It's midnight and you and your friends are leaving to check out the local bars and hopefully meet some good looking strangers - just a typical night for a student abroad, whether it be in London, Israel, or Australia. It's seems like harmless fun, but for the many students struggling to remain faithful to the boyfriends or girlfriends they left behind, this nighttime scenario can be a dangerous game of temptation.
While some couples fight to stay together, others choose to avoid the heartache altogether. Stephanie and Ben, both juniors, decided to stay on campus because they didn't want to separate - the couple was used to seeing each other every day.
"I'm not good at the long distance thing," Stephanie said. "I couldn't stand summers apart from Ben. I was scared that we would leave and grow away from each other."
But now that their opportunity to study abroad has passed and their relationship has matured, they both regret the decision. Stephanie admits that she tends to stifle Ben's decisions, and adds that if they had gone abroad, the couple would have had a chance to challenge their relationship and see if it survived.
"It's hard to be independent when you spend all of your time together," Stephanie said. "You should be able to explore who you are away from your significant other."
Instead of exploring their relationship apart, Rebecca and her boyfriend John, both seniors that had dated for a year and a half, decided to break up a few months before Rebecca left to study abroad. "I wasn't sure he was 'the one' and I wanted to use the time abroad to focus on myself and be independent," Rebecca said. "I did not want the obligation of calling him all the time and checking up."
Another junior decided to break up with her boyfriend, a sophomore, when she left to study in Australia. "I didn't want to feel held back by having a commitment to someone back home," said the junior, who is still in Australia this semester.
Although she thinks that she made a practical decision, her ex-boyfriend doesn't want to feel like the past semester - and their time together - was a waste.
"It's really rough," she said. "He misses me and wishes we could still be together and wants to know that I will be faithful. This makes me feel guilty, and I have warned him that if I feel guilty for my experiences abroad, I will resent him for making me feel like I have to apologize for my time in Australia."
Sometimes, though, things just work out. One couple, both seniors, were only dating for two months before they went abroad to different locales. Although they originally decided to have an open relationship, they actually ended up staying faithful.
"It was easier because we both went abroad," said the unnamed female.
Her boyfriend added: "I missed her but it wasn't unbearable. I knew I would be with her soon, so I took advantage of what I was doing then."
The least attractive but most dedicated option is staying together. While she was abroad, senior Amanda decided to stay with her boyfriend senior Shawn, though they had only been dating for four months when she left. When she asked Shawn if they should just be friends or stay together during her trip to Tel Aviv, "he said the right thing," Amanda said. "He told me, 'you're worth waiting for'."
Being apart, Amanda said, actually made their relationship stronger. "We could only communicate by talking, instead of touching or seeing each other, so we got to know each other even better," she said.
Although their relationship remained strong while they were apart, Amanda felt that she had to sacrifice part of her abroad experience. "Most of the time I was thinking about how much I missed him and when I would get to see him again, which made me feel down when I probably should have been enjoying myself more," she said.
For at least one couple that decided to stay together while one of them studied abroad, the ending wasn't so happy. The couple couldn't survive the transition from being apart for several months to being together again.
"We both had these big expectations and wanted everything to be the same as it was before, but it wasn't the same," said the senior. "We didn't give ourselves any leeway for adjustment before we broke up. Looking back at it now, I wish we had been a little more patient with each other."
Though studying abroad can make or break a relationship, the overriding consensus that it's worth it. "Going abroad can challenge a couple, but neither person should stand in the way of the other's opportunities," Stephanie said.
