A JETSETTER’S GUIDE TO… SURVIVING A LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP
Loving someone who lives somewhere else: just too hard, or an opportunity for the heart to grow fonder?
TEXT PENNY LANGTON | ILLUSTRATION KARINE FAOU
Doing the long-distance thing is no picnic and it isn’t for the easily distracted. But if you really feel you’ve got something, experts and real-life couples who’ve pulled through believe a good relationship can definitely weather the stor ms of a physical separation – despite loneliness, resentment, temptation, diverging interests and dizzying travel costs. Most agree there does have to be a bond there already – one that’s worth the hard slog necessary to nurture a relationship across different time zones.
Apart from that, keep in mind our four guidelines and your relationship may come out the other end in better shape than it was to begin with.
[1] DOUBLE-CHECK YOU’RE BOTH COMMITTED
You have to clear this up in no uncertain terms. If you or your partner has to move somewhere for work, or you meet someone on holiday who makes your heart race, it’s not worth pursuing unless you both feel the same way. You don’t want to waste your time or theirs if someone’s heart isn’t in it. If you’re in a relationship that’s on its way out, then it’s probably best to end things rather than kid yourselves and make empty promises. But if you’re both invested in the relationship, you’ll make the necessary sacrifices. Sometimes it might cost you – quite literally.
The sheer will to make their relationship succeed no matter what is what has kept Leeds couple Mieken, 23, a nurse, and Adrian, a 28-year-old regional manager, together for five years and counting, despite being separated for two 12-month periods – first for job training and later because of a too-good-to-turn-down promotion. Mieken says: “We’d been together for a couple of years when Adrian was offered a fantastic position with a global company and had to relocate for training. The city he went to was an hour’s flight away. I was devastated, but I wanted him to succeed. We made it work because we agreed to make an effort to see each other three out of four weekends a month. We never let worries about money and flights come into it. We knew the more we said: “We better not fly this weekend – it’s too expensive,” the more we might get used to not seeing each other and drift apart. We knew it was going to be a pain in the butt and probably add up to thousands of pounds, but that our best chance was to act like any other couple and see each other on weekends.”
[2] DON’T LET A DAY GO BY WITHOUT CHECKING IN
There’s never been a better time to foster a relationship from afar. There are more ways of communicating than you can shake a stick at. We’ve got webcams, texts, instant messaging, Facebook, blogs (if you want your relationship to be public property – and some people do). Good old Skype is God’s gift to separated lovers as it stops the phone bills soaring – go to skype.com to download the software and set up an account. Love letters are nice, but they’re not a sustainable way to communicate. Life isn’t like in The Notebook.
But frequent communication doesn’t mean you have to put pressure on yourself to pen an exhaustive essay to your partner once a week that reads like you’re reporting to your parole officer – an overly long email is intimidating when your partner thinks they have to bang out a reply that’s just as long. The best way, and this is true of friendships as well, is to write little but often. Rather than droning on about what you ate for breakfast, maybe send a cheeky text saying: “Hey, I just saw something you would have loved. My new boss looks just like your uncle Jim.” Give your partner a window into your world as it happens through little observations you know would amuse them. This kind of communication mimics a normal relationship.
Mieken says: “Instead of calling each other and having an hour-long conversation, trying to ask about each other’s day, Adrian and I would send regular updates about silly stuff and that was more normal.” Jill, 26, a journalist, started seeing her boyfriend, teacher Paul, also 26, at home in Australia right before she left to start a working holiday in the UK. Even though they were a new couple, they kept in constant touch until eventually Paul joined her for in London after six months. Jill recommends you don’t neglect the physical side of your relationship, either: “My advice is to maintain intimacy any way you can – if phone sex is a bit weird, do it some other way, but you gotta keep letting each other know you’re into each other.” In their book, Re-Energise Your Relationship: Put the Sparkle Back into Your Loving Life, Dr Sabina Dosani and Peter Cross say you should keep long-distance love interesting by varying your methods of communication: “Why not send a playful email today, an erotic text message tomorrow, perfumed love letter at the weekend and quirky quips on an unusual art card midweek.”
[3] LET THERE BE A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
If there’s no end point in sight, then the odds are stacked against your relationship. Mieken’s partner, Adrian, says: “I would advise that as a couple you set a deadline. It was bad enough having a long-distance relationship – twice! – but to have one without a goal is out of the question. I know people who are in long distance relationships because they’ve met in different states and want to keep seeing each other but with no real plans to move to the one place. It doesn’t work – I’m sure of it! They either break up or something’s gotta give and one person moves.”
And if you don’t know when you’ll next be living in the same city, but don’t want to give the person up, at least always know when your next visit is going to be. If you’ve arranged a trip to see each other, it’s something to look forward to, even if it’s in a couple of months’ time. It all goes back to point number one: you have to want to be together. Assuming that ultimately you want to live in the same place, figuring out how you’re going to get to that point will help you prove to each other that all the frustration and effort is not for nothing.
[4] BEWARE THE ANTI-CLIMACTIC REUNION
Dosani and Cross say the undoing of many failed long-distance relationships is misunderstanding and unreasonable expectations: “If you secretly expect your partner to ‘surprise’ you with spontaneous visits or airport pick-ups, then unless he’s telepathic you’re going to feel let down.” Mieken remembers she felt under a lot of pressure to make Adrian’s visits home perfect in every way: “He’d fly in for the weekend and even though we’d both be knackered from working all week, I felt that I had to make everything just right – I’d book the hot new restaurant, arrange it so we’d be able to have lovely lie-ins and of course I wouldn’t see anyone else while he was there – I reasoned that I could see them any time. Also, I thought I had to look gorgeous the whole time and be on my best behaviour – and make sure we had the best sex. I’d feel guilty if I just wanted to sit in.”
Relationship psychotherapist Paula Hall says: “You may find that, rather than making love all day, there are awkward silences or even arguments. You can prevent this by making sure you’ve talked about how you want the reunion to be and recognising that the anticipation is often better than the consummation! And remember, it may take time to get used to being around each other again.” Jill says this of her much-anticipated reunion with her partner: “I loved being back with Paul, but it was like we had to seduce each other all over again. You don’t immediately go back to how you were – it takes time.” Dosani and Cross say: “How much time it takes to readjust to being together can come as a shock. You’re used to making decisions alone and suddenly need to compromise and do things jointly again. So if your life feels invaded by a relative stranger, don’t panic. Find some time to chill out and share stories and experiences.”
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