If you’re wondering how often you should text in a long-distance relationship, know that there is no specific number of times you should pick up a phone and text or call your partner.
Every long-distance couple has different wants, needs, perceptions, expectations, attachment styles, preferences, and goals, so don’t expect a magic number answer.
But even though every person is different, there is something all long-distance partners have (or rather, should have) in common. Something very important.
They should all text, call, or video call each other on a frequent basis and do their best to feel positive emotions while talking to their significant other. Doing so can help LDR couples stay on the same page and make them want to stay committed through good and bad.
If at any time during the long-distance relationship long-distance couples stop communicating for a day or two because they travel to a different country, for example, they don’t immediately fall out of love because of it. Instead, they know that they’ll start talking to each other again soon and that everything will go back to normal.
It’s the couples that don’t return to normal after a period of no communication that usually lose faith in each other and fall out of love. And that’s because such couples tend to push-pull relationship dynamics and experience so many inconsistencies in the relationship that they create doubt, anxiety, irritability and start to feel emotionally unfulfilled.
That’s when they become vulnerable to arguments and stressors and oftentimes even start to distance themselves from each other in order to protect themselves.
So if you want to know how often you should text in a long-distance relationship without neglecting or smothering your partner, the easiest way to go about it is to talk to your partner and compromise on how much attention you both prefer.
This will help you understand each other emotionally and allow the passion in the relationship to blossom.
Today’s article is for all you lovebirds who are in a committed long-distance relationship and are eager to make it work.
How often should you text in a long-distance relationship?
If you’re in a long-distance relationship and you’re wondering how frequently you should text your boyfriend or girlfriend, the best advice I can give you is to observe your partner’s communication style.
Look out for signs of interest or disinterest (discontent) and discern whether your partner is as interested in conversing with you as you are with him/her.
If he or she is, you have nothing to worry about. You won’t smother your LDR partner nor damage the relationship because the current texting frequency is just right.
But if you think that your partner doesn’t invest in the relationship as much as you do and/or is neglecting or avoiding you, then you may need to take a few steps back and re-evaluate your partner’s personality and interest in you.
You can do that by asking yourself the following questions.
1)Does my partner respond right away or does it take him or her hours to get back to me?
2)What is my partner’s texting behavior like? Is it communicative, open, positive, and optimistic?
3)Are my partner’s texts long? Do they answer all my questions/concerns and make me feel appreciated?
4)What about my partner’s interest in me? Does my partner ask about my life and give advice?
5)Do I sometimes expect too much from my partner? Especially when it comes to replying quickly?
These may be very basic questions, but they can be of great help if you think that your texting efforts aren’t being reciprocated and that you’re smothering your partner.
However, if you think you’re texting your partner too little, then you’ll have to take a different approach. You’ll have to look for signs of anger and discontent in your partner and talk to your partner about finding a healthy balance.
A great way to do this is to choose a good time and place to have this important conversation—and start by thanking your partner.
Say something like, “Thanks for agreeing to have this discussion with me. I know it’s been a troublesome matter for some time now, but I’m confident that we’ll find a solution that works for us both.”
Once you’ve said that, your partner will see that:
- Your intention is to fix problems, not cause them or make them worse.
- You’re in control of your emotions.
Once your partner sees that you’re not looking for issues and that you have the strength to handle the conversation, proceed by saying that you mean no offense but that you get very sad when your partner doesn’t text you or reply the way you’d like him or her to.
Say that you wish he or she would care about you as much as you care about him/her.
This should convey to your partner that your needs aren’t being met and that you want to feel secure and content in the relationship.
Upon conveying this to your boyfriend or girlfriend, don’t forget to mention that you know you’re asking for a lot but that in return, you’re prepared to compromise and also make a few healthy changes as well.
Say that you’ll lower your expectations, demand less from your partner, and become okay with certain things your partner says or does.
If your partner is a mature, sympathetic individual, he or she will agree to your terms and gladly work on improving himself/herself. Your emotional well-being will be that important to your partner.
But if your partner doesn’t care that his or her behavior affects you negatively, then, unfortunately, you only have two options.
You can either lower your expectations and be the person who makes most (if not all) the adjustments in the relationship or you can disband the long-distance relationship and find a person who is more open-minded or whose texting style is more like yours.
