Long Distance Romance Tips
If you are a die-hard romantic, like me, and you’ve decided to give your long distance relationship a go then you’ll need to be proactive about staying connected in a meaningful way. Specifically, you’ll want to come up with a plan for building and nurturing a strong bond between the two of you. I’ve done a little research on the matter and here’s what I’ve come up with.
To give your long distance relationship every chance it deserves and ensure your success as a couple, I believe you must be diligent and creative to make up for the fact that you don’t get to see your partner on a daily basis. So, here are three success tips for you to implement.
- Do not isolate. Isolation allows insecurities about the relationship to creep in, which will covertly show up in your communication with your partner, which you do not want. You can mitigate this by staying connected to family and friends. I suggest that you build and maintain a supportive social network to surround yourself with. Ideally, your network should include plenty of people who love and adore you, and whom you can count on in those moments when you’re overwhelmed with loneliness for your partner. Trust me, loneliness is part of the package, there’s no way around it. You just have to learn to manage it. Staying connected to people you love is one way to do that.
- Effective communication is of paramount importance in any relationship, but more so in long distance relationships. So you must find various ways to communicate with your partner, which will help compensate for the fact that you do not get to share physical presence. Make use of text, email and cell phone. Surprise him by leaving a message for him on his voicemail when you know he can’t pick up. Cleverly timed text messages are an easy way to stay connected and it’s a good way to bring in the spontaneity missing in long distance romance. They don’t have to be long either. One-sentence messages can be even more profound and quite romantic. If one or both of you have a busy schedule, be proactive about connecting and make a phone date. And please don’t feel like you have to wait for your partner to initiate. If you feel the urge, reach out and touch him. It will make him feel special and that will go a long way toward building up a bank of warm, fuzzy feelings, which is what builds the bond when you’re long distance.
- Surprise him with your thoughtfulness. Find creative ways to let him know how you feel about him. Feeding the energy of romance with unexpected surprises is crucial when you can’t be there in person to display your affection. For example:
- Record a short video of yourself and upload to YouTube.com then email him the link to watch
- Send him flowers
- Create a music mix CD of your favorite playlist for him
- Make a scrapbook of photos from your life for him so he can get to know different sides of you
- Send him a telegram
- Send him an audio email
- Bake his favorite cookies and FedEx to him at work
(If you have some ideas to share, I’d love to hear about them.)
I do believe long distance relationships can work in spite of the lack of physical time together. As a matter of fact, I believe you can build a stronger foundation for a solid relationship because you become intimate in a non-physical way that being together physically at first would not allow you to do.
Do you need to be a die-hard romantic to make long distance work for you? Possibly. Who else would put up with the challenges? If you’ve met someone special, I say it’s worth a try. What are your experiences with this?
