Long-distance relationships suck. I’ve never met anyone who said, “Yeah, my boyfriend/husband lives 14 hours away and it’s great!” On the contrary, everyone in a long-distance relationship ends up with that agonising feeling: that your heart is slowly being carved out of your chest by a butter knife and replaced with unsatisfactory video calls and long boring WhatsApp chats.
One of the things that kill long-distance relationships is the constant underlying uncertainty of everything. Those questions tend to dominate one’s thinking. Uncertainty will make you think, “Is this all worth it? Does s/he still feel the same way about me as s/he did before? Is s/he secretly meeting other girls without me knowing? Am I wasting myself with all of this? Maybe we’re horrible for each other and I don’t know it.
The longer you are apart, the more these uncertainties grow into legitimate existential crises.
That’s why when making any long-distance relationship work, it’s crucial to always have some date that you are both looking forward to. Usually, this will be the next time you are both able to see each other. But it can also be other major life moments applying for jobs in the other person’s city, looking at apartments where you could both be happy, or maybe a vacation together.
Also, when we’re apart from one another or have limited exposure to your partner, we tend to make all sorts of assumptions or judgments that are often either exaggerated or else completely wrong.
When stuck in a long-distance scenario, it’s important to maintain some scepticism of your own feelings. Remind yourself that you really don’t know what’s going on and the best thing you can do at any moment is to simply talk to your partner about what they’re feeling and about what you’re feeling.
A lot of long-distance couples create rules such as having a certain number of calls every day or talking every night at a certain time. Setting up rules will not only maintain your relationship but will also give the couple something to look forward to every day.
One thing the partners should remember is that a long-distance relationship cannot survive without hope. And for there to be hope, there must be some possibility that the two people involved will one day be together and achieve a Happily Ever After.
Without that shared vision, everything else will quickly begin to feel meaningless.
