It’s much easier (but still crappy) if you know when you’ll stop being long distance. In my experience, longer-term LDRs without a specific plan to be together in person aren’t great.
Im in one atm.
Its hard. When you go through the ups and downs and life, and your partner isn’t there in person, it can hit really hard.
But i personally believe those in long-distance relationships experience a deeper kind of love, which is amazing. Because if distance cant get in the way, nothing will! And oh, the feeling when we’ll finally be able to live together…I think thats just unbeatable!
Spent a year disconnected from my boyfriend (now husband). What made it work for us was setting a routine. We said good morning each day, messaged each other throughout the day, and always talked about our day at the end before saying good night.
We planned Skype (yes, I’m that old!) date nights every Friday. We’d either order or make the same meal and watch the same movie.
It was all about still being connected to each other’s days.
My fiancé and I started long distance. We met in my hometown. I was living 6 hours away. What honestly really made our relationship work was that I already had a plan to move back to the area. So knowing that at some point in the immediate future we would be in the same city made long distance manageable. It also gave us something to look forward to. Lots of visiting each other and FaceTimes.
My ex and first relationship was a LDR. Not great and would not recommend a LDR as a first relationship unless you’ve been dating irl first. I was young and naive, lacked relationship exp, and he was 7 years older. I outgrew him mentally within a couple years and realised the only reason we got along was because he was stuck in the past and emotionally immature. Also never fall for the sunk cost fallacy!
My current relationship was also a LDR (after I said I’d never do one again lol) and it is a 180° from my ex. Made sure I never made the same wrong decisions and mistakes again. Biggest one being meeting in person first before being official.
Irl chemistry is different from online chemistry. Sometimes it can be better, and sometimes it can really be worse!
This goes for every relationship, but get all those deal breakers out of the way and make sure you both have similar life end goals BEFORE deciding to start one. Ofc some things can always change after years, but that’s life…
Started long distance (across the ocean and 2 time zones) all thanks to Hinge. We did long distance for 6 months, then met at the airport when he picked me up.
The first time we met in person was awesome and I still feel butterflies. He had made me homemade gluten free Christmas cookies from his culture (I’m celiac).
We’re now married and I wouldn’t change anything about how we met and the long distance. It was really difficult but it helped knowing we weren’t long distance forever. Also, communicating clearly and setting clear expectations for our communication was extremely important in the long distance phase.
I was 13 and he was 14 and we lived in different regions but my best friend is her cousin. So we met at the graduation dance and kissed and danced the whole summer. My dad is a teacher and here in Chile the respect from the directors and owners are like shit, so in march when school starts, they fired him and we moved to another region, making us two further apart and we were so little we could handle it. He was into my cousin too and kissed another girl from his class while I was just being a child, a new girl in a new town. So it was so lonely I said goodbye, told my mom and cried until I got to dress in my school uniform that morning. I swear I never again cried for it, it was a relief for my little own self at the time. What made it work while it worked? True childish love, the first love. What made it not? He was following his dad cheating habits. I still am friends with my bff and of course I saw him a lot of times in the summer vacations, but he was vile with his girlfriends and kind of an asshole. So, maturity won, his lack of I mean. Because when we were together we were children, but at 28? Nah, I believe I was lucky.
My husband and I were both longtime members of a discussion forum, struck up a friendship in 2018, and the connection became… not so platonic haha… in 2020, early in the pandemic. I hadn’t ever expected anything to happen tbh, but I’d had a slowly-growing crush for a while by that point. Because of pandemic travel restrictions (he was in the UK, I’m in Canada) and his work and a few other factors, it was a while before we got to actually visit… but the day he walked through the door and we hugged for the first time was one of the best days of my life. After a number of visits over the next few years, he moved here last autumn and we got married in May.
What made it work was of course in part just the connection we had, but also lots of active effort to maintain good communication, spend time ‘together’ and be a part of each other’s daily lives from afar, honesty and openness, getting creative with ways to share sexual intimacy even when not physically in the same space, actively making plans for the future… basically just not being passive about the connection in any way.
