The have-it-all generation's search for love

It's beginning to look like I may be spending another several years living in a different city from my guy.
Considering the bulk of my past relationship was spent in separate cities or with him on the road, this makes me understandably uneasy.
I don't say this because I don't have faith in myself and my relationship-- because I do. But it is a little bothersome how this is seemingly becoming the norm for many of us. Yeah, independence is a virtue-- but is connectedness such a crime?

Perhaps I am just speaking of the grad student experience... but it almost seems like a necessary criteria, along with your thesis, to have been in a long distance relationship. In a lifestyle where you are expected to move wherever the training or career opportunities are best, having a love or a family that you are committed to is almost a liability.
If you want to have a chance as an academic, you can't stay at the same university for all three degrees. Usually, at least in clinical psychology, you are okay to remain in the same place for your Masters and PhD (apparently not the case in Sociology), but they make up for it by wanting you to go to another city for your internship. It doesn't look good on your internship application unless you apply to a diverse number of settings. I've watched many a person with partners and children struggle with this decision.
In Canada, this is no small feat. Usually it entails a pretty substantial move, especially considering the acceptance rates at grad schools and internship sites are pretty low, so you often have to take what you can get.

So I've done several moves to pursue my education. I'm glad I've had the chance to live in separate cities, as, without sounding cliche, it has expanded my mind a lot, and helped to challenge what little things you take for granted as being normal. I've also had to make decisions about leaving my then-partner in a different city in order to pursue what is best for me. Now mine is having to, and I can't begrudge him for the very same decision I had to make a few years ago. Even if it does hurt.

It sometimes seems like bettering yourself as an individual and making love work may be mutually exclusive, at least to some extent. Though we speak vaguely of family values and how bad stress is, we prize stress in Western culture. We think lowly of the lawyer who goes home at 5 o'clock to be with his wife and family. I could go on for hours about the weird subculture of grad school. A friend told her advisor than her and her husband were thinking of having children, and he essentially forbade her until she was done her dissertation. We have been taught that we can have it all... if we are willing to give up a little.

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I know that several of you guys have done or are doing long-distance, often as a part of graduate school, so any thoughts are appreciated.