LDR, or long distance relationships, tend to have a negative stigma, but not without reason. There is often a physical disconnect, ample of opportunities for miscommunication or betrayals, one of you have to decide who is willing to uproot their life to move, and sometimes even language barriers. Personally I was in the camp of that I would never get into a LDR, let alone with someone who is technically in a different country, but life has a funny way of surprising you. My fiancé is a born and raised New Yorker, and I’m a born and raised Richmond-er (?), and our meeting was definitely nothing but a stroke of luck. And even then, the likely chance of us getting together was very low, mostly due to our concerns of misreading each other’s feelings and attachments to each other. Regardless of the odds, we managed to push through those anxieties and are happily engaged with plans to tie the knot in 2025, fingers crossed. But how did we avoid being part of the 42% of couples that fail a LDR? Admittedly a lot of it come down to each individual’s character, personality, and needs, but these are some of the things we do to stay connected.
Enjoying the things the other loves
It would be an understatement to say that my fiancé is a massive nerd. I can’t count the amount of times he goes on about his favorite childhood series and games. He loves explaining things at length and sharing his excitement with me when the latest movies or games come out. One series that he particularly loves is Monster Hunter. He has played all of the western releases since they were first introduced to the markets. He had also successfully converted many of his friends into the fandom, and would often buy multiple of the same game on different platforms just so he could play with all of his different friend groups.
As for me, I was interested in the game, but it was never my first pick to play with friends. For example I had a copy of Monster Hunter Worlds but probably played less than 15 or 20 hours on the game total. Since playing with my fiancé, he easily increased my play time to over 130 hours! And you can imagine he was also very pleasantly surprised to find out that I’m a better insect glaive main than one of his closest friends who has been playing the game far longer than I have. We even had the opportunity to visit a lot of Monster Hunter events while in Japan together as we happened to be traveling while the 25th anniversary festivities was happening back at the end of July.
On the other side of things, I have gotten him to watch whatever my media obsession is such as Brooklyn 99, Superstore, 90 day Fiancé, reddit podcasts, terrible Chinese web series, the list goes on. And you might think that he would be off doing his own thing while I was my shows, but more often then not he is actively reacting and paying closer attention to what ridiculous situation is happening on the screen than I am. We would even briefly how we’ve become an old married couple with all the junk we watch together.
Staying open, honest, but not hurtful
Being vulnerable to anyone would be difficult for anyone, but you should at least feel comfortable being open with your partner. Through my various past relationships I noticed that often people mistake “being honest” as being cruel and judging their significant other on what they like or what they enjoy. I’m not sure about you, but I never liked the phrase “I’m just being honest” for this reason. You are allowed to share your opinion, however making someone feel ashamed isn’t ok, though there are some exceptions to that, ie. if that person takes enjoyment hurting others themself.
I’ve had exs’ tell me that I’m fat, that my taste in fashion is terrible, that what I like to eat is weird (even though they would eat the food they made fun of me for), and the list goes on. This isn’t specifically a LDR issue, however when you are far apart from a significant other things can be lost in translation through text or through lack of physical interaction. Things almost feel scarier if you never met in person, and that was my personal experience when I first got together with my fiancé. I was terrified even just sharing a photo of myself to a then internet stranger. And it happened again when we video chatted for the first time. Once I got over those mental hurdles I was able to spill my guts out to my fiancé, and vice versa. I have probably been the most emotional I’ve ever been in a romantic relationship with him when I look back at my past relationships and for good reason.
Most importantly I feel safe giving him feedback of any kind, regardless if it is art related or if it is something emotionally related. I believe that because we often have an open dialog we don’t have the added anxiety of trying to navigate through a minefield. We’re honest but not hurtful and work together to make each other better and feel heard.
Find time for each other no matter what
Now this isn’t something that is easy for anyone, especially if you don’t work from home or if you have a lot of obligations that keep you away from communicating on the daily with your partner. For my fiancé and I we try to at least talk and see each other’s face once a day. I can honestly say that we have managed to do achieve this throughout a majority of our relationship, only missing out due to traveling overseas at different times. But even if we didn’t see each other everyday, early in our relationship we try to pre-plan having virtual date nights every Friday. We did this because we weren’t sure how often we would speak or what our social schedules would be like. But soon after we started we noticed that we didn’t really need a specific day to spend time with each other and everyday is like a mini date night. I think it’s really important to just find the time to bond or see each other as much as possible, even if you’re both just sitting around and doing nothing. Afterall it’s almost like you’re able to stimulate sitting in the same room as each other, even miles apart.
Love comes in all shapes and forms, and a lot of my points could be attributed to relationships that aren’t in LDR. I feel the most important thing you can do when in a LDR is to bridge the gap as much as possible, even if it is through imaginary or simulation like means. Of course this may not work for everyone, you will need someone who is fully on board with planning a future with you after all. I’m just extremely lucky to have met someone that is mature enough to work with me and most importantly wants to work with me. Though our final destination is still in the air, we’re excited to see where life takes us together.