My relationship with my ex-girlfriend was also largely long-distance and didn’t work out, although the distance wasn’t particularly the reason there. Too many other issues that made the connection unhealthy and it wouldn’t have worked even if we’d lived five minutes apart.
Just moved in with my wife after 7 and a half years of long-distance. We were exceptionally good at it because we’re great communicators with decent tech skills for navigating FaceTime snafus, etc. and we have also had a lot of phone sex over the years.
I did long distance for a year. Video calls, honesty, loyalty and making future plans really helped. It was tough and our trust was tested many times. The adjustments wasn’t easy either. Going from being with him whenever I wanted to barely catching each other because one of use was busy. But if you’re both honest and committed, it can work.
As a gamer I’ve had several different long distance relationships that varied a lot, and I married the last one. You have to make intimacy a focus, because you lose the pillow talk aspects of being with someone unless you make sure to fit it in. Honestly talking right before bed about nothing is great.
You need a plan for getting together eventually, even if it starts as a loose idea. With my husband we planned to move in together a year after our LDR started cause his lease would be up. Without a plan, your partner might have no stake in the relationship. I had that with one guy. He didn’t tell his family or friends about me and actively didn’t want me to move to his city cause “it’s expensive.” I dumped him when I realized it was going nowhere. If you can tell they’re just not that into you, it won’t get better. Cut the cord.
And then you need appropriate boundaries and a strong level of comfort with your partner. I dated a guy from another country, and it was great for two years. We had such good online chemistry, and we probably could have kept that up for several years if not for his extremely controlling behavior. He wanted me to be online 100% of my free time and was jealous of my COUSIN. He was so much worse in person.
I would say every time it failed was because of incompatibility rather than the long distance. Long distance sucks, but it’s very doable if you include each other in your day to day lives and do online activities together regularly. And meet irl whenever you can.
I got into one with someone I had known for years right before the pandemic. Then we couldn’t see each other in person because my country didn’t lift the travel ban until 2022. So we went through it all togther on Discord every morning and night. We went through highs, lows, severe diagnosed mental illness together. We went through at least two surgeries on my side. So by the time we were able to travel, we kind of knew the best and worst of each other.
We’ve had two big trips together and I’m closing the gap this year or at least that is the plan. I have been unfortunately diagnosed by my therapist as having CPTSD. >! I am in treatment because I went through years of being emotionally neglected by my parents as well as constant criticism, being invalidated and them trying to take my autonomy away regardless of being an adult !<and now that I’m in a safe place with being no contact all of the stuff is coming out of me and I am in treatment with both my therapist and psychiatrist as I had to get rediagnosed for ADHD for management of those symptoms
What made it work: communication, honestly and above all you both still have to have your own lives. Because I made the mistake of making him my only emotional support and he felt like he had to be mine and pulled away from a lot of his friends. Also he is having to learn how to be emotionally intelligent enough to have the hard conversations. We both are. And a lot of this is true whether your relationship is LDR or with someone locally.
I have found that being in an LDR comes with this weird pressure from sooooooo many people who aren’t in the relationship. And part of the reason for me going no contact with my parents was that my mother kept trying to insert herself into my relationship. I got everything under the sun from “your bf is going to cheat on you if you don’t immediately go and see him” (this was during lockdown btw) to “if you’re not going to get started on the visa you should just break up with him” and my persona fav “he’s going to have to sell his house”.
It is crazy the pressure people put on you the moment they know about an LDR like they think you can just immediately hop up and change everything or plan a visit. I was a broke person when this started and my situation has changed a lot and its very feasible for me to move to him since we are going to own his parents house and we have a cat. I guess my advice here is to have a timeline but be clear with people that their opinions have nothing to do with you and how you are moving forward.
I did 8 years of long distance (across countries and continents) We gave it everything we had to keep our relationship alive. Communication and trust were our foundation, but having a plan for the future was essential. Today, we’re married, and I fall more in love with this man and our relationship every day. It was tough, exhausting, and at times painful but it’s worth it when both people are truly committed.
