Let's talk about long distance relationships

[aelle]

I am in a Long Distance Relationship (2 international borders, 4+ hours of travel), have been for 10 months or so now, and we're looking at one more year to 18 months before we can be together. I'm in my early 20s, he's in his late 20s, we're both finishing grad school. We're both very commited to each other, are blissfully happy when we can actually be together and both feel that there is enough love, intellectual connection, personnality match, shared values, common goals for the future and generally so much we can bring to one another to really want this to work long term.

But in the meantime... it gets hard and frustrating. We've found a rhythm that compromises between how long we can bear being apart and how often we can realistically meet up, and I'm fine with not seeing him for weeks at a time, but the couple days we do spend together always feel horribly short.

So, my questions here are: people in LDR, how do you deal with it? How do you stay connected while apart? How do you maintain focus or interest on your everyday life when your partner cannot be a part of it? How do you make the most of the time you have together?

Also: people who've had successful LDR, bring in the support and positive experience! I want to attract all the success and happiness I can, here!

[Akashic_Librarian]

I haven't been in one myself, however my friend (Who is older than me) had one during university, she said it was tough, and it required a lot of self discipline not go out and flirt with boys, but she got through it and they are now engaged!

I have another friend (my age) who has been in a happy long distance relationship for two years and as far as I know seems fine with it.

As long as there is a will, there is a way. Right?


As for some hints on what to do to make it more bearable...

Phone sex? Phone conversations? Webcam? Skype (its free, better than phone conversations really).

Plan REALLY special things when you finally do meet...

BTW these are all suggestions from my friend who is in a long distance relationship so you can be sure they are tried and tested.

[Lana]

As long as there is a will, there is a way. Right?

This is so true! But in the case of the LDR, the will must be coming from both parties... If only one of the 2 people involved is willing and makes the "sacrifices" and tries the hardest, it's not going to work.
Also, from my experience, it doesn't work either when there are no plans about getting to live near one another in a reasonable amount of time.

But in your case aelle, it seems that there is the will and the love and the connection - all required to make a relationship work!
So i wish you the best

p.s. the tips from Akashic_Librarian can make it more bearable indeed

[InterfaceLeader]

I was in a LDR for about a year and a half, with someone that lived across the atlantic ocean... I very rarely got to see him! We suffered some terrible setbacks, including him getting deported from my country the first time he came to see me Not his fault either - they decided that since he had a girlfriend here, and no job back home, they couldn't risk him entering and not leaving.

Now we are married and living together, and are extremely happy. I do not believe that I could've found anyone I wanted to be with more than him, and it was worth every lonely night and bureaucratic paperwork nightmare.

Things that we did:

Talked every night on skype with webcam. Doesn't have to be sex/relationship based... share what you did that day, complain about work, try and get to know each other. I used to ask him those silly 'meme' surveys that go around on Livejournal and MySpace, and then ask him questions about his answers. Reason: I think if you focus on just the 'golden end' when you get together, you're in agreement, but you never find out who they really are apart from how they are about your relationship. When you do finally meet up and live together it can quickly fall apart because you have nothing in common any more!

Always had a planned date for when we would next see each other, so we always had something to look forward to and plan. Although we didn't know when we would be able to live together, we did at least know it would only be 3 months or whatever until we next saw each other.

Told each other everything. Everything. Tiny flaws, past relationships, stuff we were insecure about. Having read Steve's book I would say we were aligning ourselves not just with love (which was a given) but with truth and power as well. Both of us were courageous about telling the other about things that would have been much easier to leave alone. Because we began from a position of great friendship, I think it was easier. Part of that, for me, was facing up to my issues about sex. I had a deeply unpleasant experience when I was 18, and since then had described myself as asexual. It took a loooooong time to work through that, and a lot of courage, love and patience on both our parts.

Trust them. He was still in contact and fairly close to his long-term ex girlfriend, and had several female friends. But I never ever mistrusted him. He had been cheated on before, but he trusted me.

I think honesty and openness is so important because it is so easy to lie, be deceitful or just 'omit the truth' in LDR.

