You’re madly in love after finally finding the perfect person for you. They’re kind and smart. They make you laugh like you haven’t laughed in forever, and when you see them or even a notification from them on your phone, your heart begins to race. They’re everything you’ve ever wanted in every way … except for one fairly big thing: they live freaking far away.
Now, you’re looking for advice on how to make a long-distance relationship work, and to be honest, you’re probably wondering if that’s even possible. Everything you’ve heard about long-distance relationships seems horrible, and your friends and family keep telling you it will never work.
But you’re in love; more than anything, you want to ensure your relationship succeeds.
I’m here to tell you that making a long-distance relationship work is entirely possible. It takes some awareness and effort, but if you both want this, you can keep your love alive even across thousands of miles.
Here’s my best advice on how to make a long-distance relationship work when you’ve fallen in love with someone who lives far away.
1. Make clever use of media.
During my gap year before college, I spent six months in Australia. There, I met the most amazing guy. He was rich, handsome, smart, and had an amazing Australian accent. Unfortunately, he lived in Sydney, and I lived in New York City.
Back then, our only option for communication was the phone and letters. Phone calls to Australia were expensive, and letters took weeks to arrive. Neither option was a great one. We wanted to make it work, but ultimately we couldn’t, and I was devastated.
There are many ways to communicate with someone, no matter where they live. Texting means instantaneous communication, and email is a close second. WhatsApp, Skype, FaceTime, other video chat apps, and online services make talking face-to-face free and easy.
Use every resource available to keep in contact. Frequent communication and eye contact are essential to any healthy relationship, so using any means available to stay connected with each other is key.
2. Make sure you both share the effort.
People don’t necessarily think about this, but in many long-distance relationships, one person makes more effort than the other. This unbalanced dynamic can cause big problems.
A client of mine lived in New York City, and her boyfriend lived in Vermont. She worked for herself from home, and he had a full-time job requiring him to go to the office daily. It was easier for her to make the effort to drive up and see him, so she did regularly. And, at first, she did so happily.
Being the one who always made the drive eventually took a toll on her. The long hours in the car began to wear on her physically, and being away from her home office made getting work done difficult. He was willing to try to see her, but he wasn’t willing to go to the Herculean efforts that she did. She felt he didn’t care about her enough, and her feelings for him started to shift.
Gradually, because she was tired and increasingly resentful, she stopped making the weekly trip to Vermont and had to let go of a man she truly loved.
If you are in a long-distance relationship, both members of the relationship have to make an effort to stay connected. Take turns picking up the phone, making the drive, and sending flowers — whatever it is that’s important to each of you to maintain your connection and keep your relationship healthy.
3. Maintain trust.
If there’s one thing that’s invaluable in a long-distance relationship, it’s trust. Trust is important in any relationship, but when you spend so much time apart, it’s even more critical.
I had a client whose girlfriend moved to Florida. Both insisted they wanted a long-distance relationship. But it turned out that, just a few months earlier, she had briefly reconnected with an old boyfriend (and not just for coffee). He had forgiven her, but as much as he wanted to, he could no longer trust her.
Despite her efforts to convince him she was committed to him, he began stalking her on social media, sending passive-aggressive text messages asking who she was with, and freaking out if she didn’t text him back immediately.
And that was that. She broke up with him.
4. Talk regularly.
Communication is the key to every healthy relationship, and as with the items above, it is essential for couples who want to make long-distance relationships work.
Because you rarely share each other’s physical space, sometimes it can be challenging to know when you are in a bad place. This is where making an extra effort to maintain frequent communication comes in.
Use every app and resource available to make sure you share how you feel with your long-distance love, whether it’s good or bad or simply uncertain. If you are struggling, it’s important that you be completely honest rather than try to put on a brave front.
Another client of mine was disheartened one morning when her partner canceled a weekend visit at the last minute. She went silent and sulked instead of telling him how upset she was.
He figured she was just busy and went on with his day. As a result, she grew increasingly angry, and when they finally did talk, she snapped.
It wasn’t pretty.
If she’d told her partner how upset she was that he had to cancel when she first felt it, she would’ve allowed him to make amends and express his disappointment as well. She would’ve known that he was also unhappy with how things turned out, which might have eased her pain.
When something comes up, good or bad, share it with your partner right away. Emotions must be managed quickly so they don’t become bigger issues.
5. Set an end goal.
This last one isn’t always easy, but it’s important.
It can be hard to manage a long-distance relationship when you have no idea when, or even if, you might live in the place. Anything that remains open-ended is more difficult to manage than something with an end goal in sight.
When you embark upon a long-distance relationship, set a goal for when you will at least have a conversation again about the possibility of being together permanently.
That doesn’t mean you have to set a goal for when you move to his town or get married. It means you will set a goal for when to talk about the next steps in your future together in which you’ll live in the same town and create a life together. It means knowing there’s a plan for someday making a change and that things won’t always be this way.
If you have a goal of when you will be together, or at the very least to talk about being together, it’ll be much easier to manage the day-in, day-out complexities of being in a long-distance relationship.
Making a long-distance relationship work isn’t easy, but it is possible.
The world we live in now is much smaller than in the past, and we have resources available to maintain contact with those we love.
So, use those communication apps on your phone, make sure you both make an equal effort, trust, trust, trust, always communicate, and keep the end goal in sight.
You can do this. Great partners aren’t always easy to find but are always worth the effort.
Originally written by Mitzi Bockmann on YourTango
Featured image via RDNE Stock project on Pexels
