Can a relationship survive long distance? We're talking international long distance here. Our story today involves a breakup and then maybe just maybe a happily ever after. Hi, I'm Sarah Wendell.
I'm Alisha Rai. Welcome to lovestruck daily where we bring you a love story every single day. I'm in love with
love with you.
More long distance romance. Hmm. I had one of those. Adam was in college in Chicago, and I was in college in South Carolina, and you had to pay by the minute for your phone calls, and no one had cell phones. And it was it was expensive. And I didn't have email. This was before my college got email. Oh,
I had. Mine was also mine was right after college. It was difficult. We I think we went to were together for like a year or so after that. And then it just petered out. We get hit. It's hard. I think we had email, we had cell phones, but we didn't have texting. And I remember like that was back in the day where you would get the bill and it would tell you exactly how many people called and for how long. So my mom would get the bill and be so annoyed because I also wasn't supposed to really be dating. So it was a little I had to be a little Trixie about it. Yeah, we had to use the home phones a lot.
I had an on campus job, just just a failure to pay my phone bill. Yeah, it was. It was bad. It was bad. But it worked out in my favor. Yeah, it
worked out perfectly. Yeah. Good. I'm glad to hear that.
Do you watch.
There's a show called 90 Day fiance, Sara,
I am aware of it. And I know that you are shocked that I have not watched, being the connoisseur of reality television that I am. I feel
like we'll have to do a whole show on this at some point. But 90 Day fiance, for those who don't know or for you. The idea is when you come to America from another country, you're bringing your fiancee over, there's something called the fiancee visa, have to pull that in order to bring over and then after they come over, you have 90 days to get married. Otherwise they have to go back home. Yikes. It started out I believe, as a real genuine documentary style show where people were bringing their fiance so it was on TLC. Sara, don't give me that. Look, it was on the learning.
Oh, so there was learning back when a&e had art and entertainment. Right.
So but I did start out like the first I just happened. We watch the latest episode last night guy and I did. And it rolled over, you know, auto played into the first season. And we were watching we're like, well, these people were like actually kind of normal. Kind of cool, and not terrible people. But it has become a rather trashy reality show at this point where, you know, people are mostly out there, I think for either seeking fame or whatever. And I do like to see, you know, the struggle of it. Like, you know, it's interesting to see for people who are actually in love, and there's always like, at least one couple every now and again who's like, like, a real couple, you know? And, and that part is interesting.
Yeah. Because cultural differences are real.
Cultural differences are real. And also just like, you know, what you go through to be together like, yeah, across cultures and you know, bodies of water and land to be Yeah, speaking of speaking of today, we are so excited to welcome two guests whose entire love story shows the trials of long distance dating, and the reward you earn when you persevere through the end. So please welcome Melanie green and her husband, Robert, who I might add, wrote into the show to share their love story with us. Well, hello, Robert. And Melanie, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, afternoon, or good morning or good evening. Good day, day, God Good day to you. And thank you so much for writing in which we always appreciate we get very excited when when we hear that someone's written into the show. So excited.
It's been a lot of fun to listen to the podcast, and I thought, Oh, hey, I want to talk about my story too.
Yes, absolutely. We love it.
So, Robert,
tell me a little bit about how you met where you met.
Tell us everything.
I'll tell you everything, the whole situation. I was at college in Santa Cruz. And I had a boyfriend who had been my boyfriend for a couple of years the whole time I was there and he was going to be spending a year abroad in Ireland. And that was just so far away from California, of course, so I thought I won't go to England, thinking it's only 500 miles. That's you No distance at all to a Texan, but apparently over there, that's really quite a very far distance. But
we didn't know about Irish roads in the 1990s.
So I picked this university in east coast of England, University of East Anglia, because they had a writing program. When I got there, one of my fellow American friends, one day told me that she'd met this really amazing charming Irishman on the bus, they were getting on the bus into town. And she was befuddled by the British coins. And he helped her make change for the bus and just proceeded to charm her throughout the ride into town. And she discovered that he was also in the writing program, but he's he was getting his master's degree. She said, get to know this guy for me, helped me out. I need to know more about him. And I said, okay, sure, I'll be helpful.
