No matter how much two people love themselves, or how long they have been together, distance could strain the relationship and if care is not taken cause it to even come to an end. Some couples hardly spend time together. There are actually couples who have become use to being apart, but that does not in any way mean they know how to make their relationship work while they are a thousand miles away from each other. Getting into a relationship is one thing, managing long distance relationships is another.
There are several ways to keep long distance relationships alive. You simply need to know what to do and what to avoid through out the time you guys are going to be apart from each other. While it is true that long distance relationships are more difficult to keep, it is also fair to state that difficult is not “impossible”. Lets look at a few tips that may help you successfully build and keep a long distance relationship despite the odds.
Communicate as often as possible
When you chose to fall in love with or get into a relationship with someone who is far away from you, you must bear in mind that the first problem may be difficulty in communication. Effectively communicating even while you two are apart is one of the most important ways to keep long distance relationships alive. You cannot see this person physically whenever you wish to and it may be difficult to deal with the feeling of disappointment over the fact that you do not have a shoulder to cry on or someone you can relate with physically. This may be more of a problem with ladies because they are somewhat more emotional than men. The sad part of the issue is that ladies will often resort to complaining to their friends about how difficult it is and how bad they are feeling. Chances are, most of those friends are not into long distance relationships. So though they may want to console and advice you, they may not have the experience or knowledge to give good advice. You may end up only feeling bad about yourself and the relationship.
But you can make coping with long distance relationship easier to bear by communicating as frequently as possible. If your partner was with you, how often do you think you both would have spent time talking to each other? You can still make that possible through the numerous communication opportunities we have around these days. By doing so, you definitely get to have a healthy long distance relationship.
When you wake up in the morning, always say good morning to your partner and inquire how well they spent the night. If you both have enough time on your hands in the morning, you can go ahead to discuss a little more.
The same thing should happen after work hours. At the time when you know the other person should be returning from work, you can then call or text just so you can have some time to talk to each other. Frequent communication strengthens the bond of love and keeps you emotionally attached to each other. It is one of the most important ways to keep long distance relationships alive. The more frequent your conversations with each other, the easier it will be for you guys to bear the effects of the distance. On the other hand, it will be more difficult for this tip to make any difference if both or one person is not as enthusiastic about frequent chats as the other. This will make things unbearable for the person who is making an effort. He or she may feel used or even cheated on. If one person in the relationship does not enjoy constant communication, managing long distance relationships becomes more difficult or complicated
Choose the right medium of communication
Surely with so many means of communicating these days, simpler (and perhaps more romantic) methods of communicating like writing letters have become old fashioned and undesirable. We indeed have better, more effective ways of communicating today and they are vital to managing long distance relationships when taken seriously. Text messages, phone calls, social media, mail etc. However, it seems that the ease with which one can use any of these mediums of communication have given way to loss of affection and true meaning of communicating which should be at the center of it. There was a time when initiating communication with a loved one demonstrated how much you cared about them. It should still be the case today, but sadly it is not.
Many people communicate these days for selfish reasons. And that invalidates the intended impact. It also makes managing long distance relationships difficult. Amidst this social media and text ready chaos, you should know how to make communication special between yourself and your partner. This is important because if your partner does not feel that your choice of communication method is more than some random text or call, it is going to have little or no impact on the relationship. After all, there are many other people communicating with him or her through text messages, calls and even social media.
Calling for example is better than text messaging. It is more important that your partner gets to hear your voice often than just seeing messages. Of course you will still have to send and receive messages between yourself as often as you can. But don’t get to a point where you begin to ignore calling as often as you should because of the frequent texts you send and receive between yourselves. One of the ways to keep long distance relationships alive is to show genuine interest in hearing your partner’s voice as often as possible.
