I went through a 9 yr marriage (15 yr relationship) when I was young ... that aside from being emotionally abusive - or maybe because it was often a game of trying to figure out how I needed to be/act/say what to tell, what to hold back in order to get what I wanted and needed.
Eventually - with 3 children aged 5 and under, one with severe disabilities - I was too bloody damned tired to play those kinds of games anymore - I started being straight up about what I wanted and needed and what was going on in our lives. It didn't make the relationship any better, but I was less exhausted and could then just move on with doing what I needed to do for me.
Once I finally got out of that - the one and only thing I knew was I'm just no bloody good at playing that kind of emotional chess.. and I didn't want to do that again. It was gonna have to be take me as I am, or walk away. It would be 8 years and a lot of crummy experiences before my head and my life were halfway straightened out where I could actually function in a healthy way in a healthy relationship and met a man who was
literally everything I was looking for - it'd would be two more years before we actually got married. IMO you can't deal with LDR without being willing to own up to missing them, that 10,000 miles and getting together once every six months and skype hugs - just plain SUCKS. But I also knew I'd rather be alone, than to settle for anything less than 100% of myself, or himself.
The 16 months after the wedding before he was able to move back - sucked just as badly ... but he can't be held to blame. We both have unrealistic expectations of ourselves and overly optimistic hopes about how difficult things will go, and we're both way better at making plans to get chit done than doing it. So '3 months' to get the house ready for sale and process the immigration paperwork turned into 16...
We'd have never survived the trauma of all that - if we hadn't been completely open with each other. But yeah it left some sore spots.
We're both struggling with the scars that the stresses of the last two years since I tanked my career have left us with - the 'gun to our heads' getting the work done on the old place so it could be sold, the sale, the move, along with all our own individual and collectively baggage ... and now trying to figure out 'Ok, Now what?' but I think the only way we're going to get through that and heal and recover, is if we continue to be as direct and honest about where our heads are at and what we need and what we want. Sometimes like this morning, that's a little bit raw, but I don't think we could be any other way with each other and hope to have the relationship weather the storms.
I really can't be anything other than honest and direct with the man I waited my whole life for
