When Is It Time To Relocate Forever?

My suggestion is that you create as many opportunities as possible for face-to-face interaction before either of you move. The phone and Internet are just fine for keeping in touch, but before you agree to get hitched you must spend hundreds of hours together getting to know each other's little quirks. This must be in the same place, the same part of the country. There's really no other effective way to determine if you are truly compatible.

It is also a good idea to get to know each other under as many different circumstances and in as many different situations as you can. Limiting your visits to romantic weekends or holidays creates an impractical illusion.

It's easy to come away from three romantic weekends in a row convinced that your partner is the one for you. Of course, your range of knowledge about the person is shallow because you've never seen what this person is like when he or she is sick, disappointed, angry or in a crisis.

As a rule of thumb, you should wait as long as you can afford to wait and gather as much information you can from sharing experiences with that person before you relocate yourself half way across the continent or even the world to be with someone.

The reason most people don't wait is because they are afraid of losing the partner to someone else. If you are afraid of losing him or her now, then you will probably experience the same fear throughout the rest of your relationship.

Before you decide to root up your whole life to live with - or at least, near - your long distance relationship, you might consider something else:

If you are a woman, you might want to take a look at the fourth finger of your left hand and see if there is an engagement ring on it. If not it might not be a good idea.

If you are a man you may need to question your own motivations for moving to live with a woman who you are not engaged to? Are you just in it for the lust? There is no greater guarantee that you are serious about a relationship then proposing marriage.

Which leads us to the ultimate question…