I saw Melanie at a place called the Sewell Barn Theatre in the city of Norwich, where we're University of East Anglia is
and where Anna Sewell who wrote Black Beauty
barn. Yeah, that's where that famous horse lives,
perhaps that's where Black Beauty was very interesting. But we yeah, we I had gone to the play with my American boyfriend and my other American friends. And my friend was like, that's him. That's him. So at the intermission, we wandered over, he was very sweet and responsive.
I can remember walking down the quiet streets of Norwich with this quite loud group of Americans. And I've made a calculate, I've made a sort of educated guess that Pizza Hut was still open, nowhere else was on I was like, Please let this place be open. And it was and I think that probably was the turning point, you know, that pizza restaurant had been closed.
And my my boyfriend told me, Hey, you should get to know that guy because he's in the writing program. Okay, now he's getting a master's and you want you can you should, you should find out more, you should hang out with him. And I said, Okay, sure. You know, my friend wanted him to thank me to hang out with him. My boyfriend would have been hanging out with them. You know, I was just doing what I was told. Yeah, you're just following orders. I was just following orders. It's just peer pressure. So I spent a few months working real hard to just get to know him so well, so that I could help my friend out because that's how very nice I am.
Meanwhile, I had a completely selfish agenda. I just wanted to start dating Melanie.
So So yeah, so we got to know each other over the course of that term. And then eventually, London happened. London happened, yes, towards the end of term. We were all going back to the States. And he was going back to Dublin to visit his family. But he was staying cousins in London for a few days before that. And so since we were all going to be in London at the same time, we kind of have a group of us arrange that we didn't meet one day. This was the 90s of course, no texting, that we were going to meet at the statue of arrows and Piccadilly square. And Robert and I were the only ones who showed up.
Oh, well, how convenient. Oh,
I felt like I felt like cheering as with the pizza restaurant being open. I just couldn't believe what like the universe was giving me these braids. Yeah.
So he's squired me around town. And it was all very, you know, fairy lights and Christmas displays. And, you know, just just basically it was the complete gentleman. And did you start dating shortly after that? Like, yeah. When I can't when we came back in January, then we did have a date. And it was like, we held hands on the street. And I thought it was one of those you hold hands. And it was suddenly like electric lightning bolts sort of this is perfectly situations. So then I had to break up with the the American. Of course, yes, because this was just, it was just way too compelling meant to me. And so I, you know, flew over to Ireland and broke up with him. That was not his favorite thing.
You stopped off to visit my parents. Were a bit confused by the whole situation.
Use this American Why is she in our house?
Did you confess that you were on your way to break up with your boyfriend so you could take their son?
those exact words but yes, they kind of rolled with it, which was nice of them. Oh, that's a nice, confused as the most of them by the sigil. Yeah. Then we had the rest of my junior year abroad together while he was working on his master's. And it was all very lovely and intense and delightful. But I had to go back to California. He then was graduating to Paris to work.
But I remember I was going back to Norwich to finish my thesis I got on a bus. And I just remember that being the most dismal.
Well, before you got on the bus, he was, you know, in in the queue and it's got to get on the bus and he he broke away and came back to me he kind of ran back across the pavement to me and forgotten. So yeah, we had one less passionate kiss there, the Victoria coach station, and then he was very romantic, like, very romantic. And he hopped back on the bus and I sat there and I was like, you know, because I was working, we're going to be done 1000s of miles apart
we really did think it was over.
That was that. And then for my my year in California, you comparison, we wrote letters, yeah, letters, so many letters.
So you came back here. You were here for about a year. And then But then you you went back right?
I did. I went back to get my masters at the same university. Okay, I was back in East Anglia. He was in Dublin at that point. And as soon as I landed in England, I was basically plotting how soon I could get over to Dublin to see him. And we got to the point that I was again, about to finish my degree and head back to America. And there were no more chances for schools or spring breaks or any of those other things to Yeah, to put us together. Yeah, life was getting serious. We decided we'd do something about it and get engaged. I was in Ireland. And we took about a week to travel around the island, and just be together and talk about our relationship and talk about the future. And before the week was up, we proposed
engaged by the time we got back to Dublin. Yeah.
