merganser86

For the past year and a half, my girlfriend has been in Kazakhstan with the Peace Corps. She teaches English there and generally speaking doesn't seem to have ever been that enamored of it. She told me the reason she signed up was because she felt like she didn't have anything keeping her in the US- this naturally being about two weeks before she met me.

We dated for nine months before she left. It's been twice that long since she's been gone. And of course, when she comes back, she's going to be off to grad school in God knows where herself, so even when she gets back, she won't really be back. She won't be living with me except maybe over holidays.

In the time she's been gone I have graduated from college, moved across the state, started grad school, gotten my own apartment. And right now I'm in the middle of deciding between sticking with my current degree program (which I can be done with by next Spring, if I work at it) or switching to a new, theoretically better one that will require me to stay an extra semester and pay some more money- along with shackling me to Kansas City for another semester or maybe another year. I ask her about it and the answer I get is mostly "don't worry about how it affects me." But how can I?

You know how many women I've had a truly serious interest in since she left? Four. Four women who I have felt a strong attraction to who I haven't followed up on because I'm with someone who is literally on the exact opposite side of the fucking globe. I can't make real plans for the future, it feels like, because I have to account for her when she gets back. And I get the feeling that I'm the only one doing that- that I'm not getting that same level of accounting when she thinks about the future. She went to the Peace Corps despite me; I didn't break up with her then. While all my plans for next Fall and the future revolve around incorporating her into my life, I just get kind of shruggingly told not to worry about her while making those plans. I suppose she hasn't overly worried about me.

I worry that the only reason I haven't broken up with her and moved on to relationships with other people- people who are, you know, on this continent- is because I'm her most constant lifeline to America and I don't want to hurt her like that. But that's still me being considerate of her at my own expense, isn't it? Fuck.

I realize I have all of two friends on SG and it's unlikely that anyone reads this, as I don't update it frequently, but Jesus, I needed to get that out.

-E

PS. If your advice is something like, "well, do you love her?", save it. The answer is "yes, to the best of my knowledge, but then, I haven't seen her on a regular basis in a year and a half, either."