A Guide to Surviving a Long Distance Relationship

I'll admit I used to be the girl that always said "I will never be in a long-distance relationship. That's crazy." As a result of just putting those thoughts and comments out there, the universe heard me, laughed, and said "Her husband is going to be this guy from London she meets at a bar, on her last night of vacation in South Beach, before she goes home to New York." Every time I tell people the story of how we met, I can't help but think that it couldn't be crazier. Yes, it is in fact, crazy, yet very true. I survived a long-distance relationship and it is still going through its happy ending.

I'm not going to say it was easy because that is very far from the truth. Staying in a relationship with your long-distance love is not for the faint-hearted. I think in order to withstand the gravity of the situation, it really helps to be independent, open-minded, trustworthy, secure, optimistic, confident, and most willing to compromise. If you're not, then it definitely has the potential to grab hold of you and drive you mad. I know this because at times throughout the 3 1/2 years of long-distance-ness, I was proudly and happily the ideal long-distance relationship candidate, and at other times, was sadly and miserably the evil twin sister. All in all though, like any other relationship, if you love the person like no other, he or she knows you inside and out, lights you up like a Christmas tree, is your best friend, and the person you can't be (definitely in this case) with or without, then you just take the good with the bad and try your best to make it through alive.

That said, here are some other tips that will help you get through those never-ending days and long, lonely nights without your sweetheart.

1. When in a long-distance relationship, talk often, talk much.

Obviously, during the times apart, you won't have too many other options for staying connected, so yes, you want to talk often. In the beginning, it's easy. There's a spark, you're both new to each other, and can spend all the time in the world talking to and learning about each other. You discover similar interests, similar disinterests, favorite this, favorite that, and you're drawn more and more to this person. Then they're you're best friend and you know everything there is to know about them for the time being.

Once you get past this honeymoon stage, you usually know if you're willing to keep going, or not. When you come to this point, and you decide you want to keep going, then you need to keep talking. By that I mean, keep the person involved in your life. If they call and ask how your day was, it wasn't just "fine." Let them know what happened, who it happened with, how you felt about it, etc.

Both of your lives will be constantly changing. There are new jobs, new friends, new apartments, etc. You obviously can't always be there to meet all the new people or visit all the new places, but if you can communicate well enough to each other so that your counterpart can feel like they are there with you, then you've accomplished a big part of it. If you keep that up and stay involved with each others' lives, you'll be much more intimate in your long-distance relationship being oceans apart than most couples living together, struggling to keep their marriage in tact.

2. When in a long-distance relationship, keep your phone bill as low as possible.

Finances are another big factor of long-distance relationships. One great option is something called Skype (http://www.skype.com) which my hubby, being the technological geek that he is, discovered halfway through our relationship. This was a miracle as my phone bills were at times reaching $400-$500 a month! Skype is a tool that you can download for free onto your PC or mobile. If both of you have it, then you can audio talk, video talk, and instant message for free! Yes, I used the word free twice for two different things. Amazing huh? If only one of you has the tool, you can still call your sweetheart on their phone at rates much lower than standard, particularly so for international calls.

If however, neither of you have access to this tool, there are still always good old-fashioned calling cards. Use them, they make a huge difference! Here is a site I made use of all the time (http://www.callingcards.com/). It was always very easy to order, you received your pin number instantly, and the rates are lower than I had seen on other sites.

If you and your long-distance love are both somewhere in the country (lucky for you!) then make sure you have the national calling plan from your phone service provider. That way you are not charged any long-distance or roaming rates. Also, go for the highest minute plan because man oh man does it hurt when you are charged $.45 per minute for an extra 300 minutes or something (yes, it happened to me!) And you know that you will be spending a lot of time on the phone right?

3. When in a long-distance relationship, rack up the frequent flier miles.

My then long-distance boyfriend and I had very different methods for arranging our travel plans. Every time I was ready to schedule a flight, I would search the discounted travel sites. I particularly liked http://www.sidestep.com because it would search all of them for me at once (Expedia, Hotwire, Orbitz, Cheaptickets). I would then look for the cheapest ticket and book my flight. As a result, I must have flown with almost every airline out there. At the time it would be the best deal, but when you add them all up, it still turns out to be very expensive and I wasn't getting any free flights from anyone because I would have 3,000 miles with one airline, 3,000 miles with another, yet never enough with any one airline to get a free flight. How annoying!

My then long-distance boyfriend on the other hand, decided he loved Virgin Atlantic over all the other transatlantic flight airlines and flew with them every single time, even if the published fare was higher than what any other airline was offering. At the end of the day, when you added them all up, yes, still expensive, but maybe only slightly more expensive then what I spent, and on top of that, he got 4 or 5 free flights out of it. He is actually also planning on using miles he still has to get us both free round trip tickets to visit London this year. Can't complain about that.

