Recognizing your triggers in a relationship

Surprise! Your relationship problems are tied to your childhood wounds.

Do you ever find yourself getting pissed off at your romantic partner for the tiniest things? You know you’re acting unreasonable, but you can’t stop yourself from feeling so upset by this thing your partner is doing that feels so inconsiderate.

Since we moved in together around two to three years ago, I’ve experienced this countless times with my boyfriend of six years. (I know this sounds mean but just stick with me here)

When we first moved in together, I was scared thinking that we had spent years doing long distance only to find out that living together wasn’t what I’d always imagined. Instead, I felt annoyed with him over the littlest things. I also felt like we were in a power struggle where I had to hide my bad behaviors from him because I didn’t want to be judged.

In 2017, my boyfriend Nate and I had agreed that we both wanted to eat healthier and exercise regularly. Before Nate moved to Guam to live with me, my diet consisted mostly of instant ramen, fast food, and endless snacks (especially right before bed). I was exhausted and stressed from my job, so I had created a habit of binge eating junk food at night.

Nate is very committed to his goals. Once he decides he wants to make a change in his life, he’ll actually stick to it. Unfortunately for a lazy person like me, he expects me to stick to my goals too. So after the first few weeks of healthy eating, I started to drift back to my old habits and Nate tried to get me back on track.

At night, Nate would hang out in our bedroom and watch YouTube videos on his own while I stayed in the living room. I probably told him I was writing or watching something on my own, but I mainly stayed in a different room because I wanted to snack without judgment. And when I say snack, I don’t mean just a little bag of chips. I would gorge myself on rice crackers, candy, baked desserts, chips, and ice cream until I was too tired and full to eat anymore.

Sometimes Nate would come out of our room to go to the bathroom and he’d catch me on the couch with my pile of snacks. We’d laugh about it, but he would ask me if I was sure I wanted to be eating all that because of the fitness goals we’d set together. Every time he asked me if I was sure I wanted to eat some junk food, I got mad. I felt like he was judging me for overeating, and I was already insecure about my weight (I had gained about 15 lbs since I moved back to Guam in 2016). I also hated feeling like a man was telling me what to do.

I knew that he was just looking out for me and trying to help me stick to the goals I had set for my health. But still, I couldn’t help feeling so upset every time he made a small comment to keep me accountable for my own goals and nutrition. I felt like I was living with someone who restricted me from doing what *I* wanted to do. I started to resent him for this, even though from his perspective he just wanted to help me.

I didn’t understand back then, but after seeing a therapist on my own, I realized that I wasn’t really mad at Nate himself. I had subconsciously recreated a scenario similar to what I’d experienced since my childhood.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve used junk food to make me feel safe and at home. I remember after my parents got divorced, when I first started getting to know my stepmom’s family, I always felt happier and more comfortable because they had foods like Pop Tarts and other snacks at their homes. Then when I was around middle school age, my dad and stepmom stopped buying me and my siblings junk food to eat at home. They wanted to give us more nutritious foods, which is understandable to me as an adult. But at the time, I felt like I was being controlled and restricted from something that gave me a sense of comfort when there was a lot of turbulence.

Especially when we were living in different houses and unfamiliar places, I relied on those snacks to make me feel safe. I started sneaking candy bars in my backpack when I’d go to my dad’s house. I remember opening my bag and sneaking small bites throughout the weekend. It sounds silly and strange looking back on how much I needed that Snickers to get me through the days at his house, but it makes sense to me now that I’ve worked on healing.

So when Nate and I moved in together, it was a big change for me. I had never lived with a boyfriend before, I had never had my own apartment and paid for all my living expenses, I had never had to balance my relationship and career, I had never gained this much weight and didn’t know how to get back to a healthy place, I was going through clinical depression, and I started taking medication for my mental health issues.

That was a lot for me to deal with! It’s no wonder I fell back on snacks to soothe myself during this transition. And when Nate was just trying to help me develop healthier habits, my childhood wounds stirred up and made me feel like he was my dad: depriving me of my self-soothing method when he meant to look out for my health. My subconscious recognized the similarities and lashed out because I felt like someone was trying to control me and take away my security blanket again.

It’s not just limited to scenarios where you feel like your partner is taking some kind of control or depriving you of something like when you were a child — triggers of your childhood wounds can arise in many different ways.

What are the things that bother you most about your partner? Obviously I’m no professional psychologist and I don’t have a degree in this field. But just talking to my own friends and family members about what bothers them most about their romantic partners — I see how everything can be traced back to childhood wounds and issues with our parents.

Your boyfriend puts his friends above you in most cases? It probably bothers you because you felt like your parent prioritized their own career, social life, or needs over yours when you were younger.

Your girlfriend doesn’t respect your privacy and goes through your things? It probably bothers you because your mom didn’t respect your autonomy or privacy as a child.

Your boyfriend likes to stay out all night and doesn’t check in with you? It probably bothers you because one of your parents did the same thing to your other parent while you were growing up.