By texting style, I’m referring to the whole communication style and not just texting alone. Leaving someone just because he doesn’t use smileys would be absurd. ?
So how often should you text in a long-distance relationship?
The formula for texting in a long-distance relationship goes like this.
It doesn’t matter how much you text your LDR partner as long as you stay intimate and don’t smother your partner.
You must find a healthy balance between giving and taking (texting your partner and providing your partner with room to breathe) so that the relationship has two fundamental ingredients it needs to bloom.
Affection and space.
If you don’t provide your partner with these essentials (let’s say you refuse to give your partner space), you’ll deprive your partner of comfort and cause him or her to seek it in other ways.
If you’re not careful, you might even cause your partner to become resentful.
And that’s because too much texting or disrespecting a person’s needs in a relationship (whether the relationship is long-distance or physical) can be very destructive for couples.
It can prevent couples from living their lives independently and make them:
- take each other for granted
- fall out of love
- fall in love with people who make them happier and are more available to them
If you’re in a long-distance relationship with your partner and you have your life figured out (for the most part), you have nothing to worry about. You’re giving your partner plenty of space and won’t text your partner too much nor over-depend on him or her for happiness because your self-esteem is sufficient.
But if you’re texting your partner too much because not communicating with your partner makes you anxious, then you may want to figure out where your need for constant communication comes from.
Are you insecure and have low self-esteem—and you don’t trust your partner because of your upbringing or your previous partner/s?
Or have you been neglecting personal growth all this time and you don’t feel complete as a person yet?
Whatever the case may be, it’s of utmost importance that you seek immediate help and invest in yourself as well as in people outside of the relationship.
If you don’t do this quickly enough and continue to smother your long-distance boyfriend or girlfriend, chances are that your partner will react badly to your behavior.
Instead of being understanding and sympathetic, he or she could blame you for being too pushy, clingy, or needy and become angry with you. That’s when you’ll start to experience separation anxiety and feel an overwhelming desire for intimate connection.
So make sure you avoid over-texting your LDR partner by:
- understanding your partner’s needs
- improving your self-esteem and quality of life
- and lowering your texting expectations and perceptions of your partner
Here are a few tips for long-distance communication.
Is it necessary to text your long-distance partner frequently?
Frequent communication in a long-distance relationship is important, but it doesn’t mean that you need to communicate with your partner 12 hours a day and leave the calls on when you sleep.
You can do that if you’d like, but it’s not something your relationship needs to stay exist.
What your long-distance relationship needs is for both of you to be emotionally compatible. This means that you and your partner need to respect, love, and desire each other physically and emotionally.
You need to have similar (not the same) communication styles and perceptions, and of course, a similar wish to bond. If you’re not similar in regards to emotional needs, one of you is going to feel underappreciated and get hurt.
This person is most likely going to be the person who is more emotionally invested.
So once again, couples in long-distance relationships don’t need to text and call each other all the time, but they do need to make up for the lack of physical and sexual intimacy with emotional intimacy.
They need to do that through texts and calls or through any kind of long-distance communication that enables bonding.
Luckily, technology has made it much easier for long-distance couples to stay connected these days.
All they need is a communication device and a signal.
Do you need to talk every day in a long-distance relationship?
Believe it or not, but many people in long-distance relationships wonder if they “need” to talk to their partners every day.
If you’re one of those people, the real question you need to ask yourself is why wouldn’t you want to talk to your partner every day?
Do you not feel the desire, urge, or excitement to communicate with the person you’re with? Do you think that texting your LDR partner is a chore and that it takes too much of your time?
If that’s what you think, you may as well not be in a long-distance relationship (at least not with your current partner) because you don’t want to communicate on a daily basis.
For some reason, you want more alone time.
However, if the issue isn’t with your wish to text but rather with connectivity or telecommunication device, then not talking to your partner for a day or two a few times a month likely won’t damage the relationship.
It shouldn’t unless your partner is immature and doesn’t understand that you can’t always reply right away.
How to survive a long-distance relationship?
It may be difficult to imagine that your boyfriend or girlfriend who is geographically far away from you will want to stay committed to you, but the truth is that long-distance relationships are as real as physical relationships.
They provide couples with strong emotions of love and desirability just like physical relationships, but they also require something in return. That something is frequent, healthy, and loving communication.