4. When in a long-distance relationship, write love letters and send happy thoughts.

Even though in this day and age, we have so many cool means of communication with all of our latest technological gadgets (text messaging, instant messaging, email, video talk, etc.), it still doesn't beat the feeling of surprisingly getting something in the mail that isn't a bill or junk. You all know you love getting stuff in the mail. You couldn't wipe the smile off my face with a washcloth if I came home one day and found a package from him filled with all my favorite Cadbury chocolates and Sanctuary spa items from London. All because he knew I was having a bad week and needed some cheering up. Or getting a card or hand written letter explaining all the things he was thinking and feeling at that particular moment in time and wanted to share. Trust me, it keeps the long-distance romance alive. Plus, you get to keep a little shoebox filled with all your happy memories that one day you can go through and get nostalgic with. Priceless.

So pull out your pen and some stationary, start writing, and put together a little package of things you know your long-distance honey loves (a cd with your romantic playlists, a small album with pictures, maybe a stuffed animal if they're into that, favorite snacks, spa stuff, tickets to see their favorite sports team, anything you read that made you think of them, brochures of places you want to go to together, or hey, the best one, a plane ticket to come and visit you). Once everything is all set, head on down to the good old post office, to put some good old stamps on that, and send it off (just make sure to send it at least priority so that you can get a tracking number on that!) I've never had any problems with them, but if you don't trust them, then go with your good old FedEx or UPS.

5. When in a long-distance relationship, enjoy your time together.

I know this sounds pretty straightforward and self-explanatory, but unfortunately, when it comes to long-distance couples it hardly ever is. Oftentimes, when you visit each other it will be for a short, limited amount of time. If you're lucky, maybe 1 or 2 weeks, but probably more often, no longer than a weekend. This is how that weekend trip might play out:

Home: Yay! You're here, I'm so glad you made it.

Visiting: I missed you so much. I'm so happy to see you!

(hug, kiss, maybe get started on the you know what if it's been a long time)

Home: I have all these fun things planned for us. I made reservations for dinner at our favorite restaurant, got us tickets to a show, tomorrow we can go to the park, and then meet up with my friends for dinner and drinks.

Visiting: Honey, I'm really tired from the long flight and I had the craziest week at work, I would love to just take it easy this weekend.

Home: But this is the only chance we have to do any of this stuff together and we won't see each other for another 2 months!

One of two things has to happen here - someone has to give in. You are either staying home, or going out. If you stay home, you can a) enjoy your time together - maybe rent some funny movies, get popcorn, and snuggle up or, set up some romantic mood lighting, turn on some romantic music and have some fun. Bottom line, whatever you do, you can enjoy it.

OR b) you stay in and the home team sulks and complains about not getting to do what other "normal couples" get to do all the time, while the visiting team is sitting there listening and can't believe they flew all this way for this. Bottom line, if it continues on like that, the weekend sucks.

If you go out, you can a) enjoy your time together - order a bottle of wine at dinner, relax, talk about how you almost missed your flight but saw some good movies on the plane , laugh about the funny thing that happened on the way to the restaurant, etc. Bottom line, whatever you drink, whatever you eat, wherever you are, you can enjoy it.

OR b) you go out and the home team tries to carry on a happy conversation while the visiting team sulks and complains about being tired and how slow the waiter is and on top of that is annoyed and that they've been up since 5am and traveling for the last 8 hours. Bottom line, if it continues on like that, the weekend sucks.

I have been in both situations. The good, fun situation when I was the ideal long-distance relationship candidate, and the bad, not so fun situation when I was the evil twin sister.

Just because one of you is visiting the other, doesn't mean it needs to be a whirlwind of activities that is crammed into a short amount of time, just so you can have all these "experiences" together. Just being together is the experience in itself. See where the time takes you and have fun regardless of what you do together, just like "normal couples" do. I've noticed that planning things in advance is good, but plan them together so you both know what's in store for the weekend. If you want to surprise the other person with something, then plan something special for one night (but not the night they fly in!), and do not have a whole itinerary for every second of the entire trip.

Long-distance relationships are hard but they are not impossible, and they can have a happily ever after. My husband and I have been through it all. We met one random night, in one random place while we were both on vacation. We spent 3 1/2 years away from each other, getting to know one another, becoming best friends, drifted apart, then back together. We spent a year traveling together and lived in Australia and discovered that life really was amazing actually being together. We got married and have been exploring that whole journey together for the last 2 years. So it really can happen.

If you think you're alone, know that you are not. I often thought we were crazy for doing what we were doing and that we were the only two nutjobs crazy enough to do it. When we were in Australia, we met another long-distance couple. They found each other while vacationing in Europe. She was from Toronto, he was from Australia. Talk about long-distance! They were apart for a year and a half. It was amazing to have met them because we went through it all together. They are now married and living in Toronto. So it really can happen.

Sometimes long-distance relationships work, but the reality is that more often they do not. If you are in a long-distance relationship and are having doubts, reassess where you are in life, what you want, and how you want it. Maybe this person really is not right for you or maybe it just is not the right time for you. If that's true, then enduring a long-distance relationship is not worth it. But if you love the person and want to love them and want to be with them, then know that it can happen. I hope reading this has given you some inspiration and ideas on how to make your long-distance relationship work. Best of luck!

Source: Personal experience