So the next time you get into a fight or feel betrayed with your partner, ask yourself these questions:

What is the earliest memory I have of feeling this emotion or betrayal about this type of scenario?
How did my parent make me feel at the time?
What are some other times my parent made me feel this way?
What are some other times in my life I experienced this type of conflict? Have I felt it in past relationships?
Does this emotion and thought pattern still serve me? Or is it something I would like to let go?

I was able to figure out my struggle with Nate and binge eating by tracing back my earliest memories of using junk food as security and comfort. I thought back to all the times in my life when I was going through a difficult transition (moving to a new place, starting at a new school or job, living with a romantic partner for the first time). I realized that every single time, I went through a period of binge eating junk food — and often hiding my binge eating from the people around me.

Until we learn to look inward, notice our patterns, and confront the uncomfortable truths about our past — we’re going to keep living in cycles based on our childhood wounds. The patterns reveal the spaces in ourselves that need healing. It’s hard and scary to admit that our parents (as much as we love them) weren’t always perfect, and that we still may be suffering from things they did to us as children (especially because they didn’t mean to give us these issues). It’s also hard and scary to admit that we’ve chosen partners to replicate these painful cycles from our childhoods (as much as we love them too).

The good news is: everyone goes through this too, and you can heal yourself. But you’re going to keep repeating these cycles (no matter if you’re with your current partner or a new one) until you learn how to recognize them. The first step is noticing. Next time you get mad at your partner, look inward and think about what specifically is bothering you. What does the sensation feel like in your body? What are some times you’ve felt this in your past? The more you practice this process of noticing and tracing back through your past, the easier it will get.

It’s taken me two years of work, but I’m proud to admit that I’m getting better at noticing my triggers and handling my reactions. I try as much as I can not to snap at Nate over little things, and instead turn inward to figure out what exactly is bothering me and where it’s coming from. After I take some time to process (I like to write in my journal or take a shower and think back to my past to find the source), I tell Nate about my thought process and how I came to realize what my trigger was and where it came from. Now that I’m getting better at understanding my reactions, I’m able to communicate better and connect with him on a deeper level.

I don’t blame my parents at all for the issues I struggle with. In fact, I’ve had many conversations with my dad about childhood wounds and how they affect romantic relationships. He gave me a copy of “Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples” by Dr. Harville Hendrix, which explains these concepts in detail (I highly recommend it to anyone looking to heal themselves and their relationships). Healing my relationship with my dad has been so helpful in my own self-healing, and deepening my relationship with my partner.

When I work on healing my childhood wounds, it’s not just for my relationship with Nate. I want us to have an even healthier relationship by the time we have children of our own. There’s no avoiding giving your children some kind of emotional issues, but I’m doing the best I can to make sure I am a more conscious and intentional person with my words and actions by the time I do have kids. When we heal, we do it not only for ourselves, but to heal our lineage — past, present, and future.

This is an excerpt of my ebook draft about long distance relationships. In the book, I explore these topics in greater depth and share more of my personal experiences. For more writing updates and my future book release, follow me on Instagram @mestisachamorrita.

What I learned from living with my boyfriend for six months

Every night when I went to sleep over the past several years, I’ve pictured variations of the same fantasy in my head.

It’s embarrassingly domestic and boring of me, because I wish I had more interesting fantasies than this, and because it’s embarrassing to admit how cheesy and in love I am — but I’d imagine what my life would look like when I finally lived with my boyfriend.

Some nights, we were in our 30s living in a gorgeous apartment in Los Angeles. Others, we were in our bedroom reading Harry Potter to our kids (who don’t yet exist). In every fantasy, the most important part was that we were together and that we didn’t have to say good night over texts.

Before we moved in together last year, my partner Nate and I had spent the last three years doing long distance (from Santa Barbara to Orange County, to Southern to Northern California, to California to Guam). It was rough.

More: Why I moved to Guam to get out of my post-grad funk

More: The 10 Commandments of a healthy relationship

But the one thing that got me through was dreaming about the life we’d have together when we finally got through this temporary period — even though it felt like it would never end.

Right before we moved in together, Nate and I had gone an entire year without seeing each other, while I had moved to Guam to start a new job and he finished up law school in California, and then while we looked for a job for him and an apartment for us on Guam.

When we finally were ready to move in together, I was ecstatic but also really anxious.

Every time long distance got hard or I felt disconnected from him, I told myself that once we finally lived together, all our problems would melt away. But I didn’t know that for sure: we’d only dated living in the same area for four months before we had to do long distance, so who knew what our dynamic would be like once we actually lived together?

Of course, the first weeks together after being separated for 12 months felt like a dream. I took Nate around to my favorite restaurants, brought him to meet my friends and family — even just picking out a water filter together at Kmart felt romantic to me.

When I woke up every morning, I couldn’t believe we were really there: the person I loved most and had waited so long for was asleep next to me in bed, and we’d never have to be apart again. My dreams literally came true!

