I’m hesitant to write about it, but if I’m writing a blog about my life then it must be said: After three years together — nearly two of which were long distance — my boyfriend and I have broken up.

I’m not going to write about the relationship or the breakup because that is too personal. But instead I’ll write about what it has me thinking about. A few days after it happened, someone asked me if it had to do with the fact that we were long distance. I honestly don’t know. In some ways long distance was very, very hard. In other ways it was good because it let us be together while we both continued on our chosen paths in life.

What really struck me was when I found myself at a bar a few days later surrounded by a group of friends, each of us in our 20s. We came from all over the United States and ended up in South Dakota at that point in time for one reason: journalism. It’s the glue that holds us together, and we often talk about past jobs and internships and where in the world we could be five years from now. There were seven of us there that night — three guys and four girls. Two of the guys had been single for as long as I’ve known them. The third guy and one of the girls started dating each other about nine months ago. That left the three of us girls. I had just gotten out of a long-distance relationship. A second girl just got out of one about a month before me, and the third girl was currently in one and trying to figure out when she would next see her boyfriend. A fourth girl who wasn’t out that night was also in a long-distance relationship.

It really got me thinking about being in this industry in your 20s and trying to maintain a relationship. It’s hard. If you want to climb the journalism ladder, you more often than not have to go where the jobs are. There usually aren’t two newspapers in one city anymore, and while there are often multiple TV stations, most require employees to sign non-compete clauses, which basically forces you to move to a new city when you want to move up.

I know some people who are in journalism who won’t even consider seriously dating in their 20s simply because they have no idea where they will end up. While I respect that decision, I don’t think I could do that.

Then I wonder if this is just a symptom of an industry influx or if long-distance relationships are a growing trend among Millennials, since they are usually better able to pick up their life and move to follow their dreams and are increasingly forced to move to where the jobs are.

The following day a journalism friend who lives in another state contacted me. He was preparing to work a night shift and we started talking about the industry and the effect it has on maintaining relationships. The weird hours and abnormal schedules, the travel and the deadline pressure are all relationship hazards, he told me. I agreed.

I don’t think journalism killed my relationship. Not at all. But I do think the life I’ve chosen has brought about some unique challenges for someone in their 20s.

What do you think? Are long-distance relationships becoming the norm for 20-somethings trying to follow their careers and keep some semblance of a normal life? What other career fields have some of the same issues as journalism?

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