Oh, that's fantastic. And so you had to pull the fiancee visa?
Exam girl. Yeah, we and we did try to first figure out how to stay in Europe. But Dublin, they said, I couldn't work because they had such a recession. There were no work visas. And so then we looked for jobs in London. But again, it was not the easiest
situation. Yeah, I got offered one job in publishing, but we would have starved to wage that's not.
Unfortunately, that's a lot of publishing.
This is a very Houston story. We because we both had job offers here then eventually in that summer, and we planned to stay here for two years. And that was 28 years ago. That's very Houston.
It's a swamp. It stinks. Yeah. It's my hometown. Yeah. So we did the the fiancee visa, we moved to back to America, the month before our wedding. So much of the wedding planning was, I don't know, Mom, you decide, I'll just do whatever you say.
I don't know if they still make your essays or immigrants do this. But one of the things I had to carry with me, an x ray of my lungs. Interesting. Prove that I didn't have tuberculosis. So a little bit of an Ellis Island vibe to it in the arriving at intercontinental.
Yeah, I think that might that might not be the case anymore. But I do. I do know that they can ask for medical record. Yeah, and things like that. Wow. But so you had to go get an x ray of your lungs to do? Your I am? And here you are. Yeah. And how old are your kids now?
2622.
They're about your age. I mean, you're 22 year old. So what advice would you give them now like if they had something similar, they go to another country, they meet someone they love,
you know, all of the back and forth and back and forth that we did was delightful. And, you know, obviously we got a chance to know each other in a lot of ways, but it's nothing compared to the experience of living together. So once we got married, and he was sharing a home, there was just so much growing up together that we ended up having to do it was a massive shift in how we communicated and it was really important to do that is openly said we really had to kind of accept each other as we were but then make plans together to perhaps move
forward. Yeah, I think what one thing that stood me in good stead is that I got some very good advice when I was a teenager on the subject of marriage. This person said, when you're ready to marry someone, make sure they're also your best friend. So that I think that was is a very good advice because I think for a long term relationship, at least in my experience, I know people say opposites attract, and I'm sure that can work too. But what do I know? I've only been married once, but in our case, I think it's really helped that we have a lot in common. You know, I'd hate to be in a kind of very silent kind of relationship. Got to really enjoy each other's company.
That's, I think that is excellent advice.
Melanie, where can people find you online?
My website is Melanie green.com Or I'm on Instagram is Melanie green author.
Thank you so much both of you for writing in we really appreciate you coming on and taking the time to tell us all about your wonderful love story. Yes,
thank you for your warm welcome
Oh, that was entirely adorable and now I want to travel you will go to Ireland now yeah, let's go we should do a work trip.
Do some love stories Yeah, drink some drink some Guinness drink some
Guinness will convince Abby and Jessie and Jen to come with us. We
work yeah, have your phone let's start daily trip. Field Trip.
Before we grab our passports. What is your love to go today Alicia?
I really love what Robert said about the advice that he got from an older person was to marry your best friend yes you know if your relationships working for you and you don't consider your significant other your best friend. That's fine. But for me, I think that was really key was to find somebody who could be my best friend. It makes everything so much easier when you have somebody it does who is not only you know your love, but also your friend and is there as your friend in your corner.
Absolutely. This is a person you're going to hang out with a lot.
We would love to hear about you and your best friend. So please send an email to lovestruck daily at frolic dot media. If you have a love story to share any questions or thoughts and follow us on Instagram and Twitter at lovestruck daily for extra content.
Our researcher is Jesse Epstein. Our editor is Jen Jacobs. We are produced by Abigail steckler, little Scorpion studios with executive producer frolic media. This is an I Heart Radio Podcast. We wish you a very happily ever after. Thank you for listening. I'm in love with love with you. I'm in love with you
