LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS: HOW WE MADE IT WORK | L’amour In Christ

that’s me and my husband as kids we drew up got married and had a kid of our own pregnancy flew by and in months I was holding my beautiful baby girl with help from blood and support from family and friends we made it through the sleepless nights and celebrated the precious milestones I’d love to take you on the journey with me as I juggle being a wife stay-at-home mom and working in the fashion and entertainment industry it’s only the beginning and it’s only reality hello and welcome to another episode of it’s only reality I’m Katie l’amour and I want to thank you for watching this show as you can tell by the title I want to talk about long-distance relationships because I never saw myself in one and even when I met who’s now my husband even when I first met him I felt like I don’t know so if you haven’t watched that video of how we met I’m gonna link it in the description box you can get a little bit more info about our family and how it all came to be and I mentioned before that we were in long-distance writing emails texts phone calls we would send each other videos we would Skype and one of the things we practiced without even knowing we’re practicing it was communication I feel like between our dating of nine months from January to September of 2009 it was so much about kind of the ins and outs of our day what kind of friends we have what kind of activities we were doing how we enjoyed work how we saw ourselves spending money where we think we would live and just a lot of details that you may not talk about if you’re like hey I’m just going to go to the movies with you or we’re gonna go drive somewhere we’re gonna have dinner but we get to see each other a lot but with us all you can do is talk so even though we only court it for nine months we knew practically everything about each other by that point and that’s how I knew because one of the ways I knew like this is the man for me because I got to ask him a lot of questions that had to deal with very personal things and he was pretty much an open book he is willing to answer it as was I because I didn’t want anybody being surprised for about a lot of things that they don’t know about me so knowing their temperaments even just getting your schedules together you kind of see how accommodating they are because sometimes I would get off of work and it’s like 6 o’clock my time and he’s already ready for bed so he there had to stay up late or sometimes I got up early or the weekends were better so we had to just figure out what worked best for us another positive was we would fly back and forth from California and Hawaii we would kind of take turns flying they gave us a chance to spend very purposeful time together because I feel like nowadays we may end up on our smartphone or it’s like you take it for granted that you’re gonna see them the next day or the next week but we didn’t have that so it’s like let’s cram all of these moments and experiences into one visit whether I’m staying for a week two weeks a couple of days we want it to be on our very best behavior I don’t think we really got into that many disagreements when we were together or at all actually that changed we got married because you’re around each other all the time but as we were dating it was just really great times we have all these memories we’re taking videos and pictures together we get to meet each other’s family and we stayed at each other’s parents houses when we did visit each other to make sure that we did bond with each other’s families because it’s like hey if we’re believing we’re gonna be together they should know who I am and not some crazy person and if I need to be interrogated that’s kind of what it felt like our family is a little bit interrogated each other cause like who is this person you’re talking to them all the time but we don’t know we barely know their middle name we barely know how old they are we barely know their birthday there’s a lot of things we just barely know a third thing that was really good for us as a positive of long-distance relationship is we were both in the middle of really beginning our careers and I didn’t have to feel bad if I had to pull an all-nighter if I wanted to just focus on me and the things that I was trying to do to build my business and to gain experience and getting paid so we could fly back and forth all these times and just seeing how passionate he was about the things that he loved it’s like oh you’re going to New York for a convention you’re at this art show in San Francisco like he did a lot of traveling I got to help me see you know the things that he prioritizes and I was one of them and also I spent a lot of time on creative projects some of them was making original music I even printed out our first year I printed out all of our emails and MySpace messages and I kid you not for that one year it was like an encyclopedia like Vista I spent months working on this so it’s like I got to send him these cute videos I made and the songs that I wrote for him and these are pages that i printed out on this huge encyclopedia and he got to learn my style my favorite colors things that I like so he would always be sending me gifts I think one time recent like an actual pie a pecan pie in the mail that his dad makes which he his dad still makes them and they’re like so amazing I think he’s making them right now actually it’s a it’s the fall I don’t know when you’re gonna watch this but right now it’s pecan pie time no so now let me talk about the not so fun stuff so one of the cons is you’re with somebody but you’re not physically with somebody so even though you have someone that kind of makes your heart flutter it gives you butterflies when you think about them like you’re you want to go to the movies you want to go out to dinner you want to take long fancy walks on the beach and your friends are doing it and it’s almost tempting to just say like hey let’s put a pause on this until I move or your move or maybe I’ll find somebody else or it’s just so hard like you get very lonely even though you’re in a relationship it can get really lonely how are we going to make this work and what helped with that was the traveling if I didn’t see him every other month that would have been really hard you know to stay in a long-distance