31 Tips For Making A Long-Distance Relationship Work

A long-distance relationship (LDR) is one where two people who are romantically involved are geographically separated from each other.

There are two main types of LDR:

1. Ones where you have never met in person (e.g. because you met online). I have already written about my experience of this here.
2. Ones where your relationship started in person, but then one of you moved away (e.g. because of college or work).

This article will focus mainly on the second type, although some of what follows applies to the first type too.

Problems With Long-Distance Relationships

Some of the more common problems include:

1. Lack of opportunity for physical intimacy (e.g. holding hands, kissing, hugging, cuddling, and, of course, sex).
2. Cost, because one of you may have to spend more money than usual on travelling back to see your partner.
3. Judging how well your relationship is going is more difficult when you are separated and not in regular face-to-face contact.
4. Pressure from family and friends who will constantly tell you it won’t work. Note, though, that one study shows that three quarters of engaged couples have been in a long-distance relationship at some stage, so it’s not as uncommon as some people would have you believe.
5. Increased opportunities for meeting and starting to date somebody else.

None of these are insurmountable – it largely depends on how much the two of you want the relationship to work.

Tips For Making A Long-Distance Relationship Work

Here are some suggestions on what you can do to make sure your LDR works:

1. Agree Ground Rules. It’s vital that each of you know what to expect from this, and what you may and may not do. For example, exclusivity is a big one to discuss – can you date other people or not, and if so, how far can you take it?
2. Alone Doesn’t Mean Lonely. Yes, you will be alone (or, at least, not with your partner) for a large proportion of the time, but that doesn’t mean you have to be lonely. Nobody is saying you have to sit in your room by yourself and be miserable when you’re not talking to your partner. There is nothing stopping you spending time with friends you make where you are (subject to your ground rules – see above), taking up new hobbies, exercising, etc.
3. Be Honest. Being separated is tough enough without lying to each other too. So be honest about what you have done, or how you feel. And if you feel that the relationship is not working, then you need to talk about it early on so that you can discuss ways to fix the problem. Remember, nobody likes to be lied to.
4. Date Nights. With a bit of creativity, you can arrange a date night – it just requires a bit of planning and coordination. For example, you could agree a menu, so you’re both eating the same food, you can agree a movie to watch, or background music. And like with a real date night, the anticipation can be as much a part of the enjoyment as the date itself.
5. Don’t Be Afraid Of Arguments. No couples see eye to eye on everything, and there will be issues that cause contention. The wrong thing to do is ignore them. You need to discuss the problems as they occur, and work together to deal with them. This means listening to the other person’s point of view, not interrupting, and talking calmly about how you can reach a solution together. When a couple can go through this process successfully, it can only strengthen the relationship.
6. Don’t Hide Your Relationship. Even though people will probably tell you your LDR won’t work, this doesn’t mean you should keep it to yourself. As far as you’re concerned, it’s a real relationship that you plan on making work – just like any other relationship – and people talk about their relationships as a matter of course.
7. Don’t Keep Score. The communication between the two of you does not need to be counted. One of you may send more text messages, while the other may make more phone calls (because people have different preferences for how to communicate), but it doesn’t matter as long as it’s working for you both.
8. Enjoy Your Time Alone. This doesn’t mean you should do things your partner won’t approve of, but you can do things they simply don’t enjoy but you do, since you won’t be spending every spare minute talking to each other.
9. Find A Good Messaging App. These days, it is likely that text messages will be your primary way of communicating on a regular basis (given that calls may be harder to fit in). It’s important therefore that you find a really good one – i.e. it must be stable and available whenever you need it, it should have the features you need (e.g. a good range of emojis, the ability to attach files and photos and videos), and it should be secure / private.
10. Have A Positive / Grateful Attitude. There is no room for doubt or negativity in an LDR – you both need to remain positive about your relationship. In addition, be grateful that you have somebody who cares for you enough to try to make this work. Many people find that a gratitude journal is a great way to remain positive.
11. Make Plans. It’s important that you both have some idea of how long this long-distance relationship will be for – leaving it open-ended is going to end up causing frustration, and nobody can live in an LDR for ever.
12. Make Sure You’re Both Serious. Long-distance relationships are for people who believe they have found the right person. If all you want to do is hook up and have fun, then why spend all of the extra time and energy that an LDR demands when you can just meet people locally?
13. Patience. You cannot rush this type of relationship – it needs to progress at its own speed (which will depend on how well you knew each other first). If you’ve set your plans (e.g. for how long this situation will go on for), then focus on the end goal – being back together again, and enjoy the journey.
14. Pet Names. Most couples do this anyway, but when you’re in a long-distance relationship, calling each other by cute pet names can add to the fun and romance.
15. Quality, Not Quantity. It’s natural to think that when you are apart, you need to make up for that by communicating with each other constantly. This may be fun at first, but it will soon become tiresome. So, rather than spend every spare moment talking or sending messages, make sure you time your communications well – maybe a tantalizing teaser to foreshadow your scheduled video call, or an “I love you” message sent when they might least expect it.
16. Recommend Things To Do. If it’s not possible to do an activity at the same time (see below), you can recommend books, music, or videos to each other, which you can then discuss later on. My lady friend and I did this, and because we had never met in person, it was a great way to help get to know each other better.
17. Regular Contact. When I was dating my lady friend online, we would have a brief chat (via Skype) every single morning before I went to work, mainly to say “Good morning”, and almost every night, we would be talking anyway, but we would finish with a “Good night” and “I love you”. A short “good morning” and “good night” call can provide a sense of your relationship being regular.
