A Question for Everyone

[Pharoh]

Hi Everyone,

I hope your application plans are coming together (either submitted or in process) as we finish up with this calendar year, and wish all of you good luck and speedy processing times, regardless of which means you've applied.

I have a question for all married (and I guess non-married people as well). As you wait for CIC to go through your applications, those of you who are separated from your spouse/partner, how do you work on your relationship? I'm recently married, and it's obviously a frustration to not be able to begin working on my marriage with my spouse. It's hard to "work" on it, when you don't see your spouse/partner every day. We're obviously limited to Skype 99% of the time, though I'm blessed to be able to visit her for the upcoming holidays.

What kinds of topics can we discuss, in preparation? What things can we talk about, to better prepare ourselves, for when we ARE together? How can we have fun, in the meantime? I've considered the possibility of my spouse and I trying a few games together, perhaps to work on our teamwork, etc. It might sound stupid, but I'm new to this stuff, and I want to make sure I'm giving my marriage 110%.

I was hoping some of you could give some personal insights on this.

Blessings,

Pharoh

 

[Yaya Marei]

Hi
I think this is good topics . sometimes it is hard when your partner far away, but you have to do your best.
for me and my wife we discuss our daily activity what happened and we discuss people ;D some time we play online Monopole we both like it.

we talk on the phone a lot it is better than computer because you can move it with, all the time we send each other massages on the phone, love words, asking questions, and more about our lives.

yes it is very hard sometime to explain what do you mean in text massage or chat, even the phone, but when you know your partner well become easier for you and her, because you know how to make her happy,

8)

 

[Hycore]

When my partner and I were in the long distance phase of our relationship, one thing that we definitely worked on was trust. when you are in a long distance relationship it is so easy to let little' irrelevant thoughts turn into big problems, which in turn can cause fights. Although we had many fights while we were separated because of this, now that we are together I think our trust levels are extremely high because we went through the phase of being separate.

Eventhough long distance is hard on any relationship, if you can come out of it together, I really believe your relationship will be that much stronger because it is something that you conquered together. A shared victory that will further cement your bond.

 

[CharlieD10]

Well, since our relationship started online, managing a relationship at a distance is something we are used to. It's a little harder now that we know what it's like to live together, but we keep at it because it helps to minimise the feelings of disconnection due to the distance.

My husband and I maintain a schedule together. I call him before leaving for work practically every morning, so we can exchange greetings and good wishes for the day's activities. Throughout the day, we use MSN and text messages to keep each other apprised of our whereabouts and activities.

I actually track his medical appointments in my daily calendar, just as if I was there with him, and he helps me budget, he makes up menu plans for me and since we try to coincide activities like making meals, he will offer suggestions to help me. We even schedule things like house-cleaning and laundry so we do them at the same time!

Since talking is what we can do, we do it. We talk about everything, especially about the minutiae of daily life. I keep him up to date on the activities of my family members, we discuss the news and local happenings, I unload to him about my frustrations with work, we both discuss our efforts at finding new jobs, everything and anything.

We also take time out to play online games together. Originally one of the things we did together was Mafia Wars on Facebook, and I introduced him to Bejeweled. My husband loves music, and sometimes we will spend hours during which he searches the 'net for music videos of artistes he likes and shares them with me.

When we lived together, we used to watch cooking shows together, and we still do so for the ones that we can view at the same time, especially shows like Cake Boss and Hell's Kitchen. One very special show we watch as a couple is Showtime's "Dexter" of which we are both rabid fans. This is one of the mutual interests that brought us together, and we continue to view and discuss the show together online. Even our family members know that Sunday nights is not a good time to try to get hold of us, LOL!

We also step out of the online world. I sent him a card for his birthday, making sure to write inside it. Little things like these are a "real" connection in our virtual world. That card represents time, thought and energy directed at him, something I have held and touched that is now with him.

They are little things, in a way...but taken all together, they keep us sane and happy!

 

[MandiF]

One of the things that makes it more 'real' while I'm in UK and he's in Canada is to have regular times to talk. I know I'll talk to him as soon as he gets up and then he calls me as soon as he's home from work. Its hard sometimes as the time difference is quite a lot, but its the effort that makes all the difference.

Also, we talk about sometimes general boring things, just everyday stuff - not just keep our conversations to the big stuff. And as we're on skype, I'm able to take my laptop with me to the kitchen to make a coffee and we keep chatting, even to chat and do other stuff at the same time. It was really funny yesterday when I was painting the kitchen. He literally had me on skype while I was painting and he was playing Call of Duty at the same time and we were chatting at the same time, except when he was getting too obsessed about killing things. It was funny, because it was just like we were together, except if he were here, he'd be painting as well.

 

[Canooknic]

I'm lucky enough to have my fella with me, but my sister and her husband were separated for about 10 months while they were going through this process. Every Sunday they made the same meal, he had it for dinner in the UK & she had it for lunch in Canada. They would eat together via skype. I'm a hopeless romantic so I thought this was a beautiful thing to do. :-*

 

[alpesantezo]

this has been really hard... thank god he has been able to travel a lot here and even though i am not aloud in canada im aloud in the states!!! jeje i travel there and the hole family came down to Seattle to visit me and spend sometime...that was really touching and special...

for everyday things. I know the times he has at home and he know mines ...
when i was working i had internet on my office so we were close all day long and of course SKYPEis a BLESS!! somertimes when he is out i phone him or sent him text messages.

To spend some lazy time together we found a site where you can watch online shows .. theres every series from tv that you ever wanted to watch.. on www.sidereel.com so we see our favorite shows together even the new ones or episodes that are being aired recently.
We also watch movies there.

everytime he is cleaning something at his place he has me online in skype and we discuss our day at night.

