Despite living in the modern digital world, many people still believe that long-distance relationships aren’t always meant to work out. Your friends or parents might discourage you from it or, perhaps, remind you not to be too serious about it to avoid breaking your heart. For starters, long-distance relationships won’t be easy.
You won’t be able to do things that most short-distance couples do, such as walk around the park while holding hands, go to a movie theater together, or eat out at a restaurant. The extra distance you have in between can make many things unachievable, and, sometimes, feeling lonely and sad is unavoidable.
However, long-distance relationships also have their own beauty and surprises, which you may never feel on a short-distance one. If you’re new to a long-distance relationship, also known as LDR, you might need to read more about what it truly means for couples who are in this setup. The better you both understand what it is and how it works, the more you can come up with a plan to make your relationship last.
How To Make LDR Work?
LDR may be challenging, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to make it work. To keep your relationship and your love strong and alive, here are six tips to remember to make your faraway relationship work:
- Avoid Excessive Communication
While instant messages and video calls are a thing now, making a long-distance relationship work isn’t always about constant communication. Being excessively possessive and clingy could only hurt your relationship more. Some couples also assume that excessive communication is necessary to compensate for the extra distance.
But, the thing is, you don’t need to stay in touch 15 hours a day just to keep the relationship going. Otherwise, one or both of you may start feeling exhausted about the idea of constant communication. So, avoid spamming each other with messages and missed calls. Instead, communicate only at the right moments. After all, less is more.
- Communicate Creatively
While you don’t need to spam each other with messages, make sure your communication is active and frequent. This means you need to greet each other every day with ‘good morning’ or ‘good night’ as this will let them know that you’re still thinking of them. Moreover, keep each other up to date with your current happenings, even if some of these things are mundane. You could also video-call whenever possible as hearing each other’s voices and seeing each other’s faces could make you both feel like you’re in the right place.
It’s also best to think of ways to communicate creatively, such as sending each other short videos, audio clips, and sentimental pictures. You can even try dating photography, wherein you take pictures of yourself in a flattering way to keep your partner updated with how you look, especially if you’ve been in LDR for a year or more. Exerting all these efforts will make your partner feel loved and remembered.
- Avoid ‘Dangerous’ Situations
When in a long-distance relationship, the worst thing you could do is lie to your partner, especially with the little things. You see, when you’re in an LDR, you’re more prone to falling into traps and temptations, which could lead you to lie to your partner.
For instance, if you’re going drinking with your friends at night, you tend to lie about it to avoid fighting. Unfortunately, doing so will only make things worse once they find out. So, if you already know you’re about to do something that might displease your partner, there are only two things you could do. One is not to do it, or two, tell your partner about it in advance and reassure them.
Diving into these ‘dangerous’ situations could only make your partner become extra suspicious, upset, and worried, not only about you but with your relationship, since you’re putting them in a position that they can’t control. So, whatever you do, consider what your partner will feel, and always keep an eye on any dangerous situation or temptation.
- Make Time For Visits
Perhaps, the most anticipated part of long-distance relationships is the visits. After all those months (or years) of yearning and waiting to see your partner, you finally get to see each other again and do all the little things. These little things, like holding hands, kissing, and hugging, are all common for short-distance couples, yet these are special and intimate for couples in LDR.
Being able to hold hands or hug again after a long time of not seeing each other would feel like fireworks, confetti, and butterflies everywhere. So, make time for visits or, better yet, surprise them with your presence out of the blue, and make them feel appreciated and loved.
- Do Things Together
Despite being LDR, you can still do things together. For instance, you can play an online game, sing together on a video call, or watch a movie at the same time. Doing things together will make you feel close to each other despite the long distance in between.
- Give A Sentimental Gift
Giving your partner a sentimental LDR gift to hold on to while you’re both away can help you remember each other and keep the hope burning that you’ll be together again in the future. A memento can be anything like a couple keychain, a ring, a necklace pendant, a bottle of their favorite fragrance, or a collection of your couple videos. So, whenever you miss each other, especially if communication is still impossible, you can hold onto that gift and keep the love, trust, and hope for your relationship going.
Takeaway
Relationships require work, and much more if it’s a long-distance relationship. With these tips above, it’ll be more manageable for both of you to work on your relationship and keep the love last despite the distance.
