How To Maintain A Long-distance Relationship?

When you’re in love, you feel so infatuated with your partner that you want to spend every single moment of your time with him. You want to learn about his past, talk about his likes and dislikes, and truly get to know him.

It doesn’t matter if your relationship is physical, long-distance, or strictly online. The truth is that a relationship of any kind floods your brain with love hormones and keeps you attached to your partner.

It does this for as long as:

1. Your relationship is fresh.
2. You (as well as your partner) are capable of maintaining the relationship.

If you can’t maintain it or you’re bad at maintaining it because you argue too much, for example, then your relationship will likely sooner than later crumble under its weight.

It won’t be able to survive character incompatibilities, caused by a lack of personal maturity and understanding of each other’s differences.

Believe it or not, but the reason why relationships fail so often is that couples aren’t capable of making personal changes before it’s too late. They usually don’t see nor feel the need to change, so they continue to behave as they always do and by doing so, put so much pressure on their relationship that they overburden it.

They unknowingly and unintentionally let their unmaintained relationship engulf them in a sphere of self-created negative energy and eventually, start feeling miserable with each other.

This is something that often befalls long-distance relationships as well.

Due to personality differences (different wants, needs, and understandings), long-distance couples encounter the same issues as physical couples. The only difference is that long-distance relationships also bring a set of long-distance challenges to the table.

These challenges occur when couples communicate through distance and due to a lack of physical contact (body language)—misunderstand and misperceive each other.

They take each other’s texts, calls, or behaviors the wrong way — oftentimes personally, and argue with each other when they should be doing their best to solve communication issues.

This, unfortunately, causes friction between the long-distance couple and (if not handled promptly and efficiently), makes the couple feel misunderstood and frustrated with each other.

In this post, we’ll talk about how to maintain a long-distance relationship. We’ll mention the pros and cons of and LDR and give you some useful long-distance relationship advice.

How to maintain a long distance relationship?

If you’re wondering, “How to maintain a long-distance relationship,” the best opening advice I can give you is to start with the person you can control the most. You.

Start by putting yourself under the microscope and analyze everything you could improve upon. Write down your negative traits, habits, and characteristics and talk to your partner about them.

Don’t worry that your partner will think less of you or gain power over you. That won’t happen because your partner will see that you’re trying to grow as a person.

He or she will acknowledge your efforts and as a result, be kind and honest with you.

Just do your best not to take your partner’s criticism personally. Instead of letting your insecurities get to you, listen to your partner intently and ask him or her to think of some additional shortcomings to add to the list.

This should leave you with at least a few short-term goals to work on.

Once you’ve finished putting everything down, your partner will then likely ask you about his or her flaws. (It’s important that your partner also shows an interest in improving as a person).

If your partner doesn’t know what his or her shortcomings are or doesn’t ask about them, ask your partner if he or she would like to hear how he or she can improve and contribute to the relationship.

When your partner agrees, tell your partner about the things that make you sad and frustrated at times and tell your partner how happy you’ll be if he or she worked on them for 30 minutes a day.

By giving your partner personal improvement instructions, you’ll essentially create a plan that will inspire your partner to want to be a better person. But unfortunately, a short-lived motivation boost probably won’t suffice.

Your partner likely won’t be as inspired to work on himself or herself as you will. He or she might remember the personal improvement plan for a day or two, but probably not for a month or long enough to make permanent changes.

This is why you’ll need to take the initiative and continue to inspire your partner to work on himself/herself. You’ll be able to do this by complimenting your partner for a job well done and by reminding your partner how happy you are now that he or she is making the relationship stronger.

Nothing, and I repeat, nothing will work better than rewarding your partner every day, multiple times a day by telling your partner what a great job he or she is doing with something that he or she needs to work on.

The truth is that people love compliments. When they feel good because of compliments and see that the person they value the most (their partner) is excited about something they did, chances are that they’ll do everything in their power to keep growing inward.

They’ll do it because it feels good to improve, to be praised, and to see their favorite person happy.

Another simple, yet slightly devious “trick” you can use to help your partner grow is reverse psychology. You can say, “I think you’re working really hard on this issue today. Why don’t you take a little break or there won’t be any work left for you to do tomorrow?”

