Long distance relationships are hard. Every stage of your long distance relationship will challenge you and your partner to re-think the way you two approach love and do the work to keep a relationship healthy.
When you haven’t seen your partner face-to-face or experienced physical intimacy with them for such a long time, it’s normal to feel uneasy. You may feel guilty for questioning the relationship or get angry that you’re living in two different cities.
Your feelings are a normal part of working in a nontraditional relationship. Luckily, you’re not in it alone. Here are 21 tips to help you through the stages of a long distance relationship.
This post is all about stages of a long distance relationship.
LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP TIPS:
1. Remember how you felt about them at first sight
Think about how you felt the first time you saw your partner. Ask yourself what you noticed and what attracted you or interested you about them during your first meeting. Recall the first time that you realized you loved your partner and how you were sure that’s what you were feeling.
These memories will probably make you sad because you remember being able to see your partner in real life and hug them and kiss them.
But, you’re also remembering what makes them and your relationship matter so much that you’re willing to not see them or touch them for so long.
Depending on how early you are in the early stages of long distance dating, this one might be particularly hard. Keep in mind that remembering your “why” is a huge part of mandating this kind of relationship.
2. Get your mind off of the physical distance
You can’t stop yourself from missing your long-distance partner and you really shouldn’t have to. It means that you love them and you value them in your life. But, that also doesn’t mean you have to always feel the pain.
When you notice yourself missing your partner or feeling sad that your partner isn’t with you, it’s important that you feel that. Notice where it is in your body and let your body feel the pain. If your chest is tight, let yourself feel that.
Or if your head starts to ache, let that happen too. While you should let yourself process these uncomfortable emotions, you don’t have to always feel them. That’s when you make phone calls to friends or family members and you go to the mall or arcade or movies.
3. Rely on emotional support within your city
Talk to the people in your life about your mental health and be open about the hard time you’re experiencing. They love you and want to be there for you, even if they can’t make the situation better.
Let them know that you love your long distance partner and you’re not asking for advice, but you would appreciate it if they listened and empathized. Try to get support from people you can see in person by going out to eat or walking around the city.
The more that you can talk to people who live around you, the more that you can get that physical connection from people other than your partner and maybe that will make the distance less painful.
4. Talk through your different schedules and find times to talk
Have an open and honest conversation about scheduling. While it’s not the most romantic of relationship tips, it’s just as meaningful as spontaneously jumping into a conversation with the partner living in the same house as you.
The time you spend planning out your talks, video chats, and dates proves how devoted you both are to your romantic relationship and how well you know that even true love can struggle in this type of relationship. So, let your partner know your availability.
Come up with rules about canceling or changing times before it happens to make sure you both feel loved and comfortable.
5. Always get to the core of the problem
When you’re upset, tell your partner. Your partner may not have the chance to look at your body language or hear the different sounds of your voice or pick up on you canceling a call.
It’s okay to not want to talk about it because we don’t always want to tell people that we’re angry if we’re feeling unappreciated or unseen.
But, the only way that you maintain a strong relationship with your partner is by choosing your relationship over the satisfaction of being angry. You can do some self-reflection before you bring your anger to the table, but make sure that you ultimately do bring it to the table.
6. Remember that it’s okay if the honeymoon stage ends
The love is still there even when you’re not obsessed with your partner anymore. Every stage of a relationship is healthy, but transitioning between them is difficult and scary when you don’t realize what’s going on.
Maybe you and your partner have been together for six months to a year and you’re noticing that you don’t feel the need to text them as much. Maybe you don’t get excited every time they text you now.
This is normal and it means that your relationship is reaching the more challenging part of your journey: you have to put effort into choosing each other. At this point, it gets a little harder because the emotions aren’t new and fun anymore since you’ve been experiencing love for so long with this person.
Now, you have to do the long-distance relationship work of loving the person because you value them and the relationship you’ve built together. The good news is that this means you two get to have new experiences and feel new things.
7. Do the partner work and build effective communication skills
Communication is the most important thing in every relationship, and it’s even more important in a long distance relationship. When you’re a long-distance couple, you can’t rely on all of the other indicators to read your partner’s mood or understand how they’re feeling.
That means you have to rely on them to communicate that to you. Honest communication is also important just to involve your partner in your life.
Let them in on your daily life and share details about your day with them, especially if there’s any fear of a lack of trust in the relationship. There are lots of other ways to build strong communication skills, but this is a great way to start.
8. Plan lots of virtual dates
Schedule times for you two to get together. Maybe you’ll play online games or video games or you’ll watch a movie together. Whatever you choose to do for your dates, set a goal of how often you want to do a virtual date.
Find the amount that makes you two feel connected without being overwhelmed. If you two aren’t sure where to start, try two date nights every month and see how that feels. Use this guide to plan some fun things that will make all of your dates feel like first dates all over again.
9. Plan a return trip to your partner
Figure out when you will visit your partner or your partner will visit you and book the plane ticket. This is the only way you get to see their smiling face in person and experience some physical contact.
Plus, it’s also the best way to work through the unique challenges that long-distance couples face. You get to focus on the next time you see your partner rather than how much you miss them, which can feel like the worst thing in the world.
