How To Deal With Long Distance Relationships: (In-Depth Guide)

In this new article you’ll find out how to deal with long distance relationships.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

While it is true to be absent for perhaps a week or two, those in long-distance relationships know that the adage, out of sight, out of mind, is also true.

Long distance relationship is not easy and requires plenty of work and sacrifice.

This is not for the faint of heart, unfaithful or dishonest. It also demands a level of fun and spice. The key is balance.

The tricky part is that the balance for a long distance relationship is not the same as for a brief distance relationship.

Long distance relationships require more trust and more communication but also allow for more freedom and room to grow.

The purpose of this guide is to help couples discover the important basics that need to be prevalent in a long-distance relationship, in addition to explain the advantages of being in such a relationship.

How to Deal with a Long Distance Relationship

Trust

Trust is the foundation of any relationship and is extremely important in long distance relationships.

Without trust, any relationship will fall apart.

Especially with long distance relationships, there are numerous challenges that you and your partner may encounter.

It’s easy to become paranoid about where your partner is or who they spend their time with.

It’s easy to feel that your partner owes you to live the way you want, which can be very frustrating for both of you.

We must remember that we are the first individual and the next couple.

If both partners in the relationship are loyal and committed, the relationship will be happy and smooth.

Therefore, couples must establish a code of ethics from the start that has been mutually agreed upon by both partners.

This will serve to create clear expectations in the relationship, for example, are you allowed to go clubbing? Is it okay to meet new friends of the opposite sex? Is there a certain time of day that you would like to keep separate from one another?

You can even add code like do not sleep angry or do not try to change one another.

This code of conduct may not at all times stop fights, but once the heat has died down, your code of conduct will act as a mediator to strengthen the relationship once more.

You must significantly increase the level of trust in one another.

Being away from one another means that you haven’t any idea where your partner is spending time and who they’re spending time with.

Left unchecked, this can lead to paranoia and insecurities that will only make you look like a madman, which isn’t attractive at all.

By doing so, you won’t only turn your partner away, but you’ll also damage your own self-image and self-confidence.

You must give one another the freedom to live your own life. This applies to normal relationships, long distance relationships and even married couples.

People become so dependent on one another that they forget how to be independent (1). Being dependent on each other is not a bad thing, but do not become so dependent that you drag the other down.

The key is inter-dependency, specifically being independent first and then depending on one another so that they both benefit.

An example would be that you both exercise and take care of your body, thus becoming independent.

You gain interdependence by exercising together (maybe via skype), motivating one another and having fun while doing it.

Don’t be afraid to voice your fears, you may feel insecure about your partner’s new friends.

You have the right as partners in the relationship to voice your concerns in a respectful, loving way.

However, you do not have the right to impose your insecurities on your partner.

Try not to see one another as the problem, stand together and see the problem as a third party. You are a team, working together to solve your problem.

Be interdependent.

Communication

It’s important to stay in touch with one another, whether via skype, phone calls, texts or visits.

The point is to become a part of one another’s lives and maintain emotional involvement with each other.

This doesn’t mean that each conversation has to be heart to heart.

Telling one another boring aspects of your life like how your day was at work, or what you had for dinner, can be enough to immerse your partner in your life.

Talking about your day also gives your partner a sense of security. They understand how you spend your time and with whom.

The thing about long distance is that you rely more on communication than the average relationship, unfortunately you cannot relax and cuddle in silence and show your appreciation like that.

So you must express it in a different way.

That could be saying the qualities you like about one another regularly, taking an interest in one another’s hobbies and careers, or saying I love you more than you would in a normal relationship.

One of the toughest parts of a long distance relationship is connecting with each other when one person is busier than the other.

If you’re a busy person, try warning your partner in advance that you’re going to be working long hours and may have limited time.

If you are not a busy person, spend some time taking up a new hobby, getting in shape, reading a new book, etc.

Visit often.

Try to make time to visit one another as often as possible or as often as your budget allows.

It’s hard for a relationship to thrive if all you have are phone calls. You need to see one another up close and private every chance you get.

And when you visit, make the most of your time.

A visit is a must to spend quality time with one another and have fun and thus create memories that will get you through the next stretch.

Memories are very strong, they revive relationships.

Some memories will stay with you endlessly, even after your long distance closes and you end up living together in the same house.

Use the past to lighten up the future.

Visualize the future

Visualizing and affirming the success of a relationship is a useful exercise that gives a person the confidence and motivation to make that success occur.

It attracts all the positive energy needed to make that vision a reality.

The beauty of visualizing in a relationship is that it is finished by the partner, and not just by the individual.

This makes a terrific motivator to get you through tough times when time is going slower than you’d like.

If you and your partner are planning to get married at some point, visualize the day you got married, discuss the marriage theme of the day or which members of the family you would like to meet at the marriage.

Talk about your life after you have been together, the kinds of activities you’d do, and the places you’d like to go together.

