A consequence of expanding your Known Universe using the Internet is that it is just as easy to have a prospective Hero or Heroine 2,000 miles away as two miles away – although it will seem to you that NONE of the good ones are only two miles away. Which is why this is also known as the Never-Close-to-You Dragon.

If you live in a big enough city, you might be able to find someone with whom all things match perfectly, helping you completely avoid this dragon.  Unfortunately, for most of us, our needs are so special and rarified that finding that most special and rarified Hero or Heroine will require both an expanded Known Universe and an expanded geographical boundary.

If you made it to this step of considering relocation, hopefully that means that everything for both of you during the Test Drive was either wonderful or workable.  That you both were totally honest about everything and that no deal-killers were either uncovered or suspected.

Warning:  If, during all the Test Drives, there were NO hassles, conflicts, issues, hard realities, etc., then that probably means that all that time was still just wonderful Honeymoon Syndrome – and you still don’t have a clue about each other’s DIDO! (That’s Day In and Day Out for those new to Efficient Love.)

If you did have enough reality to know that your DIDO was real and gave you both sufficient insights, you may be now seriously considering the action items and steps required for one of you to relocate.  Here are some things to consider:

• Exactly Where – Have you both given totally objective thought to the best place?  His city, her city, or a brand new city altogether? Which makes the most logical sense when it comes to jobs, kids, family, lifestyle and your joint goals from your previously compared “Five Years from Today”?  You did do your joint comparisons of Five Years before getting to this step, didn’t you?  What other, maybe emotional, considerations should be taken into account?
• Exactly What – Have you decided to just move to the same city, or is the joint decision to actually live together or get married?  All are options that might make sense in your particular relationship.  The more cautious approach, if you have not really had much of a test drive, is to each have your own place for six months.  That way, you can really take the time to learn all about each other’s DIDO before taking one of the other two living choices.  Also, that way, if the relationship does end for whatever reason, you won’t have the trauma of finding a new place or making yet another move on top of being thrown into Stage Three Breakup.  But then, you will both consider the joy of sleeping in each other’s arms every night, and all the benefit of some kind of cost savings by sharing a household, and see no real benefit of having two places since you will want to be with one another ALL the time anyway, so to hell with caution, right?
• Budgets – “Oh No,” I can already hear you saying, “I don’t do those damn things even for just me!”  The problem is you need to and probably need to do one even more if you are considering a relocation.  Actually, you need to do a couple of different ones:  a budget for all the costs associated for the relocation and another for how the two of you are going to share the costs of running the castle and sharing your lives.  See Dollar Dragon.
• New Job – The relocating partner will probably be out of a job as soon as they move, which also means that their income stream will stop until they get a new job.  Have you both taken that into account?  It may be that the relocating partner is a telecommuter or an entrepreneur, or may be in some other profession that lets them live anywhere.  If so, that’s great and will significantly lessen the impact of a move, though there will be major downtime tied to all the hassles and focus of the move itself and getting the home office set up and functioning.  It also means that there may be business-related costs and hassles as a result of the relocation.
• Timing – Let me guess, you both want this so much you can taste it and you want it done by noon, yesterday, now that you’ve made the decision to do it.  But, what is the best timing after taking everything into account?  Do you need to sell a house?  Do you have to get out of a lease?  Does it make sense to start a job search and even be hired by a new company in your new city BEFORE you actually move?  What about kid and school issues?

I know.  All you two want to do is be together every day and night Ever After and I have to bring up all THESE things for you to worry about.

Hey, I want you two to be happy, Ever After.  I don’t list these to dissuade you from your hopes and dreams and goals, but instead to help you identify as many dragons as possible so you can slay them together – before they interfere with you two making it all the way to Happily Ever After!

There are no easy answers to the issues of long-distance relationships and no easy way to slay all the dragons that come with them – except having you both use The Good-Man Methodology with total honesty.  This will help expose a lot of the problem areas and deal-killers BEFORE one or both of you end up making life-changing decisions.