 

[JimM]

We talk for about an hour or two a day on the phone and keep Yahoo messenger on all the time so we send little messages back and forth as we go about our day. We've known each other for about 12 years now, (most of it as friends before we got serious), so its the same as when we're together shouting from room to room while she watches True Blood and I watch the Fight Network before we curl up together and watch a movie

 

[HoneyBird]

Our relationship started long distance so it was not too difficult to simply continue. Now I am a bit tired but..I think I might be seeing the end of this visa nightmare soon.

We have regular times to talk..we spend at least 20-40 minutes on the phone each day after 6 pm. That's when we are both out of work, at home, relaxing and can talk about what happened for the day and plans for tomorrow.

We do during the work day send little chats via hotmail.

We do try to see each other at least 1 per 3 months and we try to do as many activities together. Whats great is the before planning as it gives you alot to talk about and the after glow...

I read the news daily - Toronto Star so we can talk about what's happening and so forth.

We have talked on all the contentious issues e.g. Which bank I would bank with, whether we will have a joint account, haggle over children, dicuss the type of home we both would like and neighbourhood we would like to be in., expectations for jobs, doing research in jobs etc. So at least we know where we are heading.

I would be honest with you though, we had our fair share of quarrels, but now it happens more and more infrequently as we better got to know each other...my hubby commented the other day that its been 2 months and not a single argument! haha. So there are lots of stuff to work out of how you will be living togehter and the finances to be shared and so forth.

No one mentioned phone sex here...so try to on occasions talk sexy to your partner.

And dont get fustrated with the process, keep yourself busy, have your spouse fully prepare for the move to canada e.g. stockpiling winter clothes, giving away old stuff, packing, checking out jobs, checking out schools, reading the toronto news, reading about canada and so forth...
and prepare her for what to expect...be realistic.

Anddddd....Order flowers or something from time to time...my hubby does so and it makes my day. Sometimes i send him chocolates and stuff as surprises at his office.

 

[mskatty]

i am a permanent resident.. i got a notice of assesment..from 2009..can i still apply this december..because i dont havr income this 2010. didnt work this year,, so do you think if i applly this monday would they accept my notice of assesment from 2009. how long would they received would it be january..! and still they will accept my'. notice of assesment. if they received it on january or feb 2011,,pls let me know!!and my employment letter i got only 4 hours every other week.. soo thats ok right,../i just wanna make sure 1st before i apply my application this monday.. so please let me know soon as possible..

 

[ladybrytt]

My husband and I have a difficult situation due to the restrictions of communication. He is Cuban and I am Canadian. Phone calls are $1 per minute. Email is hard to come by (his source is 25km from his home). There is no skype and there is no MSN. I buy $10 phone cards and call him a few times per week. I text him everyday. He cannot text me because it is expensive ($1 per text and income is only about $15/month). We both live very routine lives. We update each other via email about what is happening. I can call him at any time, and because he is so routine I can be pretty confident that I know what he is doing. He also passes messages through friends to me. He also has relatives in the USA that I communicate with frequently and they act as messengers at times as well. I have learned to trust, and be patient. He has had to learn how to control his need for control. Which is great! I visit him every 6-8 weeks. When I go down this month I'll be taking him a Canadian phone so that he can text me at his leisure rather than waiting for me. Since I have held the communication card, I think he has been more stressed than I. For us it's quality rather than quantity. Other than my cheesy text messages, our lives have been nicely shared over the phone and via email. It's difficult, but there is an end to this road. Hopefully soon. Good luck on your journey. Great post!

 

[catjane]

Feel so bad for you who are split up. My husband and I are together, but I am so afraid that he might not be able to get in to Canada with me and we will be split up. It's the worst case scenerio and hopefully won't happen like that, but I have to keep an open mind about it. I hope you all will be with your loved ones soon.

 

[arron]

It's different for everyone I guess. Before my now wife moved here to Canada to be with me, we talked every day, literally hours every day.

We originally met playing an online game together, and we spent quite a bit of time playing that but it eventually got kind of weird with people in the game trying to interfere in our relationship, lol. It started causing a few problems between us as sometimes we had a hard time seperating reality from fiction. We quit playing that game but in the next couple years where we were not living together we tried playing a few other games together.

I was working quite a lot, 12 hours a day 6, sometimes 7 days a week but we texted each other dozens of times a day, yes while I was working lol. When i'd get home, we would sometimes talk on the computer or sometimes call each other, talk for hours. We didn't always have hugely involved conversations cause sometimes you really can run out of things to talk about but it helped us pretend that even though we were living in different countries the distance wasn't that small. Nearly every night we'd say good night to each other on the phone or on webcam. And yes we had a very very active (phone) sex life.

It took us awhile to arrange everything for her to move to Canada and for us to get our applications together but in the 2 years or so after we met and before she moved here we saw each other four times, I did go pretty heavily in to debt paying for flights and what not, and we never had any real problems not being allowed into each others countries. These times both made it easier for us and harder for us, especially at the airport when we didn't know when we were going to see each other again, and I guess sometimes we both wondered if we would ever see each other again at all.

Still it was incredibly hard, and I remember there were times where we had major issues, and sometimes big fights, it can be very stressful but we never gave up on each other even though it seems sometimes like things weren't meant to be with all the obstacles life threw in our path (and still does). Maintainting this kind of long distance relationship can be very stressful and sometimes it will seem like it is not worth it, it can be a real test of love for people and I imagine it's not for everyone.

It's really about just sharing everything in your life, and being comfortable with each other, being comfortable with the sometimes awkward silences and those problems that will come up.