Navigating a long distance relationship is notoriously difficult. While the logistics have become easier due to tools and support like never before, the emotional side of things can be even more difficult.
Once you’ve got the logistics down for communication, the next step is to make those conversations and interactions meaningful. In this piece we’ll review 10 specific tips for navigating a long distance relationship – 5 from an experienced couples therapist and 5 from a couple that survived it!
Long distance relationship advice from a couples therapist
Specific questions
Ask specific questions about each other’s days. When we don’t leave questions open-ended or specific enough, we tend to get the same answers over and over again. Work was boring. I ate pizza again for lunch… You get the picture. A great prompt to use to add some depth into your conversations is asking your partner their “high” and “low” of the day. This gives them the opportunity to share with you the things that made them happy today as well as things that they might be concerned about or are causing stress. In a relationship it’s key that we know both pieces of information so we can be an attentive partner.
Date night
Go on virtual dates! Technology is definitely our friend in this category. It’s totally possible to have meaningful dates when you aren’t right next to one another. Is there a movie you’re both dying to watch? You can start a Netflix party and stream the movie together at the exact same time! Another idea that is mostly screen free, is trying out a discussion deck like we have at Ours! We have many different topics that you can dig into like intimacy, mindful communication, family of origin exploration, etc. So grab some snacks, put your partner on facetime, and dig into a deck that seems interesting!
Difficult conversations
Talk through the hard stuff. This one can be really difficult because you might have very little time together, and you don’t want to put a negative spin on the quality time you do have. This is a crucial practice, however, because when your relationship is no longer long-distance, you are still going to have to navigate negative emotions and experiences as a couple. Ultimately, if you communicate mindfully with your partner, and reframe this time as an opportunity to work on emotion regulation independently, you will see many benefits down the road!
Friends and family
Stay connected to the people that matter to your partner too! Even if your partner is long-distance, it’s still important to keep in mind that they have friends and family that are important for you to develop relationships with, too. Invite their loved ones to zoom hangs, connect with them on social media, and make an effort to learn more about them through your partner. You can still develop important and meaningful relationships with their loved ones if you haven’t met them in person yet.
Planning
Plan for when you do see each other in person again. It can be hard when you have a longer period of time away from your partner, physically. It’s easy to get stuck in a negative headspace when you think about how much you miss your partner. But, on the flip side, it creates an opportunity to also think about what things you can do when you are together again (and more time to plan!). Getting excited about fun plans definitely helps the time pass a little more quickly, and gives you the shared experience of making plans and researching things together.
Long distance relationship advice from a couple
Stream of consciousness
You simply cannot share too much! One of the biggest challenges of long distance relationships is losing touch with your partner’s context. It’s the stereotypical “I feel like I don’t know you anymore” response. We found that sharing lots and lots of updates – no matter how minor and with no expectation of a response – helped us stay close.
Beginnings for every ending
We quickly realized that not knowing when we’d see other again put unneeded pressure and stress on the relationship. So we built a ritual of using some of our time together to plan and lock-in the dates and details of our next visit.
Medium agnostic
We tried at first to use just one tool – Skype – to make it simpler for us to communicate and have it all in one place. However, we found that letting our mood and needs drive the medium and tool we used was much better. Sometimes we needed to see each other’s faces and other times we’d need to go on a walk while catching up – don’t become too committed to one tool!
Surprise, tiny gifts
There can be a lot of pressure to come up with mind blowing, rom-com level gifts for your partner. We recommend leaning the opposite way and focusing on tiny, random, frequent gifts instead. Things like a $2 hot wheels car sent over Amazon or a surprise handwritten card.
Help if you need it
Whether you do it proactively before there’s a problem or in response to a specific challenge, it’s always wise to get outside, expert help like Ours’ modern premarital counseling and couples therapy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LAUREN MOLLICA, LMFT
Lauren Mollica is the Customer Care Manager for Couples and Therapists at Ours. She is the person who is here to answer any/all questions and help you step by step through platform onboarding. Lauren brings in a unique and important perspective, because alongside her vast experience in customer care, Lauren is also a licensed marriage and family therapist with 10+ years of clinical experience, a psychology professor, clinical content creator, and owns a podcasting production company. Lauren has also written for or been featured in publications for Aeroflow, Willow, Mentalyc, the Feed SBS, and Journey live.
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