In all fairness, communication is essential for all relationships, but in long-distance relationships, it’s especially important because couples don’t see each other very frequently.
Especially those who are thousands of kilometers away from each other. Such couples need to stay in love with regular communication.
How much daily communication long-distance couples need is specific to each couple. But generally speaking, if you can’t (or don’t want to) text a few times a day to tell your long-distance partner that you’re thinking about him or her, the relationship you’re in is probably not for you.
Given that texting is one the fastest ways to get in touch with your long-distance boyfriend or girlfriend, it shouldn’t be that hard to drop a message and make the effort to call every now and then.
So to answer the question if you need to talk to your long-distant partner every day, the answer is yes. You have to treat your long-distance relationship as an ordinary relationship and text your partner frequently.
How to text in a long-distance relationship?
It doesn’t matter so much how and when you text your long-distance boyfriend or girlfriend as long as your texts are positive and you’re understanding of your partner’s life.
For example, if your boyfriend is taking care of personal matters and you don’t know when he’ll be back, it’s crucial that you don’t send zillions of texts and demand immediate responses.
Doing so won’t help anyone. It will just make you look needy.
So don’t send texts that look like this:
- Where are you?
- Why aren’t you responding to me?
- I told you to text me!
- Helloooo???
- Why are you doing this to me?
Such messages fall under the insecure/demanding category and will make any person feel smothered and disrespected.
It’s much better that you keep your fears to yourself and give your partner the freedom to come back to you when he or she can.
If you feel anxious because you’ve been betrayed in the past, let me remind you that it’s your responsibility to fix your trust issues. You have to take care of them without projecting them onto your partner.
Another good piece of long-distance relationship advice is that you should always update your partner on what you’re doing and where you’re going.
It doesn’t matter if the activity you’re engaged in is unimportant.
What matters is that you share your experiences and emotions with your partner so that your partner trusts you and feels that he or she is a part of your life.
In conclusion, frequent texting will bring you emotionally close to your partner even if you’re miles away from him or her. As for infrequent, irregular, or unhealthy texting, it will cause issues and create emotional distance.
6 Ways to make your long-distance relationship interesting
Here are 6 things you and your LDR partner can do in a long-term relationship when you’re miles away from each other.
1)Involve each other
Keep in mind that you don’t need to talk to your partner about every single detail that happens to you. Your life is still yours to live. But do try to involve your partner as much as possible.
Do so by:
- updating your partner on your life
- asking him/her for advice and opinion
- planning the future with him/her
- expressing your emotions (but not overwhelming or refusing to listen)
2)Be playful and flirty
The best way to stay connected with someone who isn’t physically in the same city, country, or continent as you is to make use of modern technology and show your partner that you desire him or her.
You can do that by sending text, voice, or video messages and telling your partner what you like about him or her.
Don’t be afraid to flirt.
3)Exchange photos and videos
By sending photos and videos, you can instantaneously remind your partner that you’re excited to talk to him or her.
That’s why you should send photos on a regular basis and hopefully, receive a few in return.
4)Motivate each other
Mutual encouragement will allow you and your partner to lean on each other for support and help you tackle stressors better.
Make sure you also thank each other for the support you give and receive so that you remain grateful to have each other in your lives.
5)Send gifts and love letters
Sending gifts, letters, and items can also help the relationship flourish. And that’s because it can make it seem more tangible and give the two of you something to remember each other by.
6)Do fun things together and enjoy each other’s company
There are lots of things you can do to spice up your long-distance relationship.
You can:
- watch movies together
- read
- play games
- work
- video call and explore places
- and do anything that keeps you entertained
It’s true that long-distance relationships can be challenging at times due to misperceptions and miscommunications that are prone occur. But if two people truly love each other and are prepared to work on themselves, they can make their long-distance relationship extremely rewarding.
They can turn it into a relationship that is fun and not too hard to maintain.
Did you learn how often you should text in a long-distance relationship? Is there anything you’d like to add? Post your ideas in the comments section below.
I’m Angelie, a writer and a designer at Magnet of Success. Whether I’m writing compelling content or designing engaging pictures, I create content that resonates with our visitors and aids them on their self-improvement journey. I enjoy writing about relationship dynamics and the difficulties couples may face.
Great article for long distance relationship
Such a important article Angelie! I will save it so whenever I will need to read it again
Thank you