It may not be the virtuous thing to say to your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife, but a strong compliment and a little push can deeply engrave your idea in your partner’s mind.

I say “your idea,” but it’s really an idea that concerns both of you.

10 tips on how to maintain a long-distance relationship

Now that we’ve discussed how to prevent a long-distance relationship from failing, let’s discuss how you can maintain it.

We’re starting with a very important, yet slightly controversial topic.

1)Make up for the lack of physical intimacy

Physical intimacy plays an important role in relationships as it helps couples bond with each other.

But, sadly, bonding really well is both a blessing and a curse at the same time.

We all know why it’s a blessing as we can feel how great it feels when we hug, kiss, or make love. We feel like we’re on top of the world. But the reason why it’s a curse is that couples in physical relationships quickly get to know each other intimately and notice each other’s flaws and weaknesses.

They meet each other’s shortcomings and learn what the person they’re dating is truly like.

The more time they spend with each other, the quicker they discover differences, shortcomings, issues, and incompatibilities that they need to accept, work on, and overcome.

This, unfortunately, happens to long-distance couples as well—only much later.

But there’s one obvious difference between LDR couples and physical couples. And that difference is that LDR couples aren’t forced to deal with their problems while they’re in the same room.

In contrast to physical couples, LDR couples have their own space to deal with the problems that arise. They’re miles or oftentimes even continents apart, which is why they can calmly deal with problems at the pace that they’re comfortable with.

They can also avoid many physical problems, such as not spending enough time together and not putting the cookie jar back to where it belongs. Such physical problems just don’t happen or affect long-distance couples very much.

But on the other hand, solving conflicts can also be a lot easier for physical couples if they’re mature and if they use physical intimacy to their advantage.

For example, couples can quickly mitigate misunderstandings if they read each other’s sincere facial expressions and intentions—and hug it out as soon as the problem occurs.

By expressing themselves physically, they can make each other feel loved and respected, and, therefore, solve problems quicker than LDR couples who rely on texts and the tone of their voices to solve conflicts.

This means that long-distance relationships have both pros and cons when it comes to handling the problems that occur because of physical closeness.

The pros are that they can avoid some arguments that arise from spending too much time together. They can also spend more time on their own, and as a result, bond better when they communicate or see each other after spending some time apart.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

The cons, on the other hand, are that LDR couples can’t hug their partners and show them how they feel about them during an argument/disagreement. Sometimes, (due to the distance and different communication styles), they end up hurting each other instead of making each other feel better.

Another disadvantage of a long-distance relationship is that long-distance couples are more prone to doubting their relationship’s authenticity. They sometimes ask themselves, “Is this relationship something I want? Is it real? Does my partner even understand me?”

Such self-doubts can cause couples to seek physical, emotional, and sexual gratification and reassurance from someone more available to them. Someone physically closer.

There’s simply no substitute for physical intimacy as physical intimacy is a yearning (a human sense) that nothing other than physical touch can fulfill. Among hearing, sight, smell, and taste, it’s one of the five human senses.

But if it’s so important, can true love really exist without it? Can love survive the distance and the problems that ensue from it?

First, I’d like to say that physical presence and intimacy strengthen trust in a relationship and enable couples to stay emotionally connected to each other.

It keeps them very close. Closer than emotional intimacy alone.

But since your relationship is partly or mainly long-distance, you obviously can’t share as much physical intimacy with your partner as physical relationship couples do. You share emotional intimacy.

And that’s completely fine!

Your relationship can be just as real and as strong as any physical relationship. It can be even stronger!

But there is something I’d like to point out.

Although physical intimacy isn’t needed for a long-distance relationship to work, it does, unfortunately, contribute to a couple’s happiness.

It makes couples feel more connected with each other, deeper in love, and more optimistic for the future.

That’s why you should take this invaluable long-distance relationship advice and make up for the lack of in-person bonding in other ways. In ways that let you bond nearly as well as if you were right there next to your partner.

