When I asked my boyfriend when he could visit, I was trying to arrange a weekend with friends. His answer was a tentative maybe for the following weekend. He couldn’t commit because he didn’t yet know what his father or anyone else might need from him. I was left trying to plan around requests that hadn’t even been made yet.
We’ve been together for a year and a half, with about 300 miles between us. I’m 26; he’s 24. Next year, we’re supposed to close that distance and move in together. I’ve already found a job in his region. Until recently, that felt like something to look forward to. Now I keep thinking about what, exactly, I’m moving toward.
At the beginning, we’d talk or play video games every few days. Those evenings made the distance feel manageable: we had something ordinary to do together, even from separate homes. These days we call once or twice a week. A few messages pass between us daily, often just short replies or reactions. He was never much of a texter, but I can’t remember the last time he suggested a game.
I miss being asked. Initiating an evening together used to feel easy; now I find myself weighing whether to ask again. We can’t casually meet for dinner or take a walk. Calls, messages and those shared games are where our everyday relationship has to happen.
This has been a demanding year for him. He’s been finishing his master’s thesis and preparing to take over his father’s business. During our spring and summer visits, every two to four weeks, I was the one driving to him. I sent a care package with food and little things to help him through the thesis. I wanted to support him without becoming another demand on his time.
His willingness to help people is one of the things I love about him. Family, friends, neighbors, customers: somebody nearly always needs him. When I said our weekends shouldn’t depend on everyone else’s last-minute requests, he explained that his trade runs on people being able to rely on him. Helping can lead to future customers and recommendations. He says he already turns plenty of people down.
I understand that building a business involves more than keeping office hours. I’m less sure where the favors stop and our time begins. He says he wants to make time for me and hopes things will improve once he’s self-employed. From where I’m standing, taking over a business could also mean more work at first.
He reassured me that I shouldn’t feel like a placeholder and that he would make sure I didn’t come up short. I wanted to be comforted. Instead, I kept thinking about the small things I’d been asking for: an invitation to play, a suggested weekend, some sign that seeing me was something he was arranging rather than fitting in.
He expects living together to help because the distance will be gone. It would certainly remove the drive. But I’m afraid of leaving my hometown, family and friends, starting a new job, and spending evenings alone while his life carries on around me. Sharing housework is fine. Becoming the person who keeps everything running while waiting for his spare time is the future I’m worried about, not something that has already happened.
I still love his generosity and ambition. I’m still preparing for the move. There is already a job waiting for me in his region; whether there will be room for the life I hope we’ll share remains unsettled.
