Best Tips for Surviving a Long Distance Relationship

When you can’t be with the one you love, surviving a long distance relationship can be rough. By gathering together the common wisdom of those who’ve successfully navigated the difficulties of love at a distance, this article is intended to help out those who are new to the situation.

From the start, both of you need to be clear and comfortable about what you’re calling what you’re doing. Are you dating? Are you boyfriend/girlfriend? Seeing each other? Engaged? The first key to surviving a long distance relationship is being on the same page about what kind of relationship it is that you’re in. Once you are both clear about what your relationship means, you can be comfortable if it comes up in discussion.

If you’re going to do the long distance relationship thing, you need make sure there are answers to all the really rough questions that are bound to come up. Is your relationship exclusive? Are either of you open to the possibility of moving closer to the other? Do you have similar end goals? With a long distance relationship, it becomes even more critical to have answers to the big questions, because those answers will help you when distance makes things rough.

In some very important ways, surviving a long distance relationship is not all that different from surviving a conventional up-close relationship: you need to do things together. Schedule dates to watch the same TV shows or movies together online, and maybe chat online while you watch them. Listen to the same internet radio stations. You need to be doing more than just talking with each other. Common experience is critical.

Take the time to develop mutual and common interests together, even if you can’t do it in person. Look at online classes. Read the same book together. Observe the stars together. Go out to see the same movie with friends, and then call and discuss it afterwards. If you can’t share the same space, share the same experience, especially if it is something you can both be learning from together. You’re both going to be growing as people, so try and make sure you’re doing it in the same directions.

When a relationship is over, it doesn’t matter if you’re living in the same home or across the continent from one another: it is still over. Likewise, when you are committed to something working, and things feel right, distance is equally irrelevant. Trust is key if you want to have a chance of surviving a long distance relationship. You live apart, so you have separate lives, and you can’t allow jealousy to grow in you whenever you hear tell of what your significant other has been doing with their time. Sometimes they won’t answer the phone. Sometimes they won’t respond to your email right away. Don’t let paranoia creep in and create unnecessary drama in both of your lives. By keeping these tips in mind, you should be able to lay a stable foundation for a relationship at any distance.