Unfortunately, all of my long distance relationships didn’t work out. Even the long many years ones. We spent every day together, but I guess there weren’t any true efforts to meeting up and/or closing the gap, despite discussing about it lots. Sometimes fought hard about it. I don’t trust doing long distance anymore. I need someone by my side every day, to touch and hold close.
My relationship with my now husband started off long distance. I wont lie, it was tough. My husband was not keen on the long distance at all. He infact was very clear that he didnt want to get into unless we were in the same city. But we just fell into it and it became a relationship without any of us asking. We really tried to see each other for a week every 3-4 months – either at his place, mine or somewhere in between. We did this for three years before we got married, and it was the best decision of my life.
I think what makes it work is just the willingness of two people. There are no external factors involved, imo. If two people are committed and inclined to see things through, there’s nothing that comes in between.
I’ve done it a lot and what I found made it work is having a VERY strict rules.
At first I had a 2 year rule.
If we have not met irl by the time it hits 2 years, we break up. No exceptions.
I’ve said that to previous LDR’s and I dont know if they thought I would forget I said that or what, but it was clear they had no intentions of meeting soon and kept wanting to push it off and stay in fantasy lalaland-like no. We are not wasting my time.
So then I bumped it up to, “Until we’ve met irl, we are not boyfriend and girlfriend. We are not dating, you are just a stranger on my screen typing at me“.
And that’s how I finally met someone who was serious, and we’ve been together since. Have been on beautiful trips, has met my family, had great food together and I know when he talks about our future together, he’s actively taking steps to make it reality. When we talk about moving in together, we’re planning it out step by step seriously and not just daydreaming like past men have wasted my time doing.
You really have to filter hard for it to work out.
Lot of people like the comfort of living in a fantasy.
Very few have the drive and commitment to turn it into a reality.
I went off to college. It didn’t end up working out. We were both lesbians still in the closet so between the distance and the secrecy it was just too much stress. Even when I did go home for holidays it was super hard to get time alone together.
I’m in a medium distance relationship right now (about 2 hours away) but we go to different colleges and have opposite job schedules (I work weekdays and he works weekends). I would say one key thing is understanding that you guys are living two different lives and that it’s okay to be busy as long as you still can communicate effectively. Another thing, phone calls. Oh my god. A lot of words and things can be misinterpreted over texts so it’s good to touch base whenever you guys can. Fights. Should. Not. Be. Over. TEXT!
We made it work for about eight months until I realized I was spending more on plane tickets than rent. The financial stress was insane and we both started resenting having to choose between seeing each other and paying bills.
I’ve had my fair share of LDRs. My LDRs were online from Discord. They’re usually tough because your relationship is put on the pedestal, tested through many obstacles from life thrown at you. It’s testing your communication, trust, confidence with said person.
What worked: Communicating everyday, whether it’s video calls once a week or texting each other. Having a goal to meetup some day in person. Back when me and my ex were LDR dating, we met up in-person after 3 months of dating online. It was cute to finally meetup after talking online for a while.
What didn’t work: Having no plans of meeting up, whatsoever. I remembered dating a guy in my Undergrad and he called it off after a month because we were from different countries and had no plan to meetup. Another thing is finances. Finances are huge topic in relationships, and if you don’t have the money to meetup, it may not work. Long-term goals: make sure you both are aligned with the long term goal of the relationship. If there is no end goal of moving in together or the values are misaligned, then it won’t work. Relationships take work.
Once, I dated a guy from another state, but he cheated on me… It’s really hard all the goodbyes, and I’m not sure if you gonna see each other…
Lesson not learned lol cause I dated again another one from another state on my 30’s… much better lol after 6 months, we were living together, and now we’ve been together for 15 years.
Comments
It’s much easier (but still crappy) if you know when you’ll stop being long distance. In my experience, longer-term LDRs without a specific plan to be together in person aren’t great.
I married mine! Haha met him when we were 14 in a Pike.on chatroom, started dating at 17, married at 29 🙂 12 years and counting.
Loyalty and trust and visits during school breaks 🙂
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Im in one atm.
