How to make long distance last.
- Mar 4, 2020
- 7 min read
Updated: Mar 25, 2020
Actionable advice from someone with seven years of experience.
While listening to Tim Ferriss’ recent interview with Brené Brown, Ph.D., a renowned research professor in social work and 5-time New York Times bestselling author, she said something that truly shocked me.
“Oh, being married is the hardest thing I have ever done. Hands down the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Y’all hear me out there?”
Wait, really? I paused the podcast. The hardest thing? This coming from a CEO, a seasoned researcher with one of the most-streamed TED talks, and an iconic figure among Texan women (myself included).
For context, Brown has spent the past decade of her career studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness and shame. Topics that Brown herself states she “frickin’ hates” in her recent bestseller, “Daring Greatly”. Despite creating a career studying these often-unpleasant emotions, making her marriage withstand the trials, joys, and day-to-day demands of life have been her most difficult feat.
I felt an inexplicable sense of pride when I heard this. I wasn't the only one who didn't always feel like #couplegoals, and I was in good company.
I asked my husband, Iván, why he thinks I would feel so proud that Dr. Brown shared my belief that making a relationship work is, in fact, a lot of work.
“Maybe because anyone can be in a relationship, but not everyone is intentional about it the way you and I are,” he responded.
My story
The intentionality he referred to has deep roots. I met my husband when I was 18 years old. We were both working as seasonal employees at Cedar Point, an amusement park in
Sandusky, OH. What started as a camaraderie between coworkers quickly turned into a romantic relationship. The only catch was that he was from Ecuador and I was from the United States. At the end of the summer, we went our separate ways – he returned to Ecuador to finish his college education, and I returned to Michigan to start mine.
It was then that our seven-year-long commitment to a long-distance relationship started. It was challenging, and, to borrow from Brené Brown, probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Our story has a happy ending – Iván and I eventually moved to Austin, TX together, where we got married and have only spent days apart since.
I didn’t realize that the intricacies of a long-distance relationship last would be such an interesting topic to others. I recall frequently being asked by friends how I could stand the distance when they struggled with a two-hour drive to see their significant other at another school.
“I don’t know,” I would reply. “I guess when you want something to work, you just make it work.”
It’s the advice of someone who is still entrenched in a problem and can’t offer much guidance beyond platitudes to not give up. However, now that we are out of the proverbial woods and just celebrated our second year of marriage, I believe I have some useful insight for other long-distance couples, especially in this digital age where more people turn to the internet to find companionship – romantic or otherwise.
Have a goal and set an end date
I don’t know of any couples who have maintained a long-distance relationship indefinitely. Eventually, you need to establish a plan for who is moving where, when that will happen, and how you will support each other for that transition.
During the hard times, when you’re missing one another terribly, this shared goal will motivate you to work together in the same direction towards a future that includes one another. For us, we knew that we couldn’t be together until after I was done with undergrad and he was done with graduate school. However, once we accomplished these goals, we were set on being together within a year of graduation.
We also found ourselves having deep conversations early in the relationship. For instance, before we officially started dating, we established that neither of us wanted children – a life decision that might be a deal-breaker for some. Early on, my husband and I talked about money, religion, kids, professional aspirations, and anything else that might deter or confirm our longevity as a couple.
It's possible that through these conversations you'll discover you aren't as compatible as you hoped to be. That's okay. It is better to know at the beginning. It also protects you from the sunk cost fallacy, something that I believe long distance couples are especially susceptible to, wherein couples stay together longer than they should because they can't get over the time, money (plane tickets ain't cheap), and emotional investment they've "sunk" into their relationship.
Constant contact
One of the most common complaints I’ve heard from other long-distance couples is running out of things to talk about when they’re not together. The precious moments you get in-person are filled with plans to make the most out of your time, but when time is up and you’re apart again, text conversations sometimes turn to almost small talk-like pleasantries.
Interestingly, when I Googled “how to make long-distance last,” I found several articles with advice to not communicate too much – warning couples to not be too “sticky” “clingy” or “needy”. Granted, there shouldn’t be a huge variance in the amount of texts you send while away versus at home, but there is a difference between being needy and trying to virtually create a shared experience. We always greet each other “good morning” and “good night” every day (even if we were mad or annoyed with each other). On top of that, try to update your partner on your life and its happenings, however mundane some of the things may seem.
We also had standing “date nights” – 7 pm Skype calls on Thursdays and Sundays. This
ritual helped us maintain some normalcy and catch up during busy weeks when we didn’t have as much time to talk via text. I remember looking forward to these Skype calls (to this day the Skype ringtone puts butterflies in my stomach) and I found myself making mental notes of things I wanted to share with Ivan on our next date.
It’s about trust
Aside from “How have you been in a long-distance relationship for so long?” the second most frequently asked question I would receive was, “How can you trust him?”
If you cannot trust a person who says they are in a committed relationship to you, then you shouldn’t be with them. I think that principle stands irrespective of that person’s proximity to you.
That said, I realize this is an oversimplification of a very valid concern that will likely cross the minds of those in a long-distance relationship.
One thing that put my mind at ease was my husband’s friends and family’s acceptance and interest in me. When I went to Ecuador for the first time, I met so many of his friends, all of whom said, “Oh I feel like I know you already! We’ve heard so much about you!” Similarly, I would tell my friends and family about Ivan – when he was accepted into his graduate program, when he got an internship – all of which helped assuage the sadness I felt when we were apart and made others in my life more familiar with him.
Doing so flies in the face of the old out of sight, out of mind adage and makes you feel more integrated in the life of your significant other. I never once felt like a secret in my husband’s life, which set a strong foundation for trust.
Be Intentional
I’ll start and end this article on what I believe is the cornerstone of a successful long-distance relationship: intentionality. Committing to a relationship that spans a large amount of distance is like committing to run a marathon. You don’t just go out and run 26 miles one afternoon on a whim, and you don’t commit to an unconventional relationship with no plan to address its inevitable obstacles and hardships. We had to put a lot of effort into setting the foundation, working towards a goal, and building trust.
Like setting a common end goal for the relationship, be intentional about setting expectations for the time in-between. Once Ivan moved to Canada to complete his Master’s – only 3 hours away from where I was living in Michigan – we decided to take turns making the trip every other weekend to see each other. We kept this schedule up for almost five years amidst completing our academic and work priorities.
One of my favorite stories from that period reminds me of how we adapted and redesigned parts of our lives to better suit our situation.
About four years ago, I was a little sad because many of my friends were moving in with their significant others, many of whom were in relationships much shorter than mine. I made this observation to Ivan through a thinly-masked complaint remarking at the unfairness of the situation.
His response was to go out and make me copies of his apartment keys, clean out his guest room and put a workspace in it so I could work “from home” while I was with him on Fridays. Doing so made me feel like we were taking the same steps in our relationship as our peers, just tailored to our unique situation.
Final Thoughts
I’ll never forget the day our long-distance journey ended. It was New Year’s Eve, a holiday that’s symbolic of beginnings and endings, when Ivan made the cold, icy drive from Canada to Michigan for the last time. I will never forget the moment I greeted him at the front door of my apartment and said, “You’re back for good!” A seven-year-long chapter closed and a new one began.
I believe that this new chapter, marriage, partnership and togetherness, was strengthened by the