But just like with dreams, we had to wake up eventually and face the harsh truth of reality: living together isn’t easy. Pretty soon, I was stressing out having to drive both of us to work, home, or anywhere we went (Nate didn’t have his Guam driver’s license or car insurance here for weeks when he first moved here).

We had to plan our meals, buy groceries, cook, pay bills, get extra things we forgot to buy when we first moved in, and all the stressful things that come with moving. About a month into living together, we finally got to relax a bit after all our moving in errands and new job things (drug test, court clearance, etc.) were done.

There are so many smaller issues with living together that we’ve learned to deal with over the past six months, so I’ll break them down here:

Dividing chores

Living with your partner can be romantic, but you have to remember that you’re also roommates and need to be fair about the work you each put into taking care of your living space.

In college, I lived with my best friend Angelica for two years and it was easy for us: we split the room down the middle, and kept most of our chores separate. We took care of our own groceries and meals, did our own dishes, and washed our own laundry and sheets.

When I lived with my siblings, we usually all had to do chores at the same time or our parents told us what to do — so we didn’t have to worry about one person doing all the work by their own initiative (although I still think some of us were lazier than others or took easier tasks while we all cleaned the house).

But when you’re living with your romantic partner, all the boundaries are hazy and you share almost everything. You don’t have any parents or outside parties to divide the household responsibilities evenly, so it’s important to set your duties early on (or as you go along and figure out who’s better at what, or who enjoys what tasks more).

Since I was doing most of the driving and running errands for us in the first few months, Nate volunteered to do more of the cooking and washed the dishes for us most of the time. I get really grossed out touching raw meat, so he cut, marinated, and cooked chicken for us. I took care of grocery shopping, and made the rice and vegetable sides for meals.

After Nate got his driver’s license and we took turns driving each other, he started getting tired of still doing the dishes for us. We’re both kind of gross and lazy in our own ways, so I don’t mind leaving the dishes in the sink longer but he can’t stand it. So he’ll end up doing all the dishes and I don’t pitch in (I know, I’m a terrible roommate). One day he suggested I do the dishes Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays while he would do them Tuesdays, Thursdays, and weekends — so that’s how we do it now. Another great thing is that we’re both pretty reasonable people and try to make divide most of our labor and responsibilities fairly.

After a few months, I decided I wanted to get more into cooking healthy meals (and using less meat, since I eventually want to transition into vegetarianism). I ended up looking up recipes on my own, doing the grocery shopping (not to be mean but Nate doesn’t really know how to choose proper sized vegetables, and one time he bought like five Brussels sprouts for what was supposed to last us more than five meals each), and cooking new meals. To make up for me doing most of the dinner cooking, he does the dishes after I cook (or I do the dishes when he cooks now).

There are also lots of other chores necessary to keep your household running: laundry, keeping clothes hung/folded and organized, tidying the bathroom (cleaning the sink, toilet, shower, floor), sweeping and mopping, dusting, cleaning the kitchen, throwing out the trash and recycling, and so on.

Honestly, I do most of these other chores because Nate doesn’t really care if they’re done or not (the way I don’t care as much about dishes). I think it’s half because he’s kind of gross and half because his mom is an amazing superwoman and does all the housekeeping and cooking for their family (on top of working full time). I’m the oldest in a family of six kids, so I’m used to doing a lot of these chores. Both my mom and stepmom are clean freaks, so every now and then I go into cleaning frenzies for hours and scrub the whole apartment down.

Sometimes I get really annoyed and overwhelmed doing all these chores for us, since I know if I don’t do them we’re going to live in squalor.

Just a few weeks ago I spent half of my Saturday cleaning our apartment and got passive aggressive and mad at him for not helping me while he played online poker. It wasn’t really fair to him for me to get mad since I didn’t ask him to help, but he started cleaning the kitchen and threw out the trash once I snapped at him (which I regretted soon after).

But I know that even if I feel compelled to do lots of housework and get irritated with Nate for not taking initiative to split the work, I should remember to ask him for his help, because he will help if I ask. Communication is also a big part of splitting the work evenly, and we’ve learned that it can help a lot (and avoid some spats too).

Having your own space

Living together is kind of weird. Before we reached this stage in our relationship, I don’t think I’d ever farted around him. But when you spend almost all your time together, you can’t really hide anything — so now it’s just a joke between the two of us to see who can fart louder and surprise the other person. Now we’re at a point where we even brush our teeth in the bathroom while the other person is taking a poop.

While it’s nice being so close (both physically and emotionally), it’s also important to make space for alone time.

I definitely can be a needy person. When we go home after work, I ask Nate if he missed me, even though we spend the whole day texting and have lunch together. But even a needy person like me needs some time to herself.

It was hard for me to be okay with being apart for even a few hours when we first moved in (since we hadn’t seen each other for a whole year before that), but we pretty much hang out all the time so now I’m fine with us doing our own things. After work, we’ll eat dinner together and then he’ll go play basketball or watch anime in the room while I chill in the living room and watch my shows or write. Or on weekends, he’ll play poker in the living room and I’ll write across the table from him (or I’ll go in the room to focus, which I’m doing as I write this).

