Keeping a healthy love relationship while working on the cruise ship is hard. I am not saying it’s impossible, but it's really hard. Maintenance of a healthy relationship, either from the perspective that your partner works on the same cruise company or your partner is at home, brings enormous challenges. It's hard to keep trust and loyalty and stick to your values. It is tough, but it's possible.

Here is my story that I believe millions of crew members on cruise ships experienced at least once...

I remember my first contract on a cruise ship. My fiancee was staying home, and we made up the plans for our wedding. We set the wedding date and organized everything; I went on the cruise ship to make enough money to cover the entire cost of my wedding. When I joined the ship for the first time, in my first month, everything was ok; we talked to each other on Skype every single day. The love and strength of our relationship remained unchanged until my fiancee started to ask me if I could come home quicker than the planned sign-off date. She knew that my contract was 7-8 months, and we both decided to sacrifice, and we had an agreement. But she told me that she feels very lonely. She started to blame me that I am not answering her messages on Facebook, even though I explained to her that the internet on the cruise ship was very expensive and I could not afford to buy a new internet card every single day. If I was going to reply to each of her messages on FB, I would need to purchase one $20 internet card per day. That would cost me $600 monthly just for the internet and phone cards. In other words, our plan to save enough money for our wedding will never be achieved because I would work only for the internet and phone cards for seven months on the ship. After two months, I tried to go outside in the port because the internet was much cheaper in Mexico, so that I could Skype my fiancee for an hour or two. I was giving my fiancee every spare minute off my duty at work. We were talking about our family's future, about the names of our kids, about where we will live in thg76f5d 4ne future. Despite being away from each other, it still felt like a strong love relationship. Nothing was giving me any signal that things could change drastically in a matter of only a few weeks...

After my third month on board the ship was completed, I could already feel some difference in terms of my fiancee's behavior back home. She was getting increasingly frustrated because it already took too long to see each other again. One thing is planning something before you leave your home, and another is accomplishing your plans.

Even though it was my first contract on the cruise ship, I stuck to my plan to be loyal, and I did not want to date anyone else or look for another "temporary" girlfriend. I did not go to the crew bar or flirt with anybody; after my work, I was running in the cabin to buy a phone card and call my fiancee back home.

But then things started to change quickly...After my fourth month, my girlfriend did not answer my phone calls. It happened out of nowhere. My girlfriend did not answer anymore, and it really affected my job performance. I did not know what was going on. After one week, she finally answered my phone call. She acted normally; it was not a big deal for her because she did not answer my phone calls for one week. She sounded very weird. When I asked her, " Is everything ok"?, she replied, " Yes, why are you asking"?

The next day, she sent me a long message on Facebook. When I saw how long the message was, I knew what was going on even without reading the message's content. She wrote in her message that she could not handle the loneliness and that she slept with one of her "good friends. She also wrote me that is all my fault because I should never go on the cruise ship(even though it was a mutual agreement for us to save enough money for our wedding). She went further and explained to me that she was already feeling something towards that guy back home, and I knew that was it for our relationship and plans to get married. As I was reading her message, I felt betrayed. The next days, it was really hard to accept, so I went into the crew bar and heavily drank for weeks. It was hard to take that all my plans with my fiancee were gone because she could not be without another man for that long. At that time, it was an uncommon situation; I kept it to myself, and I did not share it with my roommate or my friends on the ship. I still could not understand what happened and why things went that way for the remaining part of that contract. Then when I was already getting better and somehow forgot about my ex-fiancee from back home, she sent me another long message, saying that she is not sure if she still loved me. She just gave me a little stir of madness, just to drive me crazy for a little more. 

But, despite still feeling vulnerable and weak, I decided to keep my dignity to myself, and I knew that I could never move on from that, regardless of my fiancee's sweet words of apology.

It's hard to keep a healthy relationship on a cruise ship. You will often feel lonely; you will test yourself, and it's very hard to keep a healthy mindset, especially with the things happening back home. But you have to remain strong, regardless of the circumstances. I know it could get hard and complicated to maintain healthy love relationships, but remember that things always happen for a reason. Sometimes, we don't understand why things are happening in a certain way, but in the long run, we always get to understand it.

In my case, 15 years fast forwards, I am happily married, and everything that happened to me with my ex-fiancee was part of the experience and an inevitable lesson. It takes time for us to understand those lessons, but it will work in our favor in the end. Keep the trust high, and remain strong no matter what happens! I wish you safe contracts; God bless you all!