I moved to the UK because I fell in love with a Brit. It’s a beautiful story with wonderful chapters. But there were struggles – struggles not added by us, but by the many, many kilometres that separated us. Funnily enough, before I found my partner for life, my first ever relationship was equally long-distance ^{(is two already a pattern?)}. Shorter, within my own country, but different and difficult and with similar and yet entirely different problems. And from those, I learned.

How does loving long-distance feel?

A long-distance relationship (that’s a long word, let’s shorten it to LDR for the rest of the text) is wild. It’s different to a “normal” one in so many ways – but the most dramatic and by far the most intense difference to me was how it’s shaped like a rollercoaster ride. If you’re together, it’s like being on a honeymoon. It’s made out of pure highs, adrenaline, so many emotions that were all saved up for these few days or weeks that you are together. Followed by massive lows once you have to separate again. It’s agonising. It hurts. Until the day you’re able to meet again.

My first LDR was when I still went to school; my last years before uni. As a teenager, everything was my first experience, so it made things even worse. But especially coupled with, in the late noughties, a lack of constant online availability, no free messenger services (SMS it was) and still having to rely on landline phones. That alone made things so much more difficult than it is today. With my current partner, I already had the maturity of an adult that went through a heartbreak before – and the current technology made things so much easier. But the longing, the desperation and fact of having to schedule your physical affection and needs still put the same strain on me.

How do you survive a LDR?

The most important thing for me was always to have an end in sight. To me, having a LDR could only ever be a temporary state, not something forever. And having this to look forward to, making plans on when it’d become a regular relationship, that’s what gave me a huge boost of not only energy, but safety. But you’ll have to get to that point. Being long-distance brings unique complications and challenges and here are the things I learned that helped me get through mine:

1. Communication is key. Communication is key in every relationship (it’s the most important thing for me), but it’s especially important to be able to rely on this if you can’t be physically with each other. You and your partner deserve the same affection and attention no matter where you currently are – so text them when you think about them, call them, do video chats. Don’t ever feel like you’re desperate in texting them again and again: they are your partner. Your best friend. Let them know that you want them to be part of your day.
2. Talk if something is wrong. This is such a big thing. So many things can be misunderstood and people, too quickly, assume things. Never, ever end a conversation in a fight or disagreement without talking it out right away; it’s a recipe for a disaster-soup that’ll burn so quickly you won’t even have the slightest chance to extinguish it. Don’t try to be on the high horse, either – you’ll hurt both of you. It doesn’t matter who was wrong. Call. Talk about it. Do not let things cook.
3. Be truthful and be straight-forward. If you feel something, say it. If you think something, say it. If you want your partner to notice something, say it. Don’t let them assume, just like you wouldn’t want to be left in the dark. That’s true for any relationship, but if you’re only means of contact is through text, calls or video chats, it’s even more so important to don’t, as we in Germany say, [um den heißen Brei herumreden]¹.
4. Live your life, let them live their life. This is something I learned from my first LDR as a teenager, where my entire day just circulated around getting a message from them. Waiting for the call in the evening. Forgetting my own hobbies, my friends, my interests. This will eat you up. And worse, it’ll affect your relationship, too. I quickly realised that I became jealous incredibly easy if my then partner was doing something. This is, trust me in this, very toxic and damaging.
5. Trust them. Trust is a massive cornerstone. And as said in the previous point, jealousy can creep in so quickly and destroy so much. Remember that they have a life without you, in fact, their everyday life is – just as is yours. They chose you for a reason, they love you, they are there for you as best they can, but for this to work, there needs to be trust.
6. Focus on the highs. I remember ruining the last 1-2 days before having to head home again, always, by being incredibly gloomy and concentrating on having to leave, not still having time. Enjoying the time that you have, recharging all your physical-affection-batteries and doing something you both like doing keeps your mind off it.
7. Listen to your instincts. On that note, do listen to your feeling. Arguably, a LDR is easier to be exploited – be that by emotional unavailability, betrayal, lack of boundaries or communication. If you and your partner don’t have a goal you work toward to, encounter incompatibilities or other red flags – act on it. The energy you have to put into a LDR can be so much higher than a regular one. Don’t put yourself through this if you aren’t treated well enough or see that your partner is putting in the same amount of effort that you do. If things are no longer aligned, end it.

At the end of the day, both of you want the same thing – each other. So make sure that you know what it is that your conditions are, what your love languages are, what the other needs and love – and provide exactly that. Work toward the goal of not being separated anymore, have a plan. And enjoy the time that you have together. You’ve got this.

[Picture by Aaron Burden – thank you!]

1. “Um den heißen Brei herumreden” – literally to ‘read around the hot porridge’. Our equivalent to beating around the bush. ↩︎