Every couple is different, so you’ll need to find a happy and fair balance between your time together and alone (even if alone time means doing your own things right next to each other).

Quality time

While it’s important to make time for yourselves, you should also make time dedicated solely to each other.

Nate and I spend more time with each other than I’ve ever spent with anyone else in my life (besides my immediate family). I mentioned our daily routines earlier, but we basically spend 16 hours a day together. That’s a lot of time to spend with one person.

Understandably, when you spend practically all your free time with one person, it’s easy to be distracted while they’re talking to you or browse on your phone while you’re together. You can’t be 100% present every moment you’re together, no matter how romantic you think that might be. It’s just impossible.

Even if we do spend most of our time together, sometimes I end up feeling like I miss him when we haven’t set time specifically just to be present together. Although you’re technically spending time together when you’re getting ready for work or in the same room on your own laptops, it’s still important to set aside time just for each other.

The quality time I enjoy the most is when we talk about the future or other deep/personal things before bed, or when we watch TV shows/movies and hold hands and make comments on what’s going on. Our favorite thing to do together is stay home (and save money), but when we do go out to eat, we don’t really check our phones. We try to go to the beach at least once a month (and have been going much more often since my family is visiting), and we’ll bring books to read.

I know this is completely nerdy, but one of my favorite things we do is talk about hypotheticals or analyze things together. We have this ongoing game where we listed a bunch of positive personality traits (charisma, intelligence, humor, etc.) then debate each other’s merits under that trait until we can give each other a rating from 1 to 10. When there’s a power outage (Guam things) or some down time, we take out a notebook and continue the game. The best part is that we’re fully immersed and making arguments, but having fun with it at the same time. And one of the best parts of living together is that we both can be our nerdy selves and have fun debating in a way we couldn’t with anyone else.

What I learned from my three-year long distance relationship

After three whole years spent living in different apartments, cities, then landmasses, I’m finally nearing the end of the long distance chapter of my relationship.

Finally.

My partner Nate and I met in college in December 2013 (we say “partner” because we’re ~mature adults~ and equals). After I sat next to him in class and we talked briefly, I stalked him on Facebook, he asked me out a bunch of times and showed up to my social events until my friends checked him out and I got jealous and realized I liked him, and the rest is history!

We fell in love quickly, and even during the first month of our relationship, I knew he was the person I wanted to marry someday.

The only problem was that he’s a few years older than me and was graduating in a matter of months. We dreaded talking about the future and letting the reality of our inevitable long distance or breakup set in.

The week before he graduated, we finally sat down and had the talk: what was going to happen when he moved back to Orange County and started law school, while I was continuing college in Santa Barbara?

Among the many qualities Nate and I share that make us a great couple is our ability to openly talk to each other and solve our problems rationally — and most importantly, as a team. We’re also both relatively narcissistic (if you couldn’t already tell by reading the previous sentence).

We sat down and talked through every one of our worst fears about the outcomes of both a LDR (long distance relationship) and breaking up. We discussed every possible aspect of LDR we could think of and how we’d each like to handle it.

I visited him every other weekend during my senior year — I came to him because he needed to focus on studying during his first year of law school. Also, I loved coming over because his parents would feed me and I was broke as hell (and his mom’s homemade pho ga is the best ever).

After I graduated, I moved back in with my parents in Davis, California and we flew to each other every three weeks between NorCal and SoCal for over a year.

But during that last year, I battled with insecurities, unhappiness, and dissatisfaction with myself while I worked in retail and lost a lot of my confidence.

I relied heavily on Nate to be there for me when I needed encouragement, validation, and friendship. I got frustrated with him often because I didn’t have anything else in my life going on and focused mostly on him and our relationship.

I was desperate for something in my life to change and get me out of the rut I’d been in for over a year.

I ended up choosing to take a job in journalism back on Guam, where I was born and raised. I knew it could mean the end of our relationship eventually as I accepted a yearlong contract across the world from him, but I needed to do it for my own happiness and professional success.

We ended up breaking up only two months after I left California. We were both so heartbroken because we still loved each other deeply, but I wanted to stay on Guam with my new life and he was too scared to move and was still in the middle of his last year of law school. (Don’t worry, this story has a happy ending — we got back together!)

Nate and I are excellent at many things, but treating each other like normal exes isn’t one of them. We ended up still texting every day, we said “I love you” for months, and continued to be best friends who supported each other.

I can’t say I ever imagined my life (and our relationship) to unfold this way when I first sat down next to this random (well-dressed) dude with glasses and poofy hair in class, but no matter what happens in the future, I’ve changed and matured so much in the past three years we’ve been together.

These are a few of the most important lessons I’ve learned during three years of long distance (from a three-hour drive, to a one-hour plane ride, to an ocean apart):

Being alone is actually really great (and healthy).

