Congratulations - after years of searching for your soul mate, you’ve finally met the man of your dreams. He’s smart, funny, and attentive; and best of all, he wants the exact same things that you do. There’s only one problem: Effective immediately, his job is relocating him halfway across the country, and with no engagement ring on your finger, you’re not in a position to uproot your life in order to go with him.
Although you’d probably like to believe that a long-distance relationship is something that you can both learn to live with, the reality is that long-distance relationships are particularly tough. Without the physical intimacy that often goes along with maintaining a relationship, the act of strengthening ties can become all the more challenging. And while the physical aspect of a relationship certainly can’t or shouldn’t be the only thing holding it together, it’s hard to negate the importance of bodily contact from both a romantic and sexual standpoint.
Physical needs aside, long-distance relationships can also take a toll on the parties involved from an emotional perspective. While unlimited long-distance phone plans and mobile email devices make it easier than ever for folks to stay connected on the go, nightly calls and morning emails just can’t take the place of waking up alongside one another and having nightly face-to-face dinners to look forward to after those long, taxing days at the office.
If your relationship suddenly takes a turn for the unexpected and you’re forced to spend the foreseeable future apart from your mate, then you may find yourself questioning whether a long-distance relationship will actually work. According to Elliott Connie, a licensed professional counselor based out of Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas who specializes in couples therapy, long-distance relationships absolutely can work, but that doesn’t mean that maintaining them is easy.
To understand why long-distance relationships are feasible in Connie’s mind, it helps to understand his perspective towards relationships in general. Connie is one of those people who believes that any relationship can be mended, improved, and retained if the parties involved commit themselves to it and employ the right tactics to keep themselves on track. Long-distance relationships, challenging as they might be, are certainly, in his mind, no exception.
The key to maintaining a long-distance relationship, says Connie, is to focus on the aspects of it that actually work. When faced with the idea of spending so much time apart, couples are more likely to focus on the negative facets instead of the positive. In Connie’s mind, this approach is not only ineffective, it’s also quite easy. Clearly, there are drawbacks to carrying on a relationship in which you and your partner will see each other once a month if you’re lucky; but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t other aspects of the relationship to which you can both look forward.
Rather than harp on the negative, Connie suggests that you center your thoughts on the aspects of your long-distance relationship that can - and should - actually work. Those nightly phone calls, though not the same as face-to-face contact, will still give you and your partner a chance to catch up, reconnect, and express feelings of intimacy and love. And while receiving that morning text message or email won’t be the same as waking up in your partner’s arms, you’ll probably still get a warm, fuzzy feeling every time your phone buzzes with words from your mate. By focusing on the areas of your long-distance relationship that are positive in nature, you can increase your chances of riding out the separation wave and reuniting at a point in which your relationship is stronger than ever before.
Furthermore, if you’re faced with the notion of the long-distance relationship, then Connie suggests picturing a point in the future at which you and your partner are still together - even if you’re not yet residing in the same city - and asking yourselves how you got there. What steps did you both take to make the distance between you seem like less of a problem and more like an unfortunate circumstance? What sort of effort did you each make to ensure that your relationship didn’t suffer despite those multi-week stretches without seeing one another in person? By picturing yourself in a situation wherein your long-distance relationship did indeed work, you can backtrack by pledging to do the things that got you to the point you ultimately want to reach.
While there’s no denying the fact that long-distance relationships can be rather difficult and draining, the right attitude can make the difference between having yours work or fail. So if you’re truly intent on hanging onto the person with whom you can see yourself sharing a life, then a few hundred miles in between you both shouldn’t end up ruining an otherwise solid bond.