Finally, of course, we both had other things in our life. I had college and then work, whilst he had work and his family. We both had strong friendships with 'real-life' people. We were able to vicariously share happy events with each other. Spend all your time moaning about how you can't be together and you will associate the other person with moaning and complaining! Better to be happy and excite each other, rather than wallow in what you are missing.

[funchy]

Ive done the long-distance thing a few times. I have mixed feelings about it. I've met some really nice people online and some downright scary ones.

I can work or it can be a major waste of time and money. It can also leave a person very vulnerable to someone who uses others, cheats, or isn't ready to commit. I knew a few guys who'd "date" several women at once online, except each woman we're told that they were "the one". And somehow the guys got the women to fly in to see them (and of course the women put out). Then these two guys would go so far as to say they were "dead" or something crazy to get rid of the women they were bored of. Sometimes they'd work together, acting as the "friend" who is helping his shy friend talk to the woman. One of them made a game of it, by trying to get women from all over to fly in and give him nookie; he wanted to have sex with someone from every state. Be careful!

The overall problem is that it takes so much longer to really get to know the real person. In the beginning, it's like dating a facebook page or a Yahoo profile. No matter how honest one tries to be, the online persona is just not the complete person.

In the process of trying to find out what the real other person is like, people take them self off the market for months (or years). How many missed opportunities is that? How many [real] local people could one meet in the 6 or 12 months spent trying to arrange a day here and there to visit the long-distance romance?

I believe that in life, our biggest asset isn't money or power, but time. Considering the low probability the real person turns out to be just like his MySpace page.... and considering long-distance relationships can take months to years to really discover the other person... it doesn't seem like a good trade-off.

Just my opinion.

[ar81]

Submarine crewmen have the highest rates of divorces due to LDR.

[aelle]

Thanks all for your comments and answers! Keep them coming!

Lana, thanks for the support and encouragements, I need them!

Funchy, thanks for your warning but this type of situation really isn't a concern here. We met in real life, not online, and had a couple of months of "proximal" relationship (how the hell do you call the opposite of long distance?) before we had to move away from one another.
And the problem with the risk you take when you need years to really know someone is a very valid point, but I feel it applies just as well to face-to-face relationships. People change so much in their teens and 20s, I would really face the same challenges if I were with a local I met as a student who would then enter professional life. We just have to try our best to know ourselves, know each other and based on that bet that we will change in compatible ways.

ar81, yeees? To use an old anaolgy, most people joining a judo class will give up well before they're a black belt, but whether a new recruit will become a black belt has a lot to do with efforts and perseverance, and very little to do with statistics... This is also why I'm here asking for advice and positive vibes!

Akashic_Librarian, Interface Leader, you both had great testimonies and suggestions. We already do quite a few of the things you mentionned. Phone sex isn't much of a success here, unless we want to have a good laugh, but writing erotica, now you're talking...

Interface Leader, you are so right about the ptifall of omissing difficult conversations... "Well, we only have a week/2 days/a few hours together, let's not open that can of worms now"... We've managed to deal with it before (not easy!) but it's good to get a reminder.
Did you manage to have a fulfilled daily life without shutting your feelings down, though? I seem to go through cycles, at part of which I am very involved in the relationship and the rest of the world loses some of its interest, and other moments when I compartmentalize my life completely, having a great day to day life but keeping my love completely separate from that. Of course, he has cycles like these and we're not synchronized, which creates friction... Do you know what I mean?

More testimonies would be wonderful!

[Niamh]

Originally Posted by aelle

Funchy, thanks for your warning but this type of situation really isn't a concern here. We met in real life, not online, and had a couple of months of "proximal" relationship (how the hell do you call the opposite of long distance?) before we had to move away from one another.
And the problem with the risk you take when you need years to really know someone is a very valid point, but I feel it applies just as well to face-to-face relationships. People change so much in their teens and 20s, I would really face the same challenges if I were with a local I met as a student who would then enter professional life. We just have to try our best to know ourselves, know each other and based on that bet that we will change in compatible ways.

