Making Your Long Distance Relationship Work—From Someone With Three Years of Experience
Long distance can complicate relationships. Whether it’s imminent in your relationship’s future, you are currently doing long distance with a partner, or are just curious, I hope to share my experience with LDR and some tips on how you can maintain the health of your relationship while far apart.
My first and only relationship has been long distance from the very beginning. My partner and I went to high school together but funnily enough, didn’t officially start dating until we were both in college. We were first acquainted freshman year by a mutual classmate, but our relationship only extended to “hi”s if we passed each other in the hall. We started talking more seriously at the end of our senior year of high school (I made the first move by sliding into his DMs!), but since we were going to different colleges, decided it might not be the best idea to start exclusively dating while we were both beginning new chapters of our lives. Despite this, we continued to keep in friendly contact throughout our first semester of college. From our consistent communication, we developed deeper feelings for each other and decided that since we were pretty much acting like a couple, we should just make it official.
We are now both college seniors and have almost three years of long distance experience under our belt, including a semester where I studied abroad in Prague!
I won’t lie and say that long distance was easy for us. However, in a lot of ways, long distance allowed us to grow stronger and build trust early on in our relationship. There was definitely a learning curve, but my experience has taught me a lot about being flexible, establishing balance and forming boundaries. I truly believe that if both parties follow these tips and are on the same page, anyone can adapt and maintain an intimate, healthy long distance relationship.
Graphic by Adeline Yu
1. This is a no brainer, but video calls and communication will be YOUR BEST FRIEND
If you are used to spending a lot of in person quality time with someone, there is definitely going to be an adjustment period. You will need to learn how to use Facetime, Skype, Zoom or another video platform as quality time, and adjust your expectations on how you will feel loved.
Facetime was crucial in keeping my relationship going. My friend jokingly said to me, “I think the biggest thing that I noticed with your relationship was how often you were on Facetime. If I saw you in the dining hall, you would be talking to him. If I saw you at the library, you would be talking to him.”
For my relationship personally, I didn’t feel like I was losing time going out and making friends because I was talking to my partner too much. But if it sounds tedious, then maybe reevaluate with your partner. Talking to them should not feel like a burden, or like it’s detracting from your life.
It’s also important not to over communicate. You don’t have to talk for hours on end to make a relationship work. Don’t force anything. For me, I talked to my partner a lot because I wanted to, and that was what I was used to.
Let the boring details become a way to feel connected! Daily rhythm details such as who you talked to at lunch, what podcasts you listened to, or what billboard reminded you of your partner make a difference. Small details like these made me feel close to my partner.
Lastly, video calls are not the only way to feel connected. Send postcards or a little care package from time to time to spice things up and to support the USPS!
2. Remember why you are in an LDR
When things get tough, remember the positive aspects of long distance and that your relationship has long term goals.
When I really missed my partner, it was easy to get discouraged. What kept me going was reminding myself that I could see him soon on break. I also knew I would be returning to Chicago after I graduated, where my partner and our families are located. So even if at the time, I could only see him for a week every few months, I kept our long term goals in mind.
Long distance also allowed me to be more independent as I entered college, and I see it as somewhat of a growing experience. It can be so easy to spend all your time with your partner if you’re physically together. This can unintentionally leave less opportunity for you to meet new people, explore new hobbies and just hang out with yourself! Embrace the extra time. It will make things go faster ;)
3. Learn to manage your expectations
If you are doing long distance because of work or school, life happens and your schedules may change. Being prepared for this will help you not be too disappointed if there are a few days where you might not be able to talk to your partner as much as you would like. If there is a schedule change, let your partner know!
While it is important to make time in your schedule to talk to each other, don’t put your life on hold for your relationship. You may be used to spending every day with your partner and use video calling/texting to make up for lost time. However, it’s important to remember that there is a balance to everything. Feeling like you are putting your life on hold for your relationship may cause unwanted resentment.
With that being said, some sacrifice is the name of the game in a long distance relationship. You will need to adapt to this and learn what kind of sacrifices you are willing to make. For example, instead of hanging out with friends one night, plan a facetime movie or Netflix party! When I was abroad, I remember that there would be nights where all my friends would be out drinking or playing card games and I would be in my room, facetiming my partner. Some of my friends would poke fun at me and tell me to stop spending so much time doing so but looking back, I never regretted spending that time with him.
A good mental check for yourself is to think about whether the time spent with your partner feels like a burden. A question I asked myself was: “If my partner and I broke up tomorrow (on amicable terms), would I regret spending that time with them? And my answer was always, honestly, no. Taking a step back from your relationship and trying to assess it objectively will help you make sure that you aren’t missing out on time with friends, while also maintaining communication with your partner in a way that makes them feel loved.
4. Set boundaries
Having conversations before doing long distance will help build a foundation for your relationship in the long run and clear up potential miscommunications in the future.
Are you guys still exclusive? How often do you think you can communicate? For how long?
These types of conversations will continue to happen throughout your experience with long distance and feelings/opinions on certain issues will change. Reiterating and adapting your stances will be crucial to the relationship.
5. Be realistic
Trust is important in any relationship, and long distance has the potential to test this factor as well as make it stronger. Be realistic with how much you can commit to the relationship. Each party needs to evaluate the time, effort, trust and communication that will go into maintaining a long distance relationship.
You may love the person and want to make long distance work, but at the end of the day, life sometimes pulls us in different directions. Stay honest with each other and communicate feelings of insecurity, fear and jealousy. Hard conversations may need to happen but keeping each other updated on how each person feels during the relationship will maintain the security and trust every relationship needs.
Ultimately, every relationship and situation is different. However, I hope some of the things I learned in my relationship can help you navigate your own LDRs!
Written by Sarah Park