relationship so fortunately we were financially able to do that and I think that’s what kind of helped us in that season so if you can fly if you can drive skyping sessions do help and even though you still miss them right after you Skype them it does help to just stay connected and to be present the same moment at the same time and another thing that’s a little bit of a con is I told you that we would try to spend time with each other’s close friends and family when we were in town but that being said if that happens four times the whole time that you’re in a relationship before you get married that’s not enough time so you want to see how they are around their closest friends because their friends and family are a reflection of them so I wanted to be able to see like well who are your best friends who are you hanging out with what are their real personalities and for me I want you to I want my family to know you I want your family to know me you two are like this but they’re like I still don’t know who this so I think it was something we definitely had to work on when we work together it wasn’t just about us it was about let’s spend time with your friends let’s spend time with your family but it’s a lot harder when you’re not down the street or 20 minutes away you have to purposely fly 5 hours in the air to get to see their people and vice versa the last thing that I’ll say it’s the con is the expense that comes with it unless you are just skyping or texting sending pictures and videos if you are traveling to see each other but gas does add up the price of the plane tickets do add up however you’re going to see this person depending on how often you see them so imagine us every other month seeing each other that was like thousands of dollars it was definitely worth it it was an investment but it’s it’s a considerable cost also where are you gonna stay cuz for us we didn’t want to we were both living with our parents at the time and we wanted to make sure that we weren’t alone like sleeping in the same bed or in the same room so we had to be purposeful about like well do you have a guest room or can I sleep in your bed and you’re on a couch let’s make sure the sleeping arrangements are beneficial to the choices that we made so setting boundaries and doing things that work for you and your relationship you’ll have to figure that out ahead of time so that’s the things that I would say we’re probably the three top pros the three top cons I don’t know if you’re gonna have a top con who knows so I wanted to share the ins and outs of that with you you might be in a relationship that’s long-distance you might be thinking I’ll never be in a relationship that’s long-distance that’s how I was or you might be thinking I would love to be with this person they’re so far away should I even start so I did want to pray with you so that you can also be encouraged and just know what’s the right thing for you whether you should wait or whether it’s something that you need to jump into I’ll pray for you about that so lord I thank you so much for these viewers the ones who are getting encouraged by this message I thank you for being with me and my husband when we were still dating giving us a lot of advice and encouragement when we were just getting to know each other and I just pray for those out there who are entering into relationships or considering it please just guide them and help them to make the best decision because sometimes the best decision is to say yes and sometimes the best decision is to say no and to focus on themselves and to grow in the areas that you need them to grow in so I just pray that they’re completely guided by you not anything that’s going to attempt them or put them in a position where they may compromise or even just have them unavailable for the person that you do have for them so I just pray that they’re able to meet this person and if they are dealing with temptations within the long distance relationship of maybe cutting it off because it’s just too isolating and lonely or if people are telling them that it won’t work please help them not to give in to the pressures and the fears and the stress that they’ll just really enjoy this time and for those who are with the future love of their life please help to cover their relationships help them to just glorify you and to be something that is going to be just an amazing testimony in the future and I thank you Lord for watching over them thank you for this time of Prayer and I pray this encourages them in Jesus name Amen so that prayer was just for you let me know if I can give you any more advice leave a comment down below any other topics you’d like me to discuss about my relationship and lastly I have a little surprise for you so remember the gifts that I was telling you that I would send jor-el when he was my boyfriend I have something at the end one of you actually asked do we have a wedding video and we don’t but I do you have a video montage that I made for him for one of our anniversaries as well as an original song that I made for him home for his birthday I think so I set that up at the end of this video that’s what you’re gonna watch and here it goes [Music] don’t you change don’t you change don’t you check [Music] it’s not just the words that you say but the things that you do that lets me know I am appreciated worthy of something greater than nothing Oh [Music] I’d have to say that all night how you appreciate me SP and sugar be better and for infinity oh that’s why you’re you are the sweetest of life sugar sugar don’t you change you wanna split a step like sugar sugar don’t you change your sugar sweetens but like a shepherd don’t you change we may be two different states but the friendship we go greater than you’ve been giving before Oh I know that we have a bond that goes for miles and miles JJ and Caleb are we never run out of smiles oh ha ha that’s why your mind [Music] yes [Music] so I hope you like that let me know what you thought about it and you can stay posted by subscribing to my channel and like and comment if you have any questions or any advice or anything for other people and I will see you next week bye and there’s a car going by right now so I look super awkward I am losing daylight like you would not believe the Sun is setting a like two o’clock in the afternoon now I can’t do it why hello [Music]