Yep. I'm in a LDR as well, just like this... These are my same concerns (I too am in my 20s). *sigh* I'm trying my best not to think about it too much. It gets extremely frustrating.

[InterfaceLeader]

Originally Posted by aelle

Interface Leader, you are so right about the ptifall of omissing difficult conversations... "Well, we only have a week/2 days/a few hours together, let's not open that can of worms now"... We've managed to deal with it before (not easy!) but it's good to get a reminder.

Did you manage to have a fulfilled daily life without shutting your feelings down, though? I seem to go through cycles, at part of which I am very involved in the relationship and the rest of the world loses some of its interest, and other moments when I compartmentalize my life completely, having a great day to day life but keeping my love completely separate from that. Of course, he has cycles like these and we're not synchronized, which creates friction... Do you know what I mean?

I do know what you mean. It can be frustrating when you both are at different levels of 'need'. I don't have a lot of advice, except for be understanding, and plan time together as well ~ make 'dates' if you like. And try and share what you are up to, rather than compartimalise it completely. E.g. if he went to a party he would take pictures of it on his cell-phone and email them to me. I worked in a call-centre at that time and would email him during slow periods with stories of silly calls.

I would also 'set projects' when he was off doing his own thing, and I was feeling lonely. For example, I filmed my then-home city of Cardiff, where he'd never been, showing all my favourite places and some of them landmarks.

[sixx1984]

I am also finding a lot of the advice on here very useful. I have been with my partner for almost 5 years. We've been together practically every moment of those 5 years.

We've spent the past year living together abroad due to his work, but due to a language barrier, I have not been able to work myself. It's been a struggle for him having to support 2 people on one salary. And I very quickly ran out of my own money. The future poses many options for us and all of them require more money than we have. So we're discussing the option of me moving back home to work for a while. Realistically, it will not even be for 1 year but even though we are doing this for our future, it is tearing me apart knowing that we would only see each other every few months and only then for probably no more than a week.

I am so worried that it will break us up, even though I am determined it won't happen. The worst thing is that I know he is so unhappy where he is in life just now and being together is the only thing getting us through each day. But looking at the bigger picture, if we want to have a good future, we need more money now.

The comments posted here have given me hope that we will be fine. They've also given me loads of ideas to make the time pass easier.

Thank you

[aelle]

Sixxx1984, I wish you luck and courage! I think that long distance within a long term relationship, like in your case, is different from long distance from the start, or early on in the relationship. That said, if my experience can help you I'd be happy to share more!
From what I've lived, being away does not slow down or put the relationship on hold, rather you share and learn different things about one another. Being together, you'd learn more about somebody's actions, moods, day to day lifestyle and globally whether you want to live with them. Being away, we tend to have more life defining conversations - from our political or moral values, our ideals for the world, our conception of education, our life dreams to what language we'd speak to our hypothetical dog Blogging, IM and email tend to be great media for this. These conversations leave me clueless as to whether I could or would like to live with him now, but they convinced me I wanted to grow with him.

Some long distance equivalents of dates: watch the same movie together while on Skype.... of surprise romantic events: surprise care packages (I once sent homemade cookies by courrier when he was sick)... you can fall asleep on the phone together (provided you're in the same time zone!)

Also, don't pay too much attention to other people absolutes: what matters is what's an absolute to your partner and you. I heard plenty of people say phonin everyday was a must-do, for us once a week is fine (we do text or email daily though). Some people say to meet as often as you can while for us a steady rhythm is the most important thing.

[sixx1984]

Thanks aelle for your reply. I've found many great tips, but I agree with you that what works for one couple may not work for another.

I am trying to view this as an opportunity to actually be more romantic and loving. We've lived together for the past 2 years and I do find myself taking things for granted and becoming too comfortable with each other. I like the idea of sending him lots of surprises in the mail, you know like the kind of romantic gifts that you'd get each other when you first start dating. I think it will encourage us to become more creative in expressing our love for each other. I like how you sent cookies, thats a great idea!

