Managing Your Long-Distance Relationship
Gone are the days of settling for the girl or boy next door - we travel more and want more from relationships, so we’re not prepared to cross someone off the list just because they live far away. Good for us - but it still doesn’t make long-distance love any easier. Forget even contemplating it unless you’re prepared to put up with the following:
Managing your long-distance love
Don't miss out on any fun!
- Accept it’s going to be hard. Building and sustaining a relationship is hard even if you see each other daily. Trying to do it only through email, IM and phone brings new meaning to the word ‘frustration’. It helps if you had a relationship before you separated because at least you know each other and which buttons not to push. If you’ve only ever been long-distance it makes all the second-guessing even harder.
- Work out if you can afford it. They’re expensive. Sure you can communicate lots for free over the net but when the going gets tough, both of you will have the urge to jump on planes (paying through the nose for a ticket) in lovesick desperation. If it doesn’t work out, will you resent having kissed goodbye all that cash as well as him?
- Are you willing to feel lonely? When the rest of your friends head home in nicely matched pairs, you travel solo to an empty flat and bed - often worrying they’re curled up in theirs with someone else. If you’ve had an argument over the phone, you can’t physically kiss and makeup and the lack of touch (let alone other things) is often what makes couples give up.
- Does it have a light at the end of tunnel? If neither of you can conceive of ever living in the same place, what’s the point? Also think about what you might have to sacrifice if one of you does move: job, family, friends. Are you liable to feel resentful?
- Can you trust? You need bucketloads of it. Even then, you need constant communication to keep it going. Ideally, contact each other at least once a day. Even if it’s just a text message - you both need reminders you’re on their mind as much as they’re on yours.
- Don’t make time together too romantic. I know it’s tempting to plan every last second so it’s all perfect, but you’re not doing yourselves any favours. Instead, try to live as you would if you were living together and use the time to find out if you really would be compatible long-term. If you find you get on better when you’re apart, could be you’re in love with the idea of each other rather than who you really are.
- *Read the rest of Tracey's columns
- *Watch Tracey's Love Bytes videos
- *Try our new Perfect Position Selector tool!
Long distance is very difficult. I'm a senior and after long marriages for both of us, we are grappling with where we decide to live...his town or mine. I own my home, he does not. My kids are here, his are scattered. I have a few close friends I don't see or talk to daily, he has a large circle of life long friends, who play a large role in his life.
We email daily and talk on the phone every couple of days. We get together either at his place or mine for extended periods of time every week or so. But there is the concern, for both of us, as to whether we are seeing anyone else in the absences. I tend to be the more emotional one and am the one calling it quits about once a month.
I had to learn to trust him more. And I now call him when I need to talk to him, rather than wait for him to call because he should know I want to talk to him.
We are both in our 60's, so you would think we would know how to approach all this.
Dear table4one: Oh, how I know what you're going through. Eight months ago,an old high school classmate and I were reconnected,online. We said our "I love you's"after three months of emailing.. and things have mainly been going as great as can be expected, though we are over 1200 miles apart.We do keep in close contact,IMs and long phone calls every day and night, and sometimes a few short ones, when something happens we want to share with each other. We have yet to meet, but I'm planning to relocate, since one of my four adult children is living in his same city. We,too, are both in our sixties, and I believe he is the soulmate I have been searching for all my life.
I hope you can ask for more of what you hope to have with this man. A man who can keep life long friendships is a keeper. My guy is the same way.
Yours sounds like a stable and loving man. Best wishes for a closer and more fulfilling future for you!
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