When Nate and I first started dating, we spent allllll our time together. We took another class together, we ate lunch together between classes, we walked home together and watched TV shows in my bed for hours until he went to bed late, then we met up again in the morning in class and repeated the whole thing every day.

I got so used to spending every waking moment with him (and bailing on plans with other friends and extracurricular commitments just to be with him) that it physically hurt to be apart when he moved.

Eventually I just learned to distract myself and count down the days until we could visit each other, but it wasn’t until I moved far away from him and my family that I actually learned how to live my life fully for myself.

I cultivated a group of close friends who I hung out with every weekend (and during the week too), I grew closer to my coworkers and went out with them after hours, I made time to reconnect with my extended family, I went to the beach and tried new things on my time off. I grew so much getting thrown into new environments every day for work, too.

I actually had a full life for the first time since we started dating (maybe even for the first time in my life), and I absolutely loved it. I loved it so much that I chose this life for myself instead of putting romance first, for the first time ever (I’ve been boy-crazy since elementary school, unfortunately).

Living very far apart forced me to grow like crazy. Even though I love Nate so much, I’m grateful I got the chance to go somewhere on my own and figure my life out for myself. We had a rough half year when we broke up, but I still wouldn’t change it if I could because it made me into the independent, self-sufficient, and happy person I am today.

It also worked out best for our relationship too, because I needed this growth to be a better partner to Nate, instead of getting mad at him for every little thing because I was unsatisfied with my own life. Going through this rough patch also strengthened our relationship so much, and now we’re even more connected and smitten than we were during the honeymoon phase. #smitten4ages

It’s easy to take each other for granted, but make sure you don’t.

I can’t stress how important it is to remember how much the other person is right for you and is there for you, even when you’re not physically together.

After he goes to bed and can’t text me for the rest of the day, I think about him a lot. We’re apart all day, but when I can’t even talk to him, I take some time to sit and actively think about him, our future, fun times in the past, or why I love him so much. (This is all so sappy, I usually don’t write this many nice things about him all at once)

Having a period every day when I can’t talk to him makes me even more grateful for his presence when we get to text regularly during the time we’re both awake.

Don’t sweat the small stuff — but the small stuff also matters so much.

This sounds confusing, but these are two different definitions of “small stuff.”

I used to nitpick every little thing Nate would say to me and get irritated if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear. If I texted him something fishing for a compliment and he didn’t praise me the way I wanted, I’d get upset and sometimes ignored him or gave him a bad attitude.

Since we got back together, I try not to to read too much into the wording of his messages (plus I just stay too busy with work and my social life to over-analyze as much as I did when I had no job/friends). Texting is a difficult and ambiguous form of communication, and getting mad about it just creates more tension — and it’s already hard enough not seeing each other in person.

But it’s also hard not to read closely into texts when texts are sometimes all we have to connect in a LDR.

Even though I’m busy with work most of the time, and I end up texting a bit mindlessly sometimes, I try to make time to be thoughtful about my messages to Nate. If I’m busy in the moment, I hold onto a thought and bring it up to him later or if it’s a serious topic I make time for him.

It’s easy to let things fall through the cracks, but it’s important to make time for your partner and let them know they’re worth it.

You need to treat it like a real relationship even when you’re not physically together.

Even though we can’t actually sit down to dinner or show physical affection, we try our best to show each other we’re still each other’s priorities.

When I first moved to Guam, sometimes we’d have to cancel or delay Skype dates last minute, because other things got in the way of our face-to-face time. If he didn’t make time for me, I felt hurt because I didn’t feel like I was important enough to him. And if I didn’t make time for him, I felt like our connection was becoming less tangible and we were fading out of each other’s lives.

Now we make time to Skype every Friday or Saturday (my time), which is a lot easier now that Nate is done with school. It takes some rearranging of our schedules, and sometimes I have to turn down plans with friends or family in person. It’s easy to cancel a Skype date since we’re not physically together, but the time commitment and effort made to be available for the other person are still real.

People aren’t static.

When Nate and I first got together, I thought he was this cool English major who loved writing and reading fiction (basically I thought he was just like me). For his birthday, I even bought him a book with hundreds of writing prompts because I thought it’d be fun for him.

Months into the relationship, I learned he didn’t like writing for fun at all (besides getting some enjoyment using flowery language for his school assignments). He’s a nice person so he thanked me for the gift, but it’s still sitting on his bookshelf, untouched. Instead, his interests were mainly basketball and poker. He also didn’t reveal he was a huge anime geek until half a year into our relationship — maybe that was my bad for talking about how weird anime lovers were, before I knew his true nature.

About half a year to a year in, I realized he wasn’t the person I thought I was falling in love with at all.

But that was okay, because I loved the person I was getting to know even more than the fantasy I made him out to be in my head.

During the course of our relationship, we’ve both changed a lot from who we were when we met. I’m not the same 20-year-old campus activist and he’s not the lazy party animal he used to be (jk, the lazy part is still somewhat true). But we’ve changed so much, together.