I also think it will be a great opportunity to grow as an individual, become more independent, but also be able to bring more to the relationship.

I wish you all the best aelle with your relationship.

[Hot Alpha Female]

Originally Posted by aelle

So, my questions here are: people in LDR, how do you deal with it? How do you stay connected while apart? How do you maintain focus or interest on your everyday life when your partner cannot be a part of it? How do you make the most of the time you have together?

Here is my theory on long dist. relationships. Lets call them LDR's. If you guys are absolutely committed to make it work then it will.

I happen to know people who have been dating for a while and then they had to have a LDR for a year or two, but then got back together and are now happily married.

So yes they can work.

I think the important thing is how it started and how well you know the person. Sometimes if its very hard to see that person maybe only once a month or whatever ... of course the time you spend with them is going to be magical because you are making the best of the time you have and don't spend a moment nit picking or all those small things that normal relationships have.

I think the most important thing is that someone is eventually going to have to move. There has to be an end to the long distance thing, so that you guys can have a normal and regular relationship.

So I wish you all the best. It takes courage and a lot of love to have long distance relationships, but from what you have said it seems you have both.

[evevera]

Hey alle,

I was in a LDR for about a year... we were pretty in love and all that jazz, we met each other in person TWICE, a time period of 2 months being "really" together. (We lived on opposite side of the world).

It was VERY hard. Even though things were great and at times I thought 100% we would make it and it wasn't a big deal at all... well sad to say we're not a happy ending :P

The sad thing is, we'd probably still be together now if it wasn't for the distance, but things just didn't happen the way we had planned.

Just to make things clear, it wasn't the distance that initially broke us up, there were other issues/problems that probably stemmed from the distance. At the time I didn't really think so but looking back the distance DID have a major effect on why we ended.

What you mention about the cycles happened to us too and it did cause conflicts. Actually the times we faught the most was just BEFORE seeing one another and directly AFTER seeing one another. It was like 2 days of fighting followed by 2 days of loving.

Eventually it felt like we were just fighting a lot and always about stupid stuff. There were also trust issues and insecurities too before we broke up.

Anyway, this probably isn't a great story to be listening to, but I'm not saying at all that you won't make it. You can if you believe you can, at the same time you must understand that things aren't always what they seem when your love is so far away from you.

That was the hardest thing for me to deal with. Not really knowing what he was doing or thinking when we were fighting and him completely clamming up on me, it hurt me so much because it was like he knew he could hide behind the computer.

Just be confident in his love for you and don't take everything to heart, just accept that it won't be forever and if you need a break from each other every now and then, that's is perfectly healthy to do so. (probably best to do so).

GL

[Eisho]

Originally Posted by aelle

I am in a Long Distance Relationship (2 international borders, 4+ hours of travel), have been for 10 months or so now, and we're looking at one more year to 18 months before we can be together. I'm in my early 20s, he's in his late 20s, we're both finishing grad school. We're both very commited to each other, are blissfully happy when we can actually be together and both feel that there is enough love, intellectual connection, personnality match, shared values, common goals for the future and generally so much we can bring to one another to really want this to work long term.

But in the meantime... it gets hard and frustrating. We've found a rhythm that compromises between how long we can bear being apart and how often we can realistically meet up, and I'm fine with not seeing him for weeks at a time, but the couple days we do spend together always feel horribly short.

So, my questions here are: people in LDR, how do you deal with it? How do you stay connected while apart? How do you maintain focus or interest on your everyday life when your partner cannot be a part of it? How do you make the most of the time you have together?

Also: people who've had successful LDR, bring in the support and positive experience! I want to attract all the success and happiness I can, here!

I was initially in a long distance (4 hour travel) relationship with my now-wife. We saw each other every couple of weeks usually. One thing I would recommend is taking a longer holiday together. Doesn't have to be anywhere exotic, but just to give yourselves a chance to be together for a longer period away from the everyday. Gives you something to look forward to and a shared memory for when you are apart.

Good luck!

Eisho