Making Long Distance Relationships Work

Long distance relationships can be easy if you think life is better without the need to fight over a toothpaste cap with your boyfriend. However, this kind of relationship is tormenting and painful if you can’t live with a toothpaste cap without fighting over it with someone you deeply love.

Long distance relationships spell challenge. This is where honesty, faithfulness, loyalty, trust and patience is tested. Your ability to love is called into question.

You may have heard of hundreds of stories about failed long distance relationships. Some long distance relationships last for two weeks while others for months. There are others who make it last for six years just to break up in the end.

But there are couples who plan on reuniting and to finally say goodbye to the distance they’ve endured for years. If you want to know the secrets to surviving a long distance relationship, here are ten ways to guarantee you the best long distance love story you could ever experience in your whole lifetime.

10. Photographs Plus Memories

Sometimes, words are not enough to let your partner feel your presence. Take advantage of technology to ease the pain of missing each other.

You can exchange pictures to see your new haircuts or how you’ve lost the weight you’ve been working on. Save the photos in a folder and look at these whenever you feel sad about missing your beloved.

You can also print out the photos and make a scrapbook. Remind yourself about your love story by checking on the scrap book once in a while. The pictures can help you remember that you have a boyfriend or girlfriend to come back to, months or years from now.

9. See You When I See You

Spontaneous dates don’t work for long distance relationships. Plan a meeting together. Instead of saying “see you when I see you,” you should say, “see you on (insert date here: ___).” Isn’t it exciting to plan your meeting with both of you making sure that it is something you will definitely look forward to?

Plan the things you will do together. Decide the places you two want to visit. Talk about the food you want to eat and the different things that can make you happy as a couple.

8. They Said it Before, “Patience is Virtue”

Yes, it’s 30 minutes past four and you haven’t received a text message yet. What makes you think, though, that your partner doesn’t love you anymore? Relax. You are using your imagination a little too much.

Blame technology for humans’ shortened attention spans. Because of the convenience text messaging and online messengers bring, you know that communicating with people from a distance is easier and more accessible.

However, technology can’t assure you that your boyfriend will reply faster than you say "love". If your boyfriend is having a meeting with the top bosses of his company, be patient enough to wait. Never get mad at your girlfriend for not replying immediately because she was eating her lunch. It is any human being’s right and need to consume food, remember?

The one thing that you should be most patient about is waiting.

7. Define Fidelity

The couples who survive long distance relationships are those who have clearly defined fidelity before they’ve even decided to marry each other. To them, presuming concepts and aspects that constitute commitment is a big n-no.

It doesn’t take a document evaluated by a lawyer to agree on the definition of fidelity. You can agree on it with your boyfriend or girlfriend in words. For example, both of you should not have sex with other people. You shouldn’t kiss, hug or date another guy or girl. But it may be okay for your boyfriend to drink with his buddies, or for your girlfriend to hang out at a bar with her girl friends.

6. Distance: Hindrance or Investment?

If you keep thinking that the distance between you and your partner is a hindrance to rekindling romance, then a long distance relationship is not for you.

One of the classic and never-published ways of surviving a long distance relationship is to let each other know that the distance is necessary because it is for your future. Your boyfriend or husband may need to go to another country to see a business deal to fruition. Your girlfriend or wife may have to study abroad to finish a higher degree.

Consider the distance an investment, meaning that the distance can contribute to the long-term health of your love. If you, as a couple, believe in this, then chances of surviving the distance will definitely increase.

5. Facing Distance

Have you ever questioned why, of all the many relationships in the world, you had to be one of those with a long distance love? To survive such a challenge, you have to ask why.

Talk to your partner and share concepts and ideas about why you need to be away from each other for now. You have to assure each other that the long-distance relationship is not forever. Soon, the distance will not be necessary anymore.

If you are the one who is leaving, show him or her the “light at the end of the tunnel” by assuring your partner that someday, you will be together again. If your partner is leaving, show him or her that you will wait until you finally stay close to each other again. This way, both of you have something to look forward to.

4. Because That Mile is a Chance

It is hard to be positive with distance between you and your partner, but you need to see this as a chance for personal development. A lot of couples who live closely to each other fight over petty things. Some guys or girls even break up with their partners because of a classic reason you’ve heard before: needing space.

With distance, you own all the space in the world. If you have developed a more mature personality from the time and space of distance, a great relationship awaits you. On a lighter note, don’t you think a relationship is more exciting if you have a chance to miss each other?

3. Lovers Beg for Freedom, Too

Your partner needs freedom as much as you do. If your husband or boyfriend needs to attend to a family affair, allow him to. On the other hand, don’t complain about your wife or girlfriend giving you less attention that you are giving her because, she too, has a life.

Instead of obsessing about waiting for your partner’s e-mail or call, spend time alone and do all the things that you love doing the most. If you want to visit a coffee shop and observe people, then go. If you want to go to a spa, be glad to have the freedom to make yourself feel good. Maintain your identity and use your free time wisely.

2. Technology and Communication in Long Distance Relationships

If it was 1943, expect that a long distance relationship is about waiting for yellow envelopes informing you that your boyfriend or husband died in the war.

In 1996, long distance relationships were about safe white envelopes and postage stamps. Today, a long distance relationship has increased its survival rate from slim to big because of web cams, telephones, cellular phones, instant messengers and the Internet.

What does this mean? These technological breakthroughs are not just for business transactions and research. They are also for people like you who need to communicate to your significant other who is away from you.

Communication is always a must no matter how near or far you are from your partner, but it should be strictly observed in long distance relationships. Update each other about what is happening in your lives. Exchange messages and remind each other of your love everyday.

1. You Can’t Do Without Trust

Now that your partner is away from you, you can no longer control him or her the way you used to when he or she was just a few blocks near you. You can’t see where he or she goes on Friday nights. You have no idea what he or she does after work.

Long distance relationships do not work only if you are suspicious and insecure. A long distance relationship is not for you if you have trust issues. Trust is the challenge you have to live up to while your partner is away. It is the toughest rule to practice but the most important ingredient to make a long distance relationship work.

If your friends keep telling you that long distance relationships don’t work, practice these 10 tips and prove them wrong. Remember, long distance relationships work. Give birth to your love story.