't even know why I waited for that answer really, I think it was for the mere fact that I had sworn I would no longer get into another LDR after my ex husband)
From that point on he made time for me and I made time for him. We would talk on the phone as often as we possibly could. Include our friends and family on three-way calls with each other and skype or tango as much as possible. Eventually we both arranged tickets to see each other during the summer and the rest as you know it is history. We have been truly happy since.
From that point on he made time for me and I made time for him. We would talk on the phone as often as we possibly could. Include our friends and family on three-way calls with each other and skype or tango as much as possible. Eventually we both arranged tickets to see each other during the summer and the rest as you know it is history. We have been truly happy since.
There have of course been fights and squabbles, but nowhere near on the same level as I had with my ex husband. A lot of people said he deserved the cruel things that I did to him after all of the hurt he's caused me over the years. I can see their point to an extent but...I don't like to think of it that way. I wish that once I had found out the truth of him catfishing me, I wish I would have still forgiven him for it yes...BUT ended the relationship from that point on.
And remained friends. Goodness knows there would still have been a chance for Bryan and I to have been friends if we hadn't been childish and beyond reason. We had went about getting married the wrong way. But you know what they say.
"You live and you learn."
So yeah, that's the I guess gist of what happened between my ex and I, and what has led to me and my boyfriend being together.
My next post will be not so personal and far more positive. But I guess I wanted to show that I was imperfect, and so was my marriage. To be a bit more realistic that not all long distance relationships are fairy tales. To prove that it's a big deal to just randomly meet someone online and marry them the EXACT same day that you meet them for the first time!
I mean sure it may have actually worked out with the wonderful man I'm with NOW because I've actually taken the time to find out that he is who he says he is, and I know him on a far more personal level and his flaws and peeves. I didn't get to do that with my ex or him me, because we didn't get to truly learn about each other. So before someone else sees my LDR wedding story with Bryan and thinks, "AWW OMG That's so cute!" And thinks about doing the same thing? ...REALLY sit down and think about the consequences. That's all I ask of you!!
For those of you who haven't seen my Youtube Wedding story, here it is. I'll be making a more up to date video with my boyfriend and our adventures this summer together as well as tips for helping to make the distance a bit more bearable. Tata for now!
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