How To Make A Long-Distance Relationship Work

Maintaining a loving and committed relationship when you live far away from your romantic partner might sound like an overwhelming challenge. While long-distance relationships may certainly come with difficulties, many people find ways to sustain a deep emotional connection even when they’re miles apart from their partner. If you’re in or about to be in a long-distance relationship, understanding common obstacles as well as potential advantages of this relationship could be helpful, as could reading the tips below for keeping your long-distance bond strong.

Long-distance relationships

It’s hard to deny that distance can add some unique challenges to a romantic relationship. A 2018 study suggests that couples involved in long-distance romantic relationships (defined as living an hour or more apart) were significantly more likely to break up than those residing in the same area. Research also suggests that about a third of couples in a long-distance relationship separate within three months of moving together to be in the same place.

Common obstacles

Why can these relationships be so difficult? Here are some of the main obstacles those in a long-distance relationship may face when trying to make the relationship work.

It can be tough to maintain steady communication when you aren’t able to spend much in-person time with your partner. Making time to connect can be tricky, especially if you’re in different cities, different time zones, have busy schedules, or have a living situation that makes getting quiet alone time for phone calls more difficult.

It could be, too, that one partner is naturally less inclined to be as communicative as the other. Service outages, dead batteries, or other technology issues can also decrease the quality of communication if they don’t cut it off completely. Plus, of course, even if you’re able to communicate frequently, you’re likely to still miss spending regular time together in person.

Another potential roadblock when you’re trying to make a long-distance relationship work is that you may have fewer friends in common. A common interpersonal network can provide emotional support for your relationship, potentially helping you feel more strongly tied to each other’s lives. When you’re far apart, it’s harder to build or keep up a mutual circle of friends. In addition, couples in long-distance relationships typically have fewer opportunities to engage in common activities, and studies suggest that spending leisure time together can be important for relationship satisfaction. 

The less time you spend in the same location, the fewer chances you’ll have to engage in physical intimacy with your partner. For couples who have a sexual component to their dynamic, sexual satisfaction may be linked to overall relationship satisfaction. That said, even nonsexual physical touch like hugging and cuddling can be vital to maintain a sense of closeness and affection in many relationships.

Worry and insecurity

Sometimes, the fear of potential relationship problems in long-distance relationships can be an issue on its own. Living far from the person you love might make certain kinds of fears seem more plausible. For instance, you may be more inclined to worry about infidelity with a long-distance relationship since you have little visibility into their day-to-day life. You might also fear that you’ll simply grow apart since the person you love is living in a distant place with their own separate life and social circle. Insecurities like these, if not adequately addressed or managed, can come to drive a wedge between partners over time. 

Potential advantages of long-distance relationships

Though long-distance relationships may have some built-in hurdles to overcome, they can also present some subtle advantages. 

The most common activity for couples who don’t live near each other is talking, whether through phone calls, video calls, or texts. This can result in a deeper relationship in some ways, and having such a strong established channel of communication can make it easier for the partners to address relationship conflict productively as it arises. Researchers in one study also suggest that couples who spend a larger proportion of their time together talking “reported greater satisfaction, perceived more positive qualities in their relationships, and experienced greater closeness.”

A common difficulty for those in relationships is the tendency to become enmeshed, sometimes leading them to neglect friendships outside the relationship and let go of individual hobbies. This can make some feel their individual identities weaken, and it can also decrease the number of available avenues for outside emotional support. This is rarely a challenge for those in a long-distance relationship, who have built-in time apart.

An increased sense of commitment

When every moment of contact with the person you love is an intentional choice that requires some planning, it may be easier to feel confident that you’re both dedicated to remaining together in the relationship. In contrast, partners who live together or automatically do everything as a couple may sometimes feel “trapped” or wonder if they’re simply staying in the relationship out of habit or convenience. 

How to make a long distance relationship work

For those wondering how to make a long-distance relationship work, it’s important to understand that, in many long-distance relationships, the most important factors for sustaining love are commitment and determination. In addition, the practical strategies below may make it easier to stay connected. 

6 Tips for success

1. Regularly talk on the phone or via video

Regularly incorporating voice or video calls may be a more effective way to feel connected, especially since you’ll be getting more exposure to your partner’s voice, emotional tone, and (sometimes) body language in these formats. 