A great way for you to do that is to:

• Flirt
• Engage in long-distance sexual activities
• Compliment your partner’s looks and voice
• Work on your physique and display results
• Take pictures and videos
• Send letters, gifts, or anything tangible

If you’re in a long-distance relationship, you need to maintain your long-distance relationship as if it was a physical relationship. You need to find ways to bond with your partner and stay close to him or her.

Doing so will maximize your emotional and sexual contentedness in a relationship and make your partner appreciate you more in return.

Here are a few tips on how to make your long-distance relationship feel more physical.

2)Spend time with your partner

Maintaining a long-distance relationship works the same way as maintaining a normal relationship. Just how you need to invest time and effort into a normal relationship, you also have to invest time and effort into your long-distance relationship.

How much maintenance and care it needs, depends on each couple.

But if you can’t spend at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted time with your partner every day, you probably shouldn’t be in a committed relationship, let alone in a long-distance relationship.

You should be focusing on yourself because you’re not ready to give your best to someone else.

Long-distance relationships are not to be taken lightly because they’re not any less important or less demanding than physical relationships. If anything, they require even more daily care and attention. They need it to make up for the lack of physical presence.

So if you want to know how to maintain a long-distance relationship, start by making time for your partner. Text, voice call, and video call your partner frequently—and show your partner that your long-distance relationship matters to you.

3)Don’t neglect your private lives

Although it’s very important to spend time with your long-distance partner, it’s also just as important that you have a life outside of the relationship.

If you make your life strictly about your long-distance partner, you could end up over-relying on your partner for personal happiness and smother him or her in the process.

In other words, you could become too demanding and scare your partner away.

This is why it’s very important that you and your partner live separate lives. You both need your own friends, hobbies, activities, goals, and ambitions that have nothing to do with each other.

If you’re each other’s everything (as many couples are), you could quickly become codependent on each other. This would bring you and your partner so close to each other that you’d lose your identities, try to merge them into a single identity, and expect each other to be people you’re not.

As you know, joining identities will not and can not ever happen because you’re both different people. So avoid raising expectations of each other by investing in your individual lives.

The more you invest in yourselves, the more healthy emotional distance you’ll create, and the happier you’ll be as a couple.

If you’re struggling with your long-distance relationship because you’re too emotionally dependent on your partner, I suggest that you think about your self-esteem.

Figure out if the way you perceive yourself is healthy and if you have enough going on in your life to share it with your partner.

4)Remind each other why you love each other

Another important activity you and your partner can do in order to contribute to the relationship is to remind each other why and how you fell in love in the first place.

By revisiting the experience that brought you together, you can remember how excited you felt back then, and in the process, relive that excitement.

This is how you can grow your love for each other and stay in love through good and bad.

I suggest that you give it a try sometimes.

5)Make plans for the future

Talking about the future makes maintaining a long-distance relationship much easier. The reason it makes it easier is that making plans, thinking about the future, and agreeing on common goals and ideas releases bonding chemicals in couples’ brains.

It makes them imagine coming together as a whole and enchances their love bond.

Couples who don’t talk about the future, on the other hand, are like ships without a rudder. They thoughtlessly sail about in an area without a precise destination and collide with approaching obstacles.

So if you’re trying to maintain a long-distance relationship with your boyfriend or girlfriend and you’re serious about it, I strongly suggest that you make plans with your partner.

Talk about seeing each other in the near future and discuss joining lives as a physical couple. At some point, your long-distance relationship needs to transform into a physical one.

6)Deal with disagreements swiftly and effectively

If your relationship is new, you likely won’t encounter any problems. You won’t consider them problems because you’ll be infatuated with your partner.

But when the infatuation runs off and you start thinking more rationally, you’ll start noticing various problems.

It’s important that you deal with those problems quickly before they turn into bigger problems. You can do that by approaching them thoughtfully.

You can say, “I may be wrong about this—and I often am. What do you think about this approach…?”

The kinder you suggest something which may hurt your partner, the smaller a chance that he or she will misperceive it and get offended by it. I encourage you to give it a try next time you’d like to convey your ideas, feelings, or differences of opinion.

Simply start by apologizing/saying you may be wrong—and your partner will see that you’re not handling the problem with ego.

And when you’ve solved the problem, make sure to leave it solved. There’s no point in digging up the past just because a part of you is still affected by it. Learn to let it go.