18. Send Gifts. It’s super easy nowadays to send each other gifts via online stores. In many cases these can be gift-wrapped, with a card. You should obviously send a gift if you’re going to be away for an important event (e.g. birthdays, anniversaries), but you can also send a surprise gift occasionally. Alternatively, you could agree to send each other a specific item, such as a funny t-shirt, to make it more like a gift exchange. Obviously, the gift doesn’t need to be large, fancy, or expensive, and you shouldn’t overdo this either. My lady friend and I also used to send each other “care packages” – a small selection of items that showed we cared.
19. Send Photos. While constantly posting selfies on social media can come over as somewhat narcissistic, sending each other photos is a great way to keep the intimacy going. This may be especially important if you change your appearance (e.g. new hair style, new hair colour, new spectacles, a change in facial hair).
20. Sexy Messages. There are several ways to make up for the lack of intimacy, and one of those is suggestive messages, for example. These might include in-jokes that only the two of you understand, or photos of parts of your body taken from unusual angles and perspectives. Not only can doing this keep the flame burning, but it will also reduce your desire to stray.
21. Share Activities. With modern technology, there are still activities you can do together. These include watching videos together, shopping online together (some sites allow you to share in real time what you are viewing with somebody else), playing games against each other, going for a walk (if each of you videos what you see as you walk along), and you can use whiteboarding apps to do things like wedding planning (if your relationship is at that stage).
22. Share Schedules. As best as you can, it’s helpful to know when your partner is free and when they are not. This might include working out your local times (if you’re in different time zones, as my lady friend and I were), as well as when you’re at work or college, when your lunch breaks are, meetings, travelling times, as well as any other chunks of time where you are not available. Note that this is only so you know when and when not you can contact each other – it’s not so you can be checking up on them every minute of the day.
23. Swap Mementos. Before you part, you should each give the other person something personal as a keepsake. It might be a small piece of jewellery, a favourite video, a book, a desk ornament. It really doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it reminds you of your partner. When I was dating my lady friend online, we sent each other a bottle of our favourite perfume / aftershave. (True, we’d never met in person, but it was still an effective way to help us imagine the other person was there with us.)
24. Take Your Partner’s Wishes Into Account. Don’t do something you know your partner wouldn’t like, just because he or she isn’t there with you. You may think you can get away with it, but if the truth comes out later, it can cause serious trust issues. This is also, of course, something you should talk about when you set your ground rules (see above).
25. Treat It As An Opportunity. This is a chance to see how strong your relationship is and how powerful your feelings for each other are. These days, it’s not unusual for one person to have to temporarily be away from home (e.g. for work, or if you’re in the military), so this is good practice to see whether you can survive and even enjoy it. (In my parents’ day, I don’t think they ever spent a night apart in over 30 years of marriage.)
26. Trust. Trusting each other 100% is paramount if you want this long-distance relationship to work. There is no room for jealousy or suspicion, because sooner or later, it will tear you apart.
27. Updates. Don’t forget to let each know what is going on in your life, however mundane. But, make sure you use the most appropriate medium. If your talk time is limited then don’t waste it discussing trivia. Those sorts of updates are best left to something like email. When you’re talking (by voice or video), make sure you focus on the important stuff, including, of course, how you feel about each other.
28. Use Social Media. This is another great way to stay in touch and show that you care and are interested (e.g. by liking each other’s posts or tweets or photos, leaving comments, sharing things on their account you know they’d like). Just be careful to not let it turn into cyber-stalking.
29. Vary The Communications. There are a lot of options these days, so make use of all of them – telephone, video calls, text messages, emails, videos, audio recordings, and don’t forget the old-school methods too, such as handwritten letters (if you haven’t done this yet, you really should), greeting cards, and postcards. Also, if you’re doing the latter, you don’t always have to send these to their home address – finding there’s a letter for you at work or college can add a pleasant surprise to their day.
30. Visits. How often you are able to meet up in person will depend on how far apart you are, your schedules, and how much it will cost for one or both of you to travel (e.g. maybe one person flies home, or maybe you both travel half-way to meet up in the middle). These visits need to be carefully planned, because these are going to be relatively rare opportunities to catch up on all of the physical needs (and I don’t only mean sex) that you cannot satisfy at a distance. And whatever you do, try not to cancel these visits – the disappointment, for both of you, will test your resolve. Some experts recommend never spending more than three months apart before meeting up in person again.
31. What About Sex? At some stage, depending on your relationship while you were together, the issue of sex is going to arise, so you need to agree how you’re going to deal with this. Some couples allow for an open relationship, but this still isn’t going to meet all of your needs since they won’t involve your partner. There are several options you can consider (e.g. phone sex, video sex, and even chat, which is how my lady friend and I began). Remember to take into account issues such as whether you are both ready to see each other masturbate, for example, and whether dirty talk is OK / required or not. Trust me, it can be fun and very satisfying, but you need to be clear about how you’re going to simulate physical intimacy before you start.

Conclusion

Yes, it’s true that a long-distance relationship poses certain challenges, but there are also aspects of it that you don’t find in regular relationships.

Plenty of people do make it work – sometimes for several years – and you can too. All you need is for both of you to be committed to making it work, and to follow some of the advice above to keep your relationship on fire, interesting, and safe.

Have fun!