Its hard. When you go through the ups and downs and life, and your partner isn’t there in person, it can hit really hard.
But i personally believe those in long-distance relationships experience a deeper kind of love, which is amazing. Because if distance cant get in the way, nothing will! And oh, the feeling when we’ll finally be able to live together…I think thats just unbeatable!
Spent a year disconnected from my boyfriend (now husband). What made it work for us was setting a routine. We said good morning each day, messaged each other throughout the day, and always talked about our day at the end before saying good night.
We planned Skype (yes, I’m that old!) date nights every Friday. We’d either order or make the same meal and watch the same movie.
It was all about still being connected to each other’s days.
My fiancé and I started long distance. We met in my hometown. I was living 6 hours away. What honestly really made our relationship work was that I already had a plan to move back to the area. So knowing that at some point in the immediate future we would be in the same city made long distance manageable. It also gave us something to look forward to. Lots of visiting each other and FaceTimes.
My ex and first relationship was a LDR. Not great and would not recommend a LDR as a first relationship unless you’ve been dating irl first. I was young and naive, lacked relationship exp, and he was 7 years older. I outgrew him mentally within a couple years and realised the only reason we got along was because he was stuck in the past and emotionally immature. Also never fall for the sunk cost fallacy!
My current relationship was also a LDR (after I said I’d never do one again lol) and it is a 180° from my ex. Made sure I never made the same wrong decisions and mistakes again. Biggest one being meeting in person first before being official.
Irl chemistry is different from online chemistry. Sometimes it can be better, and sometimes it can really be worse!
This goes for every relationship, but get all those deal breakers out of the way and make sure you both have similar life end goals BEFORE deciding to start one. Ofc some things can always change after years, but that’s life…
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Started long distance (across the ocean and 2 time zones) all thanks to Hinge. We did long distance for 6 months, then met at the airport when he picked me up.
The first time we met in person was awesome and I still feel butterflies. He had made me homemade gluten free Christmas cookies from his culture (I’m celiac).
We’re now married and I wouldn’t change anything about how we met and the long distance. It was really difficult but it helped knowing we weren’t long distance forever. Also, communicating clearly and setting clear expectations for our communication was extremely important in the long distance phase.
I was 13 and he was 14 and we lived in different regions but my best friend is her cousin. So we met at the graduation dance and kissed and danced the whole summer. My dad is a teacher and here in Chile the respect from the directors and owners are like shit, so in march when school starts, they fired him and we moved to another region, making us two further apart and we were so little we could handle it. He was into my cousin too and kissed another girl from his class while I was just being a child, a new girl in a new town. So it was so lonely I said goodbye, told my mom and cried until I got to dress in my school uniform that morning. I swear I never again cried for it, it was a relief for my little own self at the time. What made it work while it worked? True childish love, the first love. What made it not? He was following his dad cheating habits. I still am friends with my bff and of course I saw him a lot of times in the summer vacations, but he was vile with his girlfriends and kind of an asshole. So, maturity won, his lack of I mean. Because when we were together we were children, but at 28? Nah, I believe I was lucky.
Every city should provide their own woman or man !
My husband and I were both longtime members of a discussion forum, struck up a friendship in 2018, and the connection became… not so platonic haha… in 2020, early in the pandemic. I hadn’t ever expected anything to happen tbh, but I’d had a slowly-growing crush for a while by that point. Because of pandemic travel restrictions (he was in the UK, I’m in Canada) and his work and a few other factors, it was a while before we got to actually visit… but the day he walked through the door and we hugged for the first time was one of the best days of my life. After a number of visits over the next few years, he moved here last autumn and we got married in May.
What made it work was of course in part just the connection we had, but also lots of active effort to maintain good communication, spend time ‘together’ and be a part of each other’s daily lives from afar, honesty and openness, getting creative with ways to share sexual intimacy even when not physically in the same space, actively making plans for the future… basically just not being passive about the connection in any way.
My relationship with my ex-girlfriend was also largely long-distance and didn’t work out, although the distance wasn’t particularly the reason there. Too many other issues that made the connection unhealthy and it wouldn’t have worked even if we’d lived five minutes apart.