Anytime you feel sad, you can pull up the details of the next trip to see each other and plan out more details.
10. Create care packages to send to your partner
Traveling is expensive no matter where you’re going, so think of alternative ways to make your partner feel loved right now. One good idea is to create a care package. You can include essential things like a love note, their favorite snack, and a cute stuffed animal.
But, you can also create a theme for your care package and get super creative. Maybe you’ll send them a Fall-themed package with a candle and sweater. Be thoughtful because this is the best way to love them without feeling sad that you can’t be near them.
11. Learn about your communication styles
You don’t have to be a relationship expert to figure out how you communicate. This can be a good time to learn about each other and enjoy a cute date.
By asking the right questions at the right time, you can learn about where you struggle to communicate and think about that ahead of time before it becomes a major issue.
Take a quiz and ask yourself if it feels right to you. The first step in developing a healthier relationship will always be to communicate, which is why this is such a great tip for long distance couples.
12. Talk about the level of trust you have with each other
It’s normal to be scared. You and your partner are in different places and maybe even different countries. So, as much as you may want to trust them, it’s normal to be scared about that level of vulnerability.
Avoid thinking about this in terms of red flags because it happens as you move through stages of long distance relationship struggles.
Instead of getting upset about a lack of trust, this means that you two get to communicate about your boundaries and how you can develop more trust in your relationship.
13. Feel your negative emotions and work through them
Let the emotions happen. Feel them, locate them in your body, and let yourself be uncomfortable because that’s the only way they’ll ever leave your body.
You may not stop missing your partner, but you may get to start changing that into a positive, loving experience.
No relationship coach will ever be able to help you stop feeling the pain of missing your person, but finding the right person to love may make it worth it to feel and work through.
14. Get excited about entering the final stage of your relationship
You’re doing the long distance relationship work and you’re feeling good about exploring different stages of a long-distance relationship if you’re doing it right.
Doing it right just means that you’re choosing to work on your relationship and make it feel good like it did when you were in the first stage. Maybe you two aren’t college students anymore.
But, now, you have a new depth to your love and relationship that your younger selves would never have understood. This next stage is where you focus on doing the self-work to be a better partner and communicating with your partner about what needs to improve in the relationship.
15. Discuss future plans and a possible end-date
The longer you two spend in a long-distance relationship, the more you’ll eventually reach the common stage of ending the long-distance part.
It may not happen for a while, but you two will be putting in the effort to strengthen your relationship for so long that it’s normal to no longer want to be an LDR couple.
Talk to your partner about when you can live together and where that might be. Discuss end dates and your future plans to make sure you two are on the same page.
16. Develop a daily routine outside of your partner
As good as you’ve gotten at online dating by seeing your partner through your phone all the time, it’s important to develop a routine for the long term. Make sure that you have time for yourself outside of texting or calling or planning.
Your relationship needs to be sustainable for it to last and that means you prioritizing yourself. Yes, your relationship matters and it takes work, but so do you and so does your relationship with yourself.
Figure out what brings you joy outside of work and your relationship, so you can nourish that and take care of yourself.
17. Focus on what you value in a healthy relationship
In such relationships as long-distance, it seems weird to even think about your relationship without that as the context. But, long-distance or not, you still need to think about what makes a relationship healthy and what you believe a healthy relationship should look like.
Even if yours is less conventional, you should still feel supported and loved enough to continuously make your relationship the healthiest and most fulfilling relationship for you and your partner.
18. Maintain a strong, deep emotional connection
Never stop talking about your emotions. If you stop feeling comfortable with sharing your emotions, that’s when you have a serious conversation with your partner and let them know.
This might mean your relationship needs to change or staying in it may not be the best decision anymore. When you lose your emotional connection, it’s one of the only significant problems that can break a long-distance couple because that’s what makes your relationship worth it.
You can connect with the person you love even if you can’t touch them. Work on your emotional connection and let your partner know that it matters to you.
19. Don’t forget to send a text message to them every now and then
In a relationship, long-distance or not, it’s all about the little things like good morning and good night texts. Let your partner know you’re thinking about them and send them a message.
Text messages can be pretty impersonal, but, if you’re using them as a way to connect with your partner outside of frequent calls, it’s a quick, meaningful way to show your partner that they’re on your mind. It doesn’t take much time and it can mean the world to them.
20. Keep your social media use to a minimum
Be mindful about how much you use social media. If you notice a bad feeling whenever you get off social media, that’s a sign to use it less. It’s especially harmful if you’re seeing someone have the best time when their partner and you don’t get to do that with yours.
It’s so easy to only see the best things on social media and compare that to your life. So, the next time you’re scrolling, keep in mind that you can just exit the app if you notice it hurting you.
21. Schedule video calls and stick to the schedule
In this day and age, it’s much easier to be long-distance than it used to be. You get to see your partner’s face just about any time. So, take advantage of video calling your partner and take the next step of scheduling calls.
Create a rule for yourselves that works for your schedules and your needs, whether that’s a call a day or three calls every week. Do what makes you two feel good and secure so that you’re always ready for whatever happens in the next stage of your relationship.