Three years in, we’re starting our careers, he’s done with law school, I’m more self-assured, he’s more liberal than he used to be, I’m less religious than I used to be. He wrote a chapter for my LDR advice book and had fun with it. And I even started watching anime with him! Now that’s true love.

We’ve both gotten to know each other so well that we can handle any problem together and know what to say to make the other feel better.

I used to be sad that the honeymoon phase was over, but sharing lifelong mutual growth and support is so much more fulfilling.

If you’ve found someone you can grow steadily with over time and encourage each other, even with the difficulties of distance keeping you apart, you’re incredibly lucky. I know I am.

Why Getting into a Long Distance Relationship is the Worst Thing You Can Do in Your Teens

This post is an excerpt from a self-help e-book I’m writing about long distance relationships.

The reason I started blogging in the first place was because I felt like I had gone through so much in my own relationships, so I wanted to put advice out to everyone that I wish I could have given my past self. And if I could borrow the DeLorean from Back to the Future to save young Chloe from making the biggest mistakes of her life, I’d go back to my senior year of high school and then my freshman year of college to urge her not to get into two separate long distance relationships (why didn’t she learn from her mistakes the first time?!).

The big sister personality in me makes me want to save everyone I possibly can from the kind of heartbreak I went through when I was a teenager, because the bad things that happen to you as a teen can stick with you and haunt the rest of your future relationships (if you let them). I wrote this chapter specifically to let any teen readers who might be considering long distance know how difficult it is—and more importantly, to try to tell you why I think it’s a terrible idea, even if you go into your LDR with the best intentions and are madly in love with your girlfriend or boyfriend.

I’m going to get very real with you and tell you that you’re almost guaranteed to break up if you get into a long distance relationship in your teens, and more often than not, young people’s LDRs end up bitterly.

As a teen, you’re probably more insecure now than you will be when you’re an adult—not being very confident in yourself is less than ideal for a relationship, and is even worse for a relationship when you’re far apart. Although girls nowadays seem way more put together than my friends and I were in high school (I barely knew how to put on eyeliner, let alone how to contour my face or put on false eyelashes, and we had no filters besides generic websites like PhotoBucket!), teenage years are often filled with a lot of insecurities about looks and self-worth in general. Even if you’re using MAC, your foundation right now isn’t going to be great (a little makeup humor for you!). At this point, both of you probably haven’t really tried dating anyone else yet either, and I’m sorry to say it, but this could make you or your partner more likely to cheat. If your partner cheats on you, it’s probably not because you weren’t good enough for them, but that they haven’t tried being with anyone else besides you yet (or they still want to try dating everyone they can).

This could go both ways too, where you feel like you want to hook up with other people around you, or you start crushing on someone new, because it’s natural to want to try new things when you’re young. Instead of hating yourself for wanting to explore or potentially hating your partner for fooling around behind your back, it might be a better idea to just let each other go so you both have the freedom to do what you want, especially since you won’t be able to see each other anyway—and what’s the point of being in a relationship when you’re young if you can’t do the basics together like going to the movies, going on dates, or just hanging out (not to mention satisfying the urges of your ~raging hormones~).

When I was in LDRs when I was 17, then 18-19, my then-boyfriends hadn’t dated (and just as importantly, hadn’t had sex with) anyone else before me, so they ended up talking to a lot of different girls behind my back while we were dating. While I was an ocean away from them in California, they felt free to flirt with girls through Facebook messaging and one of them went on dates with other girls while we were still in a LDR (he even sexted someone else).

Five years later, I don’t have any hard feelings toward them because, although nobody should be excused for being a huge asshole to the person they’re dating, I know we were only 17 and didn’t know better. My ex was too immature to grow some cojones and tell me he wanted to see other people, and I was so naive that I thought I could be with my first love for the rest of my life.

In my ex’s defense, it’s difficult to commit to one person when you haven’t even seen for yourself what else is out there—especially when you’re only 16 years old and haven’t made out with more than one person in your life. Even though he shouldn’t have had a bunch of side baes behind my back (that slang didn’t even exist at the time; I’m old), I now understand why he would want to date around when we couldn’t see each other.

You can definitely be in love with someone while they’re around you and have a meaningful relationship, but it’s hard to keep it going when you’re both going through so much in your own lives apart from each other. When you’re young, it’s even harder to keep your connection strong when you’re separated because you’ll be growing and changing so much (especially if you’re going to college).

A lot of teens (my younger self included) get into LDRs going from their senior year of high school to college because it’s so hard to say goodbye, and if you’re in love, you want to keep this good thing going for as long as you possibly can. It’s important to follow your heart and do what feels right to you, but your heart will thank you later if you don’t drag out your relationship with someone because you’re too afraid to make a clean break or too naive to think you’ll still be with someone you chose when you were 17 when you’re in your late 20s.

