Hi Meredith, I figure my situation is at least different (although probably less dramatic) than some other letters so I thought I’d write during a boring lunch break:
I’m a late 20s male who got back from a long-term volunteer assignment in Latin America a couple months ago. While I was there I had a girlfriend of a little more than a year — a good person who always put me in a good mood who I really bonded with. It definitely wasn’t a novelty “Ooh lets date a local” kind of thing. However, eventually my service ended and I had to move back to the US. Before I left we agreed to keep in touch and that she’d eventually visit me here in the states (as I made very clear that if we were to have a future it would be in the US), but for the time being we’d just be friends due to distance. Since then, we’ve emailed pretty often and the feelings are still there on both sides. However, due to her job she’s pretty much unable to visit me until at least the spring of next year because she gets very little vacation time. I am kind of unsure how to proceed because:
— I think it’s really important that she visits and has a better grasp of what life in the US is like before we could even consider a future here. As anyone with a Latino background knows, being away from your family is a much bigger deal in her culture than the one I grew up in. If it means anything, her English is so-so but I don’t doubt her ability to learn it. I definitely care enough about her to know I’ll regret it if I don’t at least give her the chance to experience the states and see how we get on in my element as opposed to hers.
— That said, I’m meeting a lot of new people here in the states and wonder how wise it is for me to put anything/everything romantic on hold until next spring when she may/may not be able to visit. I would hate to get involved with someone here in the US only to drop a “By the way, my ex-gf who’s only an ex because I moved away is coming to visit me in the spring” on them.
— Even if she comes up, the feelings are still there, and we have a great week or two together, it would just mean I’d really start planning for her to come live stateside. I’d really like a year or so of co-existing before any permanence. So in sum, I am 50-50 over whether her visit in the spring would lead to further developments in our relationship.
I’m curious about are whether it’s worth it/healthy to basically take a year off from anything romantic, and if your response is “see what happens,” some pointers towards proceeding without hurting someone.
Sincerely,
Me encanta el queso de la parrilla in DC