Just moved in with my wife after 7 and a half years of long-distance. We were exceptionally good at it because we’re great communicators with decent tech skills for navigating FaceTime snafus, etc. and we have also had a lot of phone sex over the years.
I did long distance for a year. Video calls, honesty, loyalty and making future plans really helped. It was tough and our trust was tested many times. The adjustments wasn’t easy either. Going from being with him whenever I wanted to barely catching each other because one of use was busy. But if you’re both honest and committed, it can work.
long distance only works if there’s a clear end game and you both actually meet early on.
without that, you’re just dating a wifi signal and losing time.
As a gamer I’ve had several different long distance relationships that varied a lot, and I married the last one. You have to make intimacy a focus, because you lose the pillow talk aspects of being with someone unless you make sure to fit it in. Honestly talking right before bed about nothing is great.
You need a plan for getting together eventually, even if it starts as a loose idea. With my husband we planned to move in together a year after our LDR started cause his lease would be up. Without a plan, your partner might have no stake in the relationship. I had that with one guy. He didn’t tell his family or friends about me and actively didn’t want me to move to his city cause “it’s expensive.” I dumped him when I realized it was going nowhere. If you can tell they’re just not that into you, it won’t get better. Cut the cord.
And then you need appropriate boundaries and a strong level of comfort with your partner. I dated a guy from another country, and it was great for two years. We had such good online chemistry, and we probably could have kept that up for several years if not for his extremely controlling behavior. He wanted me to be online 100% of my free time and was jealous of my COUSIN. He was so much worse in person.
I would say every time it failed was because of incompatibility rather than the long distance. Long distance sucks, but it’s very doable if you include each other in your day to day lives and do online activities together regularly. And meet irl whenever you can.
Hi there. This is kind of long so AIA.
TW/CW: >!mental health and parental abuse.!<
I got into one with someone I had known for years right before the pandemic. Then we couldn’t see each other in person because my country didn’t lift the travel ban until 2022. So we went through it all togther on Discord every morning and night. We went through highs, lows, severe diagnosed mental illness together. We went through at least two surgeries on my side. So by the time we were able to travel, we kind of knew the best and worst of each other.
We’ve had two big trips together and I’m closing the gap this year or at least that is the plan. I have been unfortunately diagnosed by my therapist as having CPTSD. >! I am in treatment because I went through years of being emotionally neglected by my parents as well as constant criticism, being invalidated and them trying to take my autonomy away regardless of being an adult !<and now that I’m in a safe place with being no contact all of the stuff is coming out of me and I am in treatment with both my therapist and psychiatrist as I had to get rediagnosed for ADHD for management of those symptoms
What made it work: communication, honestly and above all you both still have to have your own lives. Because I made the mistake of making him my only emotional support and he felt like he had to be mine and pulled away from a lot of his friends. Also he is having to learn how to be emotionally intelligent enough to have the hard conversations. We both are. And a lot of this is true whether your relationship is LDR or with someone locally.
I have found that being in an LDR comes with this weird pressure from sooooooo many people who aren’t in the relationship. And part of the reason for me going no contact with my parents was that my mother kept trying to insert herself into my relationship. I got everything under the sun from “your bf is going to cheat on you if you don’t immediately go and see him” (this was during lockdown btw) to “if you’re not going to get started on the visa you should just break up with him” and my persona fav “he’s going to have to sell his house”.
It is crazy the pressure people put on you the moment they know about an LDR like they think you can just immediately hop up and change everything or plan a visit. I was a broke person when this started and my situation has changed a lot and its very feasible for me to move to him since we are going to own his parents house and we have a cat. I guess my advice here is to have a timeline but be clear with people that their opinions have nothing to do with you and how you are moving forward.
Setting out a certain time to hang out (e.g. 9pm till 12am everyday). So there’s a routine of sorts :’) Also, having an “end” date to the LDR
I did 8 years of long distance (across countries and continents) We gave it everything we had to keep our relationship alive. Communication and trust were our foundation, but having a plan for the future was essential. Today, we’re married, and I fall more in love with this man and our relationship every day. It was tough, exhausting, and at times painful but it’s worth it when both people are truly committed.