This is beneficial for visualizing future visits. View the next visit as the next milestone.

Maybe you will only be together permanently in 2 years, but it is going to be very different if you focus on seeing one another in the next 2 months. See the time you split in four six-month waits compared to one long two-year wait.

You can use anything as a milestone, it does not must be a visit. Use your birthday, your anniversary, or your ‘birthday’.

Celebrate all (2).

By looking forward to one milestone at a time and celebrating each, you allow yourself to see the waiting period in bite-sized periods that you can handle far better.

At the same time celebrating everything keeps spirits high and maintains a positive mood in the relationship.

When both partners are happy and positive, time seems to go faster and everything goes more smoothly.

Another helpful idea is to give your partner something of yours, maybe something that has your scent on it, to hold and hold when they miss you.

This will comfort them in their time of need and remind them of the happiness they feel when they’re with you.

Have a good time

Any relationship shouldn’t all work out. We’re going crazy. Even normal relationships need some fun in it.

Couples do not talk all the time.

Make time for fun too. Maybe play online games? Or arrange a date night to watch a movie together. The possibilities are endless.

Be creative.

Maybe take turns determining something cool and new to do.

You both most likely have your own hobbies and interests. Try taking an interest in one another’s hobbies for a day.

Who knows it could become a shared hobby between the two of you. Here are some suggestions:

• movie night
• Cooking night
• Drawing competition
• Truth or dare
• Game online
• Word game
• sing
• Song writing competition
• Private quiz
• charades
• Find creative ways to bond. Against distance.

Live a little

There are three components to each pair. me, you and us.

It is important to train the ‘we’, to engage in activities that strengthen the partner, but it’s equally important to train the ‘me’ and ‘you’.

Both you and your partner are individuals in addition to partners. Pursue your own hobbies and interests.

The advantage you have that short-range partners do not is that you have more freedom and time to pursue the things you love.

If you’re a guy who loves star wars then contact them and do a star wars marathon. It most likely wasn’t something he would allow very willingly if she was around.

If you are a girl, head to the spa or spend the day with close friends. You have more time for people, for yourself.

Life does not just begin when you finally live together. It has already started.

Enjoy yourself a bit, grow as a person so that you’re better off as an individual when the two of you are finally together.

Being far apart allows both of you the opportunity to grow as individuals. Many couples break up or take time off to find themselves and or to further their careers.

You have the opportunity to do it now while still maintaining that emotional connection.

Forgive and forget

Fights are part of any relationship.

It’s so much easier to argue in a long distance relationship because you are far from one another and there’s a certain agitation and insecurity that tends to creep into the relationship sometimes.

It’s also easier to say hurtful things when you are not face to face.

You cannot at all times stop fights but you can at all times determine how you deal with them.

It’s about pausing before responding automatically in a way you will later regret. For example, if your partner did something that made you really angry, do not respond right away.

PAUSE.

Pausing for even a moment allowed some of the anger to dissipate.

If you respond right away, your fight or flight response is automatically triggered and you say something hurtful otherwise you leave feeling dissatisfied.

Pausing lets you take some time to think, maybe there is a better way to handle this. Maybe we can deal with this in a way that we both can get from him or from our relationship.

There is no such thing as winners and losers in a relationship.

If you work things out in a way that only one of you is happy about, then you both lose. If you solve it in a way that makes both of you happy, then you both win.

Forgiveness is a necessity in any relationship. It was inevitable that there would be fights.

If you have been wronged and can’t resolve an argument in a mutually beneficial way, then get angry, you have every right to do so; but do not hold back that anger.

You must forgive and forget sometime if you want to move forward. Learn to see one another through softer eyes.

I hope this article has been helpful in some small way. Here’s a summary:

• Both partners in a relationship must be loyal and committed, it’s the foundation of any good relationship.
• Be interdependent.
• Keep in touch. Talk about the attractive and the not so attractive, find ways to be a part of one another’s lives.
• Visit often. Create great memories together and treasure and hold onto those memories when you miss one another the most.
• Visualize your future together, discuss it and look forward to it.
• Spare your time building on accomplishments along the way. Celebrate birthdays and anniversaries to stay positive.
• Find fun, creative ways to bond, whether it is movie nights, online games, or singing over the phone. Against distance.
• Enjoy yourself a bit, grow as a person so that you’re better off as an individual when the two of you are finally together
• Pauses before responding automatically in battle. This will stop hurtful comments that you’re going to later regret.
• In a fight there isn’t any winner or loser between you two. You both win otherwise you both lose.
• Forgive your partner’s shortcomings, look at one another through softer eyes.

Build your relationship in such a way that both of you are better off for it. Let it be because of your long distance relationship you are better off because it happened than if it did not.

I want to thank you for taking the time to read my article on how to deal with a long distance relationship. I actually hope that its content has been of good help to you.