Sticking to a regular communication schedule could help, too. For example, having a brief video chat before starting each day and before going to bed each night could help cultivate feelings of continuity and stability. When done effectively, this regularity could become a major strength of your relationship. Some older research even suggests that the focus on meaningful conversation in long-distance relationships can lead to greater-than-average trust and commitment in the relationship.

2. Stay in touch

Often, one of the biggest barriers to making a long-distance relationship work is the sense that both members are living totally separate lives. To combat this, you may want to make an effort to stay informed about even the more mundane details of your partner’s life. For instance, during your regular conversations, you might ask questions about coworkers, their work commute, each other’s friends, routines, their dinner, and so on.

You can offer updates about the same things in your own everyday life. You can even share photos of your day-to-day, or activities with other friends. At first, these details might seem too boring to mention, but talking them over regularly can actually be a valuable way to foster a sense of everyday intimacy and closeness and help you to be fully present with the other partner. 

3. Share the burden of visits

You’ll probably want to see the other person at least occasionally, but long-distance travel can be expensive, time-consuming, and exhausting. At some point, you will need to get on the same page with your partner about these relationship details. Finding an equitable way to split the cost of the next visit and manage the inconvenience of traveling to see each other can help prevent a buildup of resentment that could potentially threaten your relationship.

4. Learn how to make a long distance relationship work while maintaining sexual intimacy

If sex is a part of your relationship, you may need to find ways to maintain a sexual connection even while you’re far apart physically. This can look different for every relationship, but common methods to create more intimacy include:

• Flirty or sexual text messages
• Viewing/reading and then discussing the same erotic materials
• Sharing fantasies or engaging in sexual role-play during audio calls or video calls
• Simultaneous masturbation during phone calls or video chats

This may not be easy at first for couples who aren’t used to being sexual over digital media. Taking it slow, having patience with yourselves, and being ready to laugh together about any moments of awkwardness that you or your partner feel can help.

If you’ve agreed to have a nonmonogamous relationship with your long-distance partner, it’s usually wise to decide on the precise parameters beforehand to try and avoid miscommunications or hurt feelings. It can also help to regularly check in about how each person is feeling about the relationship over time to ensure that any conflicts can be dealt with swiftly.

5. Be “apart together”

Finding ways to share activities despite being far away can help preserve a sense of togetherness and help make long-distance relationships work. Technology can make this much easier since it allows you to set up digital “date nights” where you can spend time together even though you’re not in the same place. For instance, you could have a dinner date (cook and eat the same meal while video chatting), play an online game together, read the same book and have regular discussions, or watch the same movie at the same time while chatting on the phone.

6. Don’t place too much pressure on relationship visits

One of the tricky issues around long-distance relationships is that loading too many expectations onto your rare in-person visits can exhaust them. Not every get-together necessarily needs to be a highly memorable, activity-packed vacation. It’s OK to simply spend time being comfortable in each other’s presence and doing more routine “relationship activities,” such as cooking together, having a movie night, or going on long walks while you’re geographically close together.

Note also that some long-distance couples might be tempted to avoid discussing serious topics until they can see each other in person, which may not be advisable. This approach can place excessive emotional strain on your moments of togetherness. That means you may need to get used to having weighty conversations on the phone at least some of the time.

How therapy can help

The built-in challenges of loving someone from a distance may be easier to manage with help from a trained counselor. They can offer you a safe space to express your feelings, advice for managing challenges, and support during times of emotional turbulence or big decisions in the relationship.

Can online therapy help too?

It may be hard to meet with a therapist in person, though — especially if you have a busy schedule or live in an area where there aren’t many in-person providers. An increasing number of mental health professionals are now offering remote online services, which can be a more convenient way to get the support you may need. 

With a platform like BetterHelp, you can get matched with a licensed therapist in a matter of days and then meet with them virtually from anywhere you have an internet connection. Getting counseling via the internet is a relatively new format, but the practice is becoming increasingly common — and research indicates that it may work just as well as the traditional, in-person approach in many cases. For example, consider a 2021 study on the topic that suggests that virtual therapy is “no less efficacious” than in-person methods.