What you want when you’re 18 (in life, but in this case in a partner) isn’t going to be the same as what you want when you’re 22, or 26, or 30. Before you really commit (please please please for the love of god, do not get married) remember that you are young and will definitely change, and your tastes will change. Think about your taste in music when you were 14, or even 16. It’s not the same as your taste in music at 18, right? Unless you’re still into Green Day and My Chemical Romance, or other variations of the middle-school-punk genre. If your taste in something as important as music changes drastically in a few years, imagine how much your taste in romantic partners will change (this will likely change even more and is way more important).

Bonding over things like going to raves together (contrary to popular belief, couples who rave together do not necessarily stay together), or both being obsessed with The Office, or flirting in Trig for the whole school year won’t be reasons for you to stick together for the years to come. And 22-year-old you will want to kick 18-year-old present-day you’s ass for wasting time on someone who won’t be worth months pining over each other in a LDR, once you’re graduating from college and looking back on everything you wish you could re-do about your glory days (geez Chloe, tell us how you really feel!).

Also, you might want to ask yourself why you want to get into this serious of a commitment now when there’s so much to see and explore while you’re young. I know how annoying it is when older people tell you this (I hated how condescending it was when family members talked to me about relationships while I was in high school or early college, and how it made me feel like my feelings didn’t matter), but it’s true—you really do have the rest of your life to settle down and be monogamous if that’s what you want, so why start so young when you haven’t even figured out what you want for yourself yet?

Right now, you can save yourself the trouble of getting cheated on, or ruining someone’s life (not to sound melodramatic), or wasting the most fun time of your life worrying about your long distance boyfriend or girlfriend; just let this relationship go peacefully. If it turns out that you’re both single at some other point in your lives and live in the same area, then that’s awesome and you can give it another shot! But right now, as someone who has been in two messy LDRs in her teens, I can tell you that the best thing for both of you is to just live your lives separately and enjoy yourselves while you’re young—trust me when I say that you have plenty of time for grown-up relationships, cheesy declarations of love on Instagram, and all the serious commitment you could ever want in the future. What you won’t have in the future is the chance to do whatever the hell you want whenever you want, and live out your bildungsroman as your own person, without being tied down.

I’m sure I sound like a broken record and probably pretty cynical too, but I promise you I don’t hate love! And even if I don’t know you, I care about your happiness and personal growth very much. I don’t have many regrets in life, and I know if I went back and made better decisions, I might not have grown into the person I am today, but I do think that I could have avoided a lot of emotional stress, tension with my family (arguing about how serious my LDR had become while I was only 19), and trust issues I have now because I had bad experiences with long distance while I was younger. I also think I could have enjoyed myself more in college (and when I moved from Guam to California in high school) without having to worry about my basically virtual boyfriend. The worst part about long distance is that if you let it, it can make you live more for someone you’ll rarely ever see, and neglect the people who are actually around you, and all the awesome things about where you are in the present. Long distance usually only works out and is bearable if you’re able to come back to each other at least semi-regularly and know that you’re going to live near each other eventually, but when you’re in high school or college and one of you moves away, you don’t have the luxury of knowing when you’ll finally be together again (and might not have the freedom or money to visit each other enough).

You might be thinking, “oh, she just went through two crappy relationships and my boyfriend/girlfriend and I aren’t like that!” Even if you two are cuter together than Alexis Ren and Jay Alvarrez, the strain and stress that comes with a LDR can drastically change your relationship. Your dynamic will be totally different when you go from seeing each other every day at school to having to rely on Skype dates (while getting cut off every few minutes through the spotty Wi-Fi connection in the dorms) and texts to keep you together. Everyone thinks they’re going to be the exception to the rule, but it’s really hard for any couple to still feel close to each other when they’re separated for weeks or months at a time.

I know how heartbreaking and terrifying it can be to say goodbye to someone you love so much (and I don’t think you ever love again as intensely as you do when you’re a teenager, so it’s even harder), but if you really love this person (and really love and want to take care of yourself), the best thing for both of you ultimately is to try to be happy with all the memories and good times you’ve had together, but agree that your happiness and futures are more important than hanging onto a relationship that will almost definitely end eventually. It’s going to hurt like hell, but after many pints of Ben & Jerry’s and binge-watching Gilmore Girls a few times over, in the long run this will be the best decision for both of you.

How to Deal with Instagram-related Jealousy and Insecurities

Let me just start off by saying that in my logical, reasonable mind, I trust my partner with all my heart. He’s been perfect, never makes me feel worried about the possibility of him cheating, and reassures me that he cares about me by texting me constantly throughout the day and giving me his full attention when we’re together.

But no matter how much I love and trust him, the less rational part of my mind still worries occasionally (which I think is natural for everyone). When I look through my Instagram newsfeed when I’m bored, I’m afraid I’ll see that he liked a hot girl’s picture and I’ll discover that the happiness I had was all temporary. It’s like I’m just waiting for him to prove that my worst fears are true: that love doesn’t work out and that I shouldn’t trust anyone. I feel incredibly petty worrying about something so superficial as a “like” on Instagram—I know deep down that it’s 100% harmless. And I can’t really get mad at him because I follow way more pretty girls and models than he does, and he never says anything about it (but in my defense, I follow them 50% for inspiration and self-love by seeing more beautiful brown women who make me feel better about myself by extension… 50% because they’re hot as hell and I like to admire them).