When it comes to calling too, there are more interesting call options now and they are quite cheap and easy to use. Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media platforms offer video call opportunities. Of course if you are into a distant relationship, making video calls every now and then is very vital and indeed more important than just audio calls. You may not understand how far seeing your partner through a video call may go, but you can begin to feel the impact through the excitement you get whenever you anticipate seeing and talking to the other person through a video call.
Building the bond of love and relationships is quite challenging but it could be a whole lot easier if you communicate often and use the right medium of communication. The more intimacy the communication method builds, the easier it will be for you to keep a long distance relationship.
Since letters are not very common these days, you could write to your partner once in a while just to let them know you wanted to do something special to keep the love and relationship alive. Your partner may find it really fascinating and romantic and may return the love gesture with his or her letter to you.
Pick the right time to communicate
When you decide to get into a long distance relationship or find yourself in one, maybe because your partner got transferred or for some other reason, you must understand that more wisdom and tact is required to keep that relationship. Every serious person has plans and follows those plans to maximize daily accomplishments. If you are into a relationship with someone who does not make plans, you may be in the wrong relationship to begin with.
Considering that you do understand the importance of time, you will know why choosing the right time to communicate is important. If you always try getting to your partner during work hours or maybe very late when he or she is tired and should be sleeping, you should not expect to have a warm response. If you don’t get any response at all, you should understand that your timing was wrong and make necessary changes the next time you call your partner.
A better and more responsible way of going about it is to have your partner tell you when they are free. That way, you both fix a time to discuss. Even if your partner was near you and had to spend time together, you will definitely make arrangements for that. But there is the temptation of taking such arrangements for granted simply because you feel entitled to the person at any time or that they owe you the favor of responding to a discussion whenever you are ready. It takes two to chat, respect your partner’s schedule and you will have a more fulfilling and successful long distance relationship.
Make arrangements for a visit once in a while
When all the talk about effective long distance communication is done, we will all agree that it will hardly suffice. People in long distance relationships could easily get tired of the distance and become tempted to just give up. Things could be made worse by the presence of another person who is willing to show care and affection. Before you know it, you begin to desire what your partner cant give because of the distance – his or her presence. Hence visiting your partner as often as you can is vital to managing long distance relationships. It makes coping with long distance relationships easier to bear.
To deal with this, you can make arrangements to visit your partner as often as possible. It is very vital that you do so. It will go a long way to keep the bond of love and passion for each other alive. If perhaps there was anything threatening the survival of your relationship, you two will definitely be able to talk over it and deal with it when you meet.
Plan for and spend vacations together
It is extremely important that people in long distance relationships spend vacations together. Apart from the visits, vacations give you enough time for other activities which are very vital for building your relationship. To spice things up, you could both make arrangements to spend time together in a unique place or perhaps visit family members during vacations.
For married people, you definitely have to still make plans to spend time just with your partner during vacation even if you do so with relatives.
Be very open with your partner
You don’t have the advantage of being seen and noticed for him or her to know that something is wrong. While you look forward to keeping a long distance relationship for as long as you are both going to be apart, you need to constantly remember that your physical absence or distance from your partner means they do not get to easily notice when something is wrong. Women especially have to take note of this. First because they enjoy having someone notice their troubles and reach out to them. However that privilege is something you must learn to do without in long distance relationships.
If you are going through some difficult times or maybe facing challenges with one issue or the other, it is important that you open up to your partner and express yourself freely. It will do a lot of good as far as keeping a healthy long distance relationship is concerned. Expecting that he or she is just going to figure out that something is wrong with you is not altogether out of place but that may not happen and you don’t have to get offended if your pain is not automatically noticed. If your partner is the busy type, that reduces the chances that they are going to notice you are going through some stuff and maybe offer to help.
Just sharing your problems with your partner is a great way to build intimacy, especially if he or she is a good communicator. It is actually one of the most effective ways to keep long distance relationships alive.
