You have blessed us, O God,
with the gift of friendship,
the bonding of persons
in a circle of love.
We thank you for such a blessing:
for friends who love us,
who share our sorrows,
who laugh with us in celebration,
who bear our pain,
who need us as we need them,
who weep as we weep,
who hold us when words fail,
and who give us the freedom
to be ourselves.
Bless our friends with health,
wholeness, life, and love.
Amen.

– Vienna Cobb Anderson

O God, I ask You to take me into Your care and protection along with all seamen. Make me alert and wise in my duties. Make me faithful in the time of routine, prompt to decide, and courageous to act in time of crisis.

Protect me in the dangers and the perils of the sea. Even in the storm, grant that there may be peace and calm within my heart.

When I am far from home, from loved ones and from my country, help me to be quite sure that, wherever I am, I can never drift beyond Your love and care.

Take care of my beloved ones in the days and weeks and months that I am separated from them.

Keep me true to them and keep them true to me. Every time that we have to part, bring us together in safety and in loyalty again.

AMEN.

Mary, Star of the Sea, pray for us

courtesy of: The Catholic Economist

To be successful in every relationship, we need to trust our partners. My boyfriend is a seaman and he has to be away for several months. It is hard to have a long distance relationship especially when time comes that you need him to support you physically in times of troubles.

Being away from their loved ones are not easy for them as well, they need to adjust to their working environment, with their colleagues that sometimes come in different races. It is hard for them to be away from their loved ones and friends as for how hard it is on your part.

Here are some tips to survive the LDR (seafarer)

Open communications

Aside from keeping in touch from time to time, be sure to open an honest dialogue with your partner. Inform your partner on what’s going on in your life and discuss any issues that might lead to misunderstanding. There are times on where you wanted to ask or tell your partner about complicated situations on where you are not certain where it going to lead. In this instances, it is important to be honest with your partner and set things straight right away. Don’t wait for a couple of months again to settle an issue between you two.

Trust your partner 

There are times on where you get jealous of a certain person or a situation, but always remember that jealousy has no room for long distance relationship, if you know that you have a jealous tendency, then you might need to reconsider if LDR is right for you. Trust your partner as he trust you, if there’s anyone of you that are prone to cheating, that will be you. Imagine how a seafarer can cheat if he’s life are mostly in the sea? Give him consideration, he’s away from his loved ones and the last thing he wanted is being confronted. Think about it.

Be Patient

“Patience is a virtue” as what an old saying says. In every relationship whether it’s LDR or not, patience is very essential to make the relationship works. There will be intances on where both you and your partner’s patience will be tested, one of you should need to give way and forget your pride for the meantime and for LDR relationship that will be you. You need to be reasonable and understand where your partner is coming from.
I am not saying that they are always right, sometimes we need to give them our consideration given the fact that they are away from their love ones, and might be homesickness are eating them.

Being a seafarer’s girlfriend is not easy, I always miss him, I wanted to talk to him as long as I want coz I know he is there with two ears open to listen. I sometimes doubted how strong our love with each other are.

I had a mindset that LDR will not and will never work, but he’s always telling me that if we love each other and if we wanted the relationship to work, we need to trust each other and we need to be patient with our sutuation.

We are not married yet, so i cannot tell you that our relationship is successful. Time will tell, i believe that if you are destined to be together, come high or low waters you will still be together in the end.

Life is not a fairy tale, it is hard as you can imagine, but, it’s up to you on how you can live your life.