If you don’t let it go, you could make a problem bigger than it was when it first occurred.

Another piece of advice that will benefit your long-distance relationship disagreements is that you should never ignore your partner and make him or her suffer.

Don’t go to sleep without solving your differences either. If it’s late and there’s more to discuss, tell your partner that you love him or her and promise to continue the conversation the next day.

This is how emotionally mature couples handle difficult situations.

Anyway, here are a few tips on how to solve arguments and disagreements in a long-distance relationship:

• Listen intently and show interest. Don’t criticize, condemn, belittle, and disregard.
• Solve problems before they turn into multiple, bigger problems.
• Control your temper and set your ego aside.
• Let go of unrealistic expectations.
• Forgive each other.
• Tell/show your partner that you’re fighting for a common cause.
• Make time and minimize disturbances (noise, poor connection…)

7)Don’t doubt your partner and the quality of your relationship

If you’re in a long-distance relationship and you’re seeking advice on how to maintain a long-distance relationship, one of the most important tips I can give you is to never doubt your partner’s ability to make you happy.

If you doubt your partner, you could let your doubts, fears, or discontent change the way you feel toward your partner and develop negative associations toward him or her.

You could fall out of love.

That’s why the key to maintaining an LDR and staying happy as a couple is very straightforward. You and your partner need to learn to release built-up frustrations and view each other in a positive light.

This takes us to our next point.

8)Apologize (even if you believe you didn’t do anything wrong)

This point will require personal maturity, character, and a little bit of time to get used to. But it’s very important that you set your ego aside and apologize for hurting, worrying, or disappointing your partner.

It doesn’t matter if you didn’t cause the problem. If your partner is discontent, you have a bigger problem to worry about. Your partner’s happiness. Always keep that in mind so that you don’t lose sight of that which truly matters.

Provided that your partner is mature, your partner will immediately accept your apology and apologize for his or her wrongdoings.

This is how you’ll quickly avoid problems before they can grow and maintain a long-distance relationship better than most physical couples.

9)Control how you talk to other people

If you’re in a long-distance relationship and you don’t receive the physical benefits of a relationship (very often), you’ll likely at some point in the future meet people who can satisfy your emotional and sexual urges.

You’ll be given a chance to decide what to do with them.

If you’re a person with good moral values, self-awareness, and decent self-control, you probably have nothing to worry about. You know that cheating is wrong and unacceptable.

But if you don’t have a good understanding of right and wrong and you’re not very good at holding back your urges, then you may want to control how you talk to people and limit the kind of people you talk to.

You may want to stay away from them.

Especially from those people who don’t care that you’re in a long-distance relationship and only want what’s best for themselves.

Obviously, you should stay away from such people otherwise they could make you lose sight of your LDR partner. You can distance yourself from them by telling them that you’re already seeing someone and that they need to respect your relationship.

Upon saying that, say that your relationship with them can’t continue this way and that it’s time to part ways.

10)Don’t look for trouble and have fun

The point of being with a person you love is to relax and enjoy spending time with that person.

That’s why it’s very important that you continue to have fun with your partner through conversations and long-distance activities.

If you stop appreciating your partner and get distracted with your life, you could quickly take your partner for granted and realize that your partner isn’t a good romantic match for you.

To prevent that from happening, understand that the success of your relationship doesn’t depend on astrological signs or some mysterious force outside of your control.

The success of your long-distance relationship depends on your ability to maintain it.

As for your ability to you maintain a relationship, it depends on your lessons, experiences, and the work you’ve done on yourself up till this very moment.

If you’ve done a lot of work, your relationship will reflect it. But if you’ve done very little work and you’re still impulsively reacting to stressors, you’ll most likely make your long-distance relationship very difficult for you and your partner.

You’ll add unnecessary weight to the relationship and eventually either ask for a breakup or initiate it.

So instead of looking for issues in your relationship, focus on solving problems and enjoying spending time with your partner. Your life on this planet is very limited. Make sure not to waste it.

Did you learn how to maintain a long-distance relationship? Is there anything I left out? I’d like to hear what you think. Post your thoughts below this article.

Angelie

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.