I mean what are we considering long distance?
Unfortunately, all of my long distance relationships didn’t work out. Even the long many years ones. We spent every day together, but I guess there weren’t any true efforts to meeting up and/or closing the gap, despite discussing about it lots. Sometimes fought hard about it. I don’t trust doing long distance anymore. I need someone by my side every day, to touch and hold close.
My relationship with my now husband started off long distance. I wont lie, it was tough. My husband was not keen on the long distance at all. He infact was very clear that he didnt want to get into unless we were in the same city. But we just fell into it and it became a relationship without any of us asking. We really tried to see each other for a week every 3-4 months – either at his place, mine or somewhere in between. We did this for three years before we got married, and it was the best decision of my life.
I think what makes it work is just the willingness of two people. There are no external factors involved, imo. If two people are committed and inclined to see things through, there’s nothing that comes in between.
I’ve done it a lot and what I found made it work is having a VERY strict rules.
At first I had a 2 year rule.
If we have not met irl by the time it hits 2 years, we break up. No exceptions.
I’ve said that to previous LDR’s and I dont know if they thought I would forget I said that or what, but it was clear they had no intentions of meeting soon and kept wanting to push it off and stay in fantasy lalaland-like no. We are not wasting my time.
So then I bumped it up to, “Until we’ve met irl, we are not boyfriend and girlfriend. We are not dating, you are just a stranger on my screen typing at me“.
And that’s how I finally met someone who was serious, and we’ve been together since. Have been on beautiful trips, has met my family, had great food together and I know when he talks about our future together, he’s actively taking steps to make it reality. When we talk about moving in together, we’re planning it out step by step seriously and not just daydreaming like past men have wasted my time doing.
You really have to filter hard for it to work out.
Lot of people like the comfort of living in a fantasy.
Very few have the drive and commitment to turn it into a reality.
We started as LDR and are married now. Trust, communication and knowing what our goal was helped us through periods of living apart.
I went off to college. It didn’t end up working out. We were both lesbians still in the closet so between the distance and the secrecy it was just too much stress. Even when I did go home for holidays it was super hard to get time alone together.
Worked only when there was a plan to close the distance without it, it just felt like waiting, not loving
I’m in a medium distance relationship right now (about 2 hours away) but we go to different colleges and have opposite job schedules (I work weekdays and he works weekends). I would say one key thing is understanding that you guys are living two different lives and that it’s okay to be busy as long as you still can communicate effectively. Another thing, phone calls. Oh my god. A lot of words and things can be misinterpreted over texts so it’s good to touch base whenever you guys can. Fights. Should. Not. Be. Over. TEXT!
We made it work for about eight months until I realized I was spending more on plane tickets than rent. The financial stress was insane and we both started resenting having to choose between seeing each other and paying bills.
I’ve had my fair share of LDRs. My LDRs were online from Discord. They’re usually tough because your relationship is put on the pedestal, tested through many obstacles from life thrown at you. It’s testing your communication, trust, confidence with said person.
What worked: Communicating everyday, whether it’s video calls once a week or texting each other. Having a goal to meetup some day in person. Back when me and my ex were LDR dating, we met up in-person after 3 months of dating online. It was cute to finally meetup after talking online for a while.
What didn’t work: Having no plans of meeting up, whatsoever. I remembered dating a guy in my Undergrad and he called it off after a month because we were from different countries and had no plan to meetup. Another thing is finances. Finances are huge topic in relationships, and if you don’t have the money to meetup, it may not work. Long-term goals: make sure you both are aligned with the long term goal of the relationship. If there is no end goal of moving in together or the values are misaligned, then it won’t work. Relationships take work.
Once, I dated a guy from another state, but he cheated on me… It’s really hard all the goodbyes, and I’m not sure if you gonna see each other…
Lesson not learned lol cause I dated again another one from another state on my 30’s… much better lol after 6 months, we were living together, and now we’ve been together for 15 years.