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| Yes | 63% | 1525 votes | Total: 2439 votes | |
| No | 37% | 914 votes |
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Add to FavoritesCan long- distance love work ? Although there are challenges maintaining long- distance love it can work and be very special. Tenacity, trust and looking towards the future are a few of the ingredients needed for long-distance love to flourish and evolve into long term happy relationships.
My husband and I dated for two years while living four hundred miles apart before we were married. Steely determination and a firm belief in our relationship kept us together. The dynamics of families, careers and other commitments created huge challenges for us. But after our initial meeting we acknowledged that we wanted to pursue a relationship.We worked hard to overcome the obstacles of living so far away from each other. Both people have to be prepared to make a COMMITMENT otherwise the relationship will disintegrate quickly.
A total commitment is necessary for maintaining the health of a long- distance relationship and that can be done by taking your time to get to know the other person. You may meet someone who lives in another city when you are on vacation or on line and think he/she is the one you'd like to be with but in essence you don't really know them. Get to know that other person before you jump into a relationship that may be a mistake.Long- distance love runs the risk of being idealized and romanticized . Add some reality to the dream and your long-distance love may indeed still be the one.
COMMITMENT is definitely number one on the list. How committed are you ? Is this the person you want to spend your life with ? Can you remain committed by being totally faithful and honest with this other person ? Only you can answer these questions . Even one small doubt will create disharmony in a long distance relationship.
If you have concerns about the relationship COMMUNICATION is key to resolving questions. Without vocalizing what you are thinking the other person involved cannot read your mind. Not being able to see someone totally negates all the communication body language allows. If you want to sustain a long- distance relationship you should talk on the phone and not rely solely on email. Sometimes emailed thoughts, ideas and emotions are distorted and misunderstood,. A verbal CONVERSATION allows back and forth dialogue complete with emotional intonation and voice inflection. Set a time each day when you can talk on the phone. Some days will allow for longer conversations than others but when you know the phone is going to ring it is something for both of you to look forward to. Some of our best telephone conversations were very late at night into the small hours of the morning. We may have been sleepy the following day but the conversations were certainly worth it. We laughed a lot and spoke in depth about everything during these phone marathons.
Do try to EMAIL daily. At the very beginning of our relationship we spent lot of time emailing which created an easy ebb and flow of written conversation. Whenever we emailed we would always answer each other as soon as we could and did not let an email lag for a day or two. Long -distance communicating means keeping on top of each email as the other person will wonder why they have not heard from you. There may also be issues that you e-talk about that may be easier to digest and think about and then answer after consideration.I was amazed at how much ground we covered every day on many different subjects which further fueled our drive to go on line every day.
Make regular dates when you can travel to SEE each other. You can only do so much over the phone and email. Long distances are difficult to navigate especially when you cannot drive or take a train as air travel may be prohibitively expensive. Take turns traveling to see each other so that you both show a willingness to commit to a long- distance relationship. It may be easier for one to travel if there are children involved or differing financial situations. Take these into consideration and then sit with your calendars and mark down dates when you will see each other. Make plans to spend special days together such as Valentine's Day, birthdays and other special events that happen in your lives. Long- distance love needs that extra bit of attention.
Try to have an end GOAL. Is this long- distance relationship going to result in both of you living together in the same city ? Long- distance relationships cannot last forever so try to have a plan, whether it is a one year plan or a three year plan. Can one of you move easier than the other ? Are you prepared to pick up and re-locate ?Do your kids like him/her ? Lots and lots of questions and considerations are involved in this enormous move.
Long- distance love and relationships are viable and can result in very positive life altering changes. What is needed is communication, commitment, trust, honesty and a huge willingness to be flexible and open-minded.
Learn more about this author, Lisa Kates.
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No
It is an unfortunate fact that people move on. In this world of hyper-drive sensuality and just in time gratification, it is difficult to keep a vacuum cleaner running, much less a connection with another person. Add to this any amount of distance, and it is bound to fail.
A long distance relationship is simply two people leading their lives in two places. There is no coming home and talking about their day. There is no glass of wine in front of the fire or spirited game of Mario Kart. This can be done online or over the phone easily enough, but over time, things are missed. No cuddling. No holding hands. No eye contact or body language. Eventually every story isn't told. Every person or situation isn't mentioned. Separate places become separate lives. Lovers become friends at best, and strangers at worst.
Three things can happen to drive a wedge between two of the most well-meaning long distance lovers - lack of focus, a fleeting heart, or resentment. In most cases, it is a deadly combination of all three.
There are big, loud and flashy things going on around us every day. Careers, car payments, family crises, friendships - even a good book - can steal focus at any time. A day is filled with a million little explosions, some good and some bad. Multiply this scenario by two, and you have our distanced lovers. If they were in the same town, seeing each other would bring them back to base, recharge their batteries and refocus that energy on each other for a little while. Unfortunately, without the recharge, the batteries that power that relationship will die...usually slowly and sadly...dolling out what once was a lively tune in long, off-key and warbling tones until eventually one of the two turns it off.
New people inevitably come into the picture to accompany those big, loud and flashy things that keep stealing our focus. Our lovers, while dealing with their daily explosions, may accidentally connect with one of those new people. Attraction is a dangerous and unpredictable thing, and it can hit anyone at any time. Without the intimacy (or, let's face it, the watchful eyes) of a local relationship, it can be easy to move from "innocent lunch" to "guilty breakfast" in the blink of an eye (or the turn up of a pint). A fleeting heart in one lover can quickly lead to a breaking heart in the other. Granted, this can happen to a 30 year marriage...the odds are stacked higher when those batteries haven't been recharged in a while, though.
Our lovers have planned a meeting to bring the focus back to each other. Something explodes, and one lover has to cancel. Enter resentment. Resentment is a permanent fixture of life - like oil changes and W-2s. Resentment in combination with understanding, intimacy, a good meal, long talks and that glass of wine in front of the fire, will ebb and flow, interweaving with everything else to form a pretty great, if somewhat messy, relationship. Resentment on its own, however, festers and slowly turns into suspicion, clinginess, and desperation - all of those ugly things that none of us want to admit exist in our psyches.
One of these scenarios can topple the most devoted of long distance lovers. Usually, however, a combination of all three is at the root of the demise. Lack of focus leads to accidental (or not) infidelity, which leads to resentment and suspicion, which leads to the break up. This can happen to anyone, but a great distance between two people very rarely ever helps the situation.
People have so much to do in this crazy world. Making time for each other tends to fall low on the priority list, so much so that a happily monogamous couple living under the same roof has about a 50% chance of survival. A long distance relationship - one in which two people are too far away to see one another every day - just cannot be sustained indefinitely.
Learn more about this author, Jennifer Lassiter.
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