When I see he “likes” some girls’ photos, I get this painful feeling in my gut. I imagine him fantasizing about how much happier he would be if they were his girlfriends instead of me. I worry that he is comparing me, with the mole on my face, the rolls on my stomach when I bend over, my meager B cups, to this image of a girl with a perfectly contoured face and a push-up bra.

I know none of this is true. Anyone who uses Instagram scrolls through basically mindlessly, “liking” pictures in a second, then instantly forgetting the previous post once it leaves the reach of their thumb. These worries are part of a story I’ve made up in my head that is a manifestation of all my insecurities and trust issues I’ve developed from past relationships, with exes who had wandering eyes. Seeing the person you love give validation and attention (even in the smallest form, a “like” on social media) feels like a betrayal, in a world where a large part of the construction of self-worth relies on how many “likes” you get and who gives them to you—as much as we’d like to think we’re disconnected from social media, it affects everyone.

When I stop and think about it, my worries have nothing to do with my partner. He could tell me he loves me every day, never hang out with any other girls, do literally everything right, and I still would feel this way (and it makes me feel terrible that I do).

At our very core, when we feel jealousy, it’s not about our partners being disloyal about something so small—it’s about our deep need to be loved and to be given attention and loyalty from the person we love. The jealousy stems from the small child in each of us who needs love and worries that the flaws we see in ourselves will prevent other people from loving us (sorry, I know I sound Zen-y like my dad here, but it’s true).

The best solution when you’re feeling insecure about your partner “liking” other people’s posts is to realize and remind yourself that your relationship with a person is much more than what goes on in social media, and shouldn’t be defined by “likes,” especially if it’s with someone you have a deep connection with personally. You shouldn’t compare one “like” on a picture to the weeks/months/years of getting to know each other that you’ve had with your partner (and if he/she really wanted to be with that other person instead of you, don’t you think they would?).

Don’t compare yourself to others, especially not you in real life, right now, vs a staged photo. I feel like shit when I compare myself to a picture of a girl with her makeup done, while I’m lying in bed wearing my oversized “I [heart] gays” t-shirt and no bra. Your partner doesn’t love you because you look on point all the time, they love you because you have a real connection and because of your personality. Plus there’s no way those girls online look like that 24/7. Instagram is performance (repeat that to yourself 100x every day and you might turn out okay).

Some steps to take when you get into a negative mindset with these insecurities:

Get off Instagram! Be productive, take a walk and enjoy nature and keep your phone on “do not disturb” if you use it to listen to music, interact with the people who are around you in real life, work on a project. Create, don’t get into a negative spiral.

Do something that makes you feel good about yourself. Don’t base your self-worth off of whether a person double taps on an image of you. Remind yourself why you are a good person, why you are beautiful, and why you are attractive and worthy of love—most of all, your own love.

What I do:

lift weights (makes me feel strong and proud of myself)
go for a walk (sunshine makes me happy, gets my sun-kissed skin back)
put on a little makeup or curl my hair (doesn’t take that much effort and ends up making me really happy and feel pretty)
wear something I wouldn’t normally wear (anything besides work/bum clothes)
write (makes me feel smart and capable)
tidy my room (makes my living situation more comfortable)

Also, it’s hard to be in a happy relationship with someone who is insecure and doesn’t see their own self-worth (me at times, in this case). You need to remind yourself why you are valuable as an individual and as a partner, both for your own mental health and for the sake of your relationship.

Talk to someone (or at least write it out to yourself). Saying your fears out loud makes them sound a lot less real and will show you they aren’t actual reasons to worry. It helps a lot to get out of your own negative self-talk and train of thought if you have to explain it to someone else, and they can tell you you have nothing to worry about.

Make a list of things to be grateful for in your life. You have more going on for yourself than just one person, anyway!

Make a list of ways your partner has shown they love you. If you’re in a good relationship, these will outweigh the minor slight of Instagram “likes” by far. After I write my lists, I feel so much happier, more in love with my partner, and appreciative of what a good person he is.

Overall, the best thing you can do is to just not look at the feed.

The urge to prevent your partner from looking at anyone else but you (which is impossible) is possessive, and makes me feel small for being controlling in that way. If you want to keep your relationship healthy, you need to just trust that your partner is a good person who does not want to hurt you.

Even more importantly, you need to trust that you are a good person who deserves to be with someone who loves you and will be loyal to you (even if you don’t always believe it, it’s true). The stress of stalking your partner online constantly is bad for the skin anyway, so don’t detract from your physical beauty, and in turn the source of your value as a person (just kidding! internal beauty all the way! *smirking emoji*).