Jonni Skiba, FSU stu­dent in her sec­ond year of phar­macy school, recently became engaged to the man of her dreams whom she has only seen for an esti­mated 60 days through­out their entire three-year relationship.

Relationships are some­thing that require con­stant care and work, which is hard enough to do when you’re together let alone when you’re apart.

While many Ferris stu­dents are in long dis­tance rela­tion­ships they are still able to see each other a decent amount of time.

Skiba and her now fiance Eric Williams have man­aged to fos­ter there love with mostly phone calls and the Internet.

Skiba and Williams met three years ago and began dat­ing two weeks before Williams had to leave for Marine basic training.

“I had never imag­ined being able to main­tain such a long dis­tance rela­tion­ship, espe­cially since we didn’t know each other that well, so we decided to stay in con­tact with each other but see other peo­ple once it was time for him to leave,” said Skiba.

Skiba and Williams went on this way for a lit­tle over a year and the pair always met up when­ever he came back to Michigan. Skiba was his pen-pal dur­ing his first deploy­ment to Afghanistan and dur­ing this time the two real­ized they wanted more from each other than to just stay friends.

“We both knew we had found some­one spe­cial,” said Skiba. “In January of last year, Eric was home again on leave and he asked me to get back together with him exclu­sively and I said yes.”

Since then, Williams has come home twice and Skiba has been able to visit him two other times. He is cur­rently on his sec­ond tour in Afghanistan.

“The crazy part of all of this is count­ing the days that we have phys­i­cally been together,” said Skiba. “It’s only been about 60 days total in three years and the rest of the time has been through phone and internet.”

Skiba admits that it’s been extremely dif­fi­cult at some points.

“I’d have to say that hav­ing this long dis­tance rela­tion­ship with Eric has been the tough­est thing I’ve ever had to go through,” said Skiba. “I’ve con­sid­ered myself crazy many times, but the thing is, every time I have talked to Eric and every day I have spent with him has been incred­i­ble. A lot of time the only thing that has kept me from break­ing down and cry­ing is think­ing about the next time I will get to see him.”

Distance has made their love grow stronger though and Skiba believes they have learned to appre­ci­ate each other on an emo­tional level many cou­ples don’t expe­ri­ence and have really learned about who the other per­son is.

“The dis­tance makes every phone call seem so impor­tant if only just to say ‘I love you,’” said Skiba. “It makes us appre­ci­ate each other so much more know­ing how much we want to be together and how much we miss each other. I feel I have got­ten to know Eric on such a deep level through our long phone con­ver­sa­tions and I know with­out a doubt he is the man I’m sup­posed to be with for the rest of my life.”

Williams pro­posed to Skiba in March of last year when he was back in the U.S.

“He asked me to be his fiance two nights before my birth­day and I said yes with­out hes­i­ta­tion,” said Skiba. “We kept it a secret because we really had no idea when we could ever work out a wed­ding with Eric being in the military.”

The cou­ple decided to keep the engage­ment a secret even though they were com­pletely seri­ous and com­mit­ted to it because they didn’t think they could real­is­ti­cally have a wed­ding any­time in the near future. They still talked about mar­riage often despite this, but then when Eric was deployed this past October the talks almost com­pletely stopped.

“I knew we still had the close con­nec­tion with each other in our hearts, but it is so hard try­ing to squeeze a mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tion into the few min­utes he has on the phone. Our con­ver­sa­tions started to be sim­ply me ask­ing if he was all right and if he needed me to do any­thing for him and him ask­ing me to tell him how it was back home,” said Skiba.

Things took a turn about two weeks ago when Williams called and asked Skiba for a favor. He said he wanted her to start plan­ning their wed­ding and the cou­ple agreed to get mar­ried before the end of his mil­i­tary con­tract in April of 2012.

“So within two weeks, almost every­thing is com­pletely set up for our wed­ding, which will be on August 20 of this year,” said Skiba.

After Skiba fin­ishes school in two years and Williams fin­ishes the year he has left in the Marines they will finally be able to be phys­i­cally together. Skiba knows they will be able to get through their first year of mar­riage apart because they are mak­ing their rela­tion­ship apart work right now.

“After I fin­ish school and Eric fin­ishes in the Marines we will be able to be together and every­thing else is just a detail,” said Skiba. “I know there will be many chal­lenges along the way, but I don’t worry because we have already fought so hard to stay together.”

To Skiba, mak­ing sure you com­pletely ded­i­cate your­self to the rela­tion­ship despite the dis­tance is extremely impor­tant. Setting time aside to talk and con­nect as much as pos­si­ble to main­tain the rela­tion­ship lets the other per­son know you care.

“Another thing that has kept us together is our hon­esty,” said Skiba. “We throw every­thing on the table, even if some things are hard to dis­cuss on the phone. The lack of phys­i­cal con­tact has actu­ally enhanced our abil­ity to relate on a more emo­tional level because it is all we have to be intimate.”

Skiba feels so blessed to have found the man of her dreams and she knows they will always do every­thing they can to stay together.

“Eric is some­one too spe­cial to let go. Our love for each other is so strong and I know together we can accom­plish any­thing,” said Skiba. “This long dis­tance rela­tion­ship has been the tough­est expe­ri­ence of my life, but I wouldn’t trade a moment of it because it has led me right to where I’m sup­posed to be.” n