"Is he/she worth waiting for?"

"Are they feeling the same way I do?"

"Am I kidding myself thinking this can work?"

"Would I be better off dating the mailman instead? At least he comes to my firm every day."

"Does my boyfriend even be or is this merely an elaborate Nigerian credit card scam?"

Long-distance relationships suck. I've never met anyone who said, "Yes, my boyfriend lives 14 hours away in Finland, it's great!" On the contrary, everyone I've met in a long-distance relationship ends up with that agonizing feeling: that your heart is slowly beingness carved out of your chest by a butter knife and replaced with unsatisfactory Skype calls and blinking chat windows.

I get it. I've been there.  All three of my significant relationships have involved long altitude in some fashion.

As a young man who was terrified of any sort of commitment, I found that I could only allow myself to fall for a girl if she was at least 500 miles away.ane The get-go time, we both genuinely tried to brand it work, only things fell apart spectacularly, more often than not because nosotros were both as well young and immature to handle the distance.

The second time, we both agreed that our lives were taking u.s. to dissimilar parts of the earth and nosotros were probably meliorate off letting it go—we then struggled to, y'all know, actually let go for another year, and it sucked.

The third fourth dimension, and mayhap because nosotros had both done this before, we immediately made plans to end the distance as soon equally possible (half-dozen months), so made the appropriate sacrifices to do so. And now we're married.

When it comes to surviving the altitude, here'due south what I've learned:

ane. Yous E'er NEED SOMETHING TO LOOK Forrard TO TOGETHER

One of the things that kill long-distance relationships is the abiding underlying doubtfulness of everything. Those questions up top can dominate one'southward thinking. Uncertainty volition make you think, "Is this all worth it?" "Does she still feel the same way about me as she did before?" "Is he secretly meeting other girls without me knowing?" "Am I kidding myself with all of this? Perhaps we're horrible for each other and I don't know it."

The longer you lot are apart, the more these uncertainties can abound into legitimate existential crises.

That's why when making whatever long-distance relationship work, it's crucial to always have some date that you are both looking forward to. Ordinarily, this will exist the next time you are both able to see each other. But information technology tin can also be other major life moments—applying for jobs in the other person'due south city, looking at apartments where you lot could both be happy, a vacation together, perhaps.

Woman staring out of window in a long distance relationship

The minute you stop having some milestone to look frontwards to, the harder information technology will exist to maintain the same enthusiasm for, and optimism in, each other.2One thing that is truthful near all relationships  is that if they're not growing, then they're dying. And growth is fifty-fifty more than crucial in a long-altitude relationship. There must be some goal that you're reaching for together. Y'all must accept some cause that unites you at all times. There has to be a converging trajectory on the horizon. Otherwise, you will inevitably drift apart.

2. BE SLOW TO Judge

A funny thing happens to humans psychologically when we're separated from 1 another: Nosotros're not able to see each other as we truly are.

When we're autonomously from one some other or take limited exposure to a person or event, we commencement to make all sorts of assumptions or judgments that are often either exaggerated or else completely incorrect.3

This tin manifest itself in diverse ways within a long-distance human relationship. In some cases, people get insanely jealous or irrationally possessive because they perceive every casual social outing equally potentially threatening to a relationship.4 "Who the fuck is Dan? Tell me who the fuck this Dan guy is, and why is he writing on your Facebook wall—oh, he'due south your stepbrother? I didn't know you had a stepbrother. Why didn't yous tell me you lot had a stepbrother? Are yous hiding something from me? OK, maybe I wasn't listening when you lot told me, simply I still don't desire you hanging out with Dan, got it?"

Jealous boyfriend in a long distance relationship screaming on the phone
Hyper-sensitive Jealous Boyfriend screams: "No! There is no fun without me."

In other cases, people become overly critical and neurotic to the indicate where every small matter that goes wrong is a potential end to the relationship. So the power goes out and their partner misses their nightly Skype call—this is it, the human relationship's over, he has finally forgotten about me.

Or, some go the opposite direction and start idealizing their partner as being perfect.five Later all, if your partner isn't in front of you all solar day every day, it's piece of cake to forget all of the little obnoxious parts of their personality that actually bother you. It feels skilful to imagine that there's this moving-picture show-perfect person for you out at that place—"the one"—and it's merely these damn logistical circumstances that are keeping you autonomously.

All of these irrational fantasies are unhelpful.half dozen "Absenteeism makes the centre grow fonder"—well, I'd edit that to say, "absence makes the heart fucking psychotic." Be wary. When stuck in a long-altitude scenario, information technology's important to maintain some skepticism of your own feelings. Remind yourself that y'all really don't know what'south going on and the best thing yous tin do at any moment is to just talk to your partner well-nigh what they're feeling and near what you're feeling.

3. Make Advice OPTIONAL

A lot of long-altitude couples create rules that they should accept X number of calls or that they need to talk every nighttime at a certain time. You tin can easily find manufactures online recommending this sort of behavior.

This approach may piece of work for some people, but I've always found that advice should happen organically. Y'all should talk to each other when you desire to, non considering y'all have to. And if that ways going a couple of days without communicating, so so be it. People get busy, after all. And periodically having a few days to yourself is actually pretty healthy.

Man on a tablet in a long distance relationship
It'due south OK, sometimes when Mr. Overalls merely wants to play Candy Crush. Let him.

