It’s crazy to think that Scott and I met almost a decade ago. I guess time flies when you’re traveling the world and having fun 🙂 While you’ve all been privy to a big part of our lives in the past few years, what most of you don’t know is that the first year and a half of our relationship was actually a long distance relationship! That’s right – our story started with long distance love and now we want to share our long distance relationship tips with you.
Bonus of a long distance relationship: playing “tourist” in your own town while you show your S.O. around the city!
Scott and I met in 2010 while we were both on vacation in Las Vegas. While we had a great time together and we could feel a chemistry from the start, Scott was living in Chicago while I was living in Los Angeles. That didn’t exactly make our relationship geographically desirable. But where there’s a strong love and will, there is always a way. So we decided to take a risk and give long distance love a try and boy, are we grateful that we decided to start a long distance relationship!
We’re not here to say that long distance is easy or even that it’s for everyone. But we are here to tell you that a successful long distance relationship is indeed possible. The initial months of a relationship are usually consumed with lust and physical touch, but when miles separate a couple, you have to get a little creative 🙂 In our year and a half of commuting from Los Angeles to Chicago, we tested a lot of successful methods of communication and connection despite the two thousand mile separation. Now, we want to share our long distance relationship tips with you!
Here are a few long distance relationship tips that we incorporated into our own long distance love story!
Communicate: Because you won’t have the luxury of physical touch and proximity, communication will be the foundation of your long distance relationship.
Set Expectations: Relationships require trust, communication, and respect. Set your expectations from the start and be open and honest with your wants and needs. Does one person want to see each other every other weekend while the other wants every weekend? Does one person’s job require that they travel a lot while the other doesn’t have the flexibility to travel? Discuss your options and expectations from the start. When we were in a long distance relationship, we would alternate traveling every other week. We decided that two weeks was the longest that we would want to go without seeing each other.
Discuss Goals: We knew that a long distance relationship was not sustainable forever and more importantly – we didn’t want to be apart that long! We made a game plan early on and decided that we needed to be in the same city. We were both open to moving so we started looking for jobs in our respective cities, as well as in the New Jersey/New York area where we both had offices.
Quality > Quantity: In order for a long distance relationship to succeed, it requires quality time over quantity of time. You don’t need to spend every waking moment together to have a successful relationship, but you should enjoy your time together, no matter how brief it is.
Prioritize Schedules: It’s important to communicate your schedules to one another. One person might be on a different time zone or work weird hours. Discuss how frequently you’d like to talk and/or times that generally work for you. Everyone’s schedule is different, but as long as you respect the other person’s wishes, you’ll be on the pathway to success.
Long distance relationships can work! Three years after we met, we married!
Date Nights: Date nights are essential in all relationships, but they can be very difficult when you’re in a long distance relationship. If you can’t physically be together, try to plan something from far away. We read the same books and watched the same movies from afar so that we could emulate date nights despite being in different cities. You could even plan a couples vacation together from afar!
Read Relationship Books: When we first started dating, Scott recommended that we read “The Five Languages of Love.” This book allowed us to learn about the other person’s “love language” so that we could effectively communicate our feelings to the other person despite the distance.
Use Technology to Your Advantage: With smartphones and FaceTime, there has never been a better time to be long distance. We used to send each other video messages in addition to texts and talking. We also regularly FaceTimed so that we could feel connected to one another. There is a lot that can be communicated via facial and body language vs. a text alone.
No matter what obstacle is in your way, you have all of the power and positive thinking to make a long distance relationship turn into a successful, long-term relationship. We encourage you to take risks, allow yourself to be vulnerable, and believe in miracles – you never know if Mr. or Mrs. right could be right around the corner (or across the country).
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