On the other hand, you have to be sensitive to your partners mood. When you actually love and care for someone, you just get to know them better and can tell even from the distance that something is wrong. Assuming that your partner is the one going through some issues, you should make out time to help in anyway you can. If you don’t, some other person may fill the gap at that time and it is possible that such a person could take the place you hold in your partner’s heart. You can even decide to travel over just to be of assistance if your presence is really needed. It will go a long way to make things right between you two and strengthen the bond of love that holds your relationship together.
Keep suspicions and insecurity away
Very few things can destroy a relationship faster than suspicions born from insecurity. If you are into a long distance relationship with insecurity, you need to put that particular aspect in check as soon as possible. Suspicion makes coping with long distance relationships difficult if at all possible. Suspecting your partner over every rumor you hear or perhaps your own misjudgments will keep you from putting in your best to make the relationship work. Once you begin to suspect that your partner may be having an affair, it becomes far more difficult to go on in the relationship.
Open up and talk to your partner if you are not comfortable with perhaps something you may have heard. Show him or her that you trust in his side of the story and not just in rumors,
Don’t investigate your partner
You should understand that playing the investigator in any relationship is not healthy at all. It compromises even the most healthy long distance relationships if done persistently. Worse of all, in a long distance relationship, this will bring about unnecessary tension that may eventually lead to a breakup if care is not taken.
The first thing is that person who gets into investigating the other often does so with a biased mind. Sometimes, it is not done with the mindset of proving that your partner is innocent but rather from the vantage point of suspicion and trying to prove that they are guilty. It is very unlikely that your observations and judgments will not be biased.
Have the understanding that if your partner is doing anything wrong, it is eventually going to come out. There’s really nothing hidden under the sun. And by the way there are several other ways to know if your partner is fooling around or cheating on you. Just studying their attitude, especially towards communicating with you is a good way to start.
Learn to build trust in your relationship
Trust is probably the most important ingredient of love you need to make any long distance relationship work. You cannot possibly have a healthy long distance relationship without trust. If you don’t learn how to trust and respect each other, it is only a matter of time until the relationship comes to an end. There are certain steps you can take to help you learn how to build trust and build the relationship on a better foundation.
Avoid Gossips about your partner. Gossiping about your partner only makes coping with long distance relationships more complicated. Sometimes you may feel like what you need most is someone who can give you information about what your partner is doing wherever he is. Kind of having a watchman tail him around to make sure he or she is not betraying your love and relationship while you do your best to keep things moving right. Often, those who bring such information are people who are either jealous of your relationship or are just not tactical enough to make right judgments. Usually the information you get is like third handed . Someone heard that another person heard some other thing and trust me before the information gets to you, it will be a completely different version from what actually happened. An exaggerated version of course.
Secondly, make up your mind to always take your partners word for it until you really have reasons to doubt. It is a decision you have to make and the truth is that without that decision, you are definitely going to fall into the trap of distrusting everything your partner tells you, especially if it is his word against some rumor you heard.
One other thing you can do to keep a long distance relationship alive is to give your partner an important souvenir. Something he or she can have with her at all times. A necklace or wrist watch are good examples of things you can give as a souvenir. Such a move may seem trivial but it actually holds tremendous power to keep a long distance relationship alive. Some ladies like dogs or pets in general. If your partner is such a person, do well to get a pet for him or her, it will be an even better treasure and something that reminds him or her of you than an object.
In conclusion, be super determined to make things work so you can have a healthy long distance relationship. Coping with long distance relationships is not easy, but it is very possible. No long distance relationship can succeed for more than a few months if those involved are not really willing to make it work. It is not going to work if you are just trying it out. This kind of relationship gives no room for carelessness or laxity. If you both really want things to work out and to have a successful relationship, you should make up your minds to do everything to make it last longer than you are going to be apart. When you finally come together, you will definitely be glad you did not give up. Keeping long distance relationships is possible and you can actually be more successful in it than even people who are in a relationship and are together. You simply need to be willing to make the efforts that are necessary.