Advice is apparently important in whatever relationship, just but more advice is non always what's all-time for the couple in a long-distance relationship, particularly when information technology's in a forced context.7

When you forcefulness communication, two things can happen: The kickoff is that when yous inevitably hit days that yous don't have much to talk well-nigh (or don't feel similar talking), you'll half-ass your human relationship and spend time with your partner not because yous want to just because y'all feel obligated. Welcome to every shitty wedlock ever.eight

This bromidic, filler-filled kind of advice oft creates more than issues than it solves. If your partner seems more than interested in his tax returns than communicable up with your solar day, chances are yous should merely hang up and try again tomorrow. In that location is such a thing as overexposure.

The second trouble that tin come up from forcing communication is that one or both people can brainstorm to resent feeling obligated to connect. This resentment then sparks stupid fights which about always devolve into some form of, "I'm sacrificing more than you are!" "No, I'm sacrificing more you are!" And playing the I-sacrificed-more-than-you game never solved anything.

The best way to avoid this mistake is to make all communication optional, meaning that both of you tin opt out at any fourth dimension. The trick is to non take these opt-outs personally when they happen—after all, your partner is not your slave. If they're having a busy calendar week or need some solitary fourth dimension, that'due south totally up to them to decide. Merely, you do demand to employ your partner's (and your) desire for communication equally a barometer for how the relationship is proceeding. If your partner spontaneously feels equally though she simply wants to talk a few times a week instead of a few times a twenty-four hour period, that is both the crusade AND the upshot of her feeling more distant. That is worth talking nigh and being honest about.

4. Brand SURE THE Distance IS TEMPORARY

A long-distance relationship cannot survive without hope. And for there to be promise, there must exist some possibility that the two people involved volition one day exist together and accomplish a Happily Ever Later onTM.

Without that shared vision of Happily Ever After, everything else volition quickly begin to feel meaningless.

Remember, love is non enough. You both demand to have life visions that are aligned, shared values, and mutual interests. If she's taking a ten-year contract working for the Singaporean regime, and he's dogsledding around the polar ice caps, well, then at that place's not much hope for that relationship, no matter how much the two people may love each other.

Not only must there be some shared vision of a possible futurity for yous together, only y'all both must besides feel as though you're working toward that vision. If he'south in Los Angeles and she's in New York, goose egg will kill the relationship faster than 1 person applying for jobs in London and the other applying in Hong Kong.

Plane flies over a sad man in a long distance relationship

In my second relationship, my girlfriend took a job working in Africa. Meanwhile, I toiled away in the US trying to get my commencement internet business off the footing. All promise for making it work was killed by circumstance and we soon broke up.

The woman to whom I'grand now married is Brazilian. Nosotros began dating while I was living in Brazil in 2012. I left later a few months and we kept in touch. Both of the states were battle-worn veterans of failed long-distance relationships, and one of our get-go conversations was that if we didn't feel that there was a possibility of united states living in the same urban center again within a year, then there was no point in keeping in touch.

This wasn't an easy conversation to have, but we had it because we both knew it was necessary if we were going to go along. Vi months later, I fabricated the delivery to move back down to Brazil and stay at that place with her until we could effigy out a long-term plan.

Long-distance relationships tin only piece of work if both partners put their money where their genitals are. OK, that sounded weird . . . but what I mean is that you take to make the logistical, life-rearranging commitment to 1 some other for it to have any chance of working. Paradoxically, you terminate upward with this weird dynamic where the long-distance relationship forces you to brand much more pregnant commitments to a person to whom you've had far less exposure than in a regular relationship. Information technology's like buying a car when you've only seen a picture show of it.

Is it worth it? This is the question I get virtually oftentimes from readers. On one level, yes, it'due south always worth it. Because even if the human relationship goes down in flames, you will have learned a lot about yourself, about intimacy, and about delivery.

On another level, it'due south difficult to tell. Because when you're stuck in a long-altitude relationship, yous don'treally know what it's like to appointment the other person—instead, yous only have this halfway, vague idea. Sure, you know something of their personality and their attractive qualities, but you don't know the full reality. You don't know each other'southward ticks, how she avoids eye contact when she'due south distressing, the mode he leaves a mess in the bathroom and then denies making it, how she's e'er late for important events, the way he makes excuses for his female parent's unacceptable behavior, her tendency to talk through movies, his trend to get hands offended at comments about his appearance.

You don't get a sense for theactual relationship until y'all're in it, in person, and in each other's faces non-stop, whether you desire to be or not.nine This is where truthful intimacy exists—right in that location in the constricted personal infinite betwixt 2 people who accept spent way, way, fashion too much fourth dimension effectually each other. This intimacy is sometimes not passionate, it's sometimes obnoxious, information technology's sometimes unpleasant. But information technology's upper-case letter-R Real. And it's that real intimacy which will decide if a relationship will final.

Distance prevents this constricted intimacy from e'er forming in a meaningful way. When two people are autonomously, it's also easy to idealize and romanticize each other. It's too easy to overlook the mundane, all the same important differences. It'southward too easy to get caught upwardly in the drama of our minds instead of the calm and boring truths of our hearts.

Can it piece of work? Aye, it tin can. Does it work? Usually, no. Only and so again, that's true for the vast bulk of relationships.x And information technology doesn't mean we shouldn't always at to the lowest degree attempt.