Alex and I have been together for well over a year and a half, and we have never lived within walking distance. When we first met we were a twenty minute train ride away, then I moved to stay with my parents for a few months, pushing that distance to an hour and a half, and then I left for York, moving five hours up the country to do a postgraduate degree.
I realise this sounds like I'm slowly edging further away hoping he'll get the hint, but I was accepted to study at York just before we met, so it was always a factor in our relationship, and it was a real moment of commitment when we decided that, after about five months, we were willing to stay together while I moved across the country for a year. I have since completed my degree and moved south again, and we are now separated by a measly seventy minute drive. Being so far away, both constricted by busy schedules and deadlines, hasn't been easy on us, but we've gotten through this last year with relatively little trouble, and never came close to breaking up. With that in mind I think we're both fairly well equipped to give a little advice, so Alex has helped me put together this little post, what a champ <3
TAKE OFF THE PRESSURE - For a year, Alex and I saw each other around once a month, and rarely for longer than a weekend together. That's a difficult way to experience a relationship, because it can be tempting to put pressure on those two or three days to be really magical and special and have all that lovely relationship-ness that we've missed while being apart. Occasionally, when Alex and I have been together, I've found myself dealing with negative thoughts and feelings because I worried that we weren't having enough fun, or being romantic enough. This wasn't a problem with the relationship, but it was a problem with my need to feel like the relationship was 100% perfect, when the reality is that no couple has endless fireworks and sunsets when they're together, and if you try to force that, you end up spending more time analysing and scrutinising the time you're spending together, and less time just enjoying it. Focus on experiencing, and being grateful for, the time you do get with your person, without trying to get it to match up to a standard created in your head. It will always fall short.
BALANCE COMMITMENT AND FLEXIBILITY - Alex and I always try to have a plan for when we'll next see each other before we say goodbye. This helps gives things a little structure, and gives us something to look forward to. We also try to video chat at least once a week, so that our relationship consists of voices and faces and not just a long string of texts in Whatsapp. It's very important to keep your relationship a priority, and demonstrate your commitment to your partner, buuut sometimes plans fall through. I once realised last minute that I'd double booked a weekend and couldn't back out, so we had to put off a visit for another fortnight, and Alex is sometimes too tired to Skype after a long day at work, and it gets rescheduled for the day after. People aren't perfect and life happens. During my undergraduate days I saw so many couples fall out horribly because their very strict EVERY WEDNESDAY AND FRIDAY AT 5PM OR ELSE Skype date routine got scuppered one time. It's all about both making the effort to consistently demonstrate your commitment to one another, while allowing small disappointments to be shock-absorbed into the natural human-ness of any relationship.
DON'T STOP YOUR LIFE TO WAIT FOR THEM - Allowing yourself to be swallowed up into a relationship is unhealthy at the best of times, but when you're long distance it's even worse. The sad reality is that relationships don't always last, and in an LDR this can come out of the blue and leave you very unmoored if you've been holding back for your partner. I had this brought home to me when I was younger, when my teenage relationship ending soon after I moved to university. Looking back it was the best thing that could have happened to me, but at the time it was a very painful experience. I wish that I had made the most of those first few weeks of university, because I hadn't made many friends or settled in well, so I had to deal with that difficult breakup largely on my own, in a place that didn't feel like home. Don't spend your time just waiting to be with your partner again, your relationship is so much stronger when both people are two individuals growing and learning organically, rather than living in a weird suspended animation. A relationship where two people make up 50% of a whole is never as good as two people who both bring 100% to the table, and don't rely on one another for happiness and purpose.
BE SURE IT'S WHAT YOU WANT - All relationships take work, but long distance relationships take a special kind of maintenance. It's a bit like having an unusual pet, maybe a lizard. It's entirely possible to care for and nurture your pet lizard, but it takes more energy and effort than keeping a gerbil ticking over, and so you have to think more carefully about whether it's right for the people involved. Alex and I had been together for about five months before we made the decision, and so we had a decent amount of time to decide that it was what we wanted, and that we had confidence in ourselves to go through with it. Turns out we were right, hooray! You don't have to be absolutely certain that things will work out, we certainly weren't, and some misgivings are totally normal, but it's important to consider whether the upkeep of your pet LDR is something you want in your life. There's no shame in deciding that you really value someone, but that long distance isn't something you want to manage, or that you don't think a relationship could realistically last through a period of distance. Going into a long distance relationship flippantly will just weigh on you, and if you aren't willing to make consistent effort for one another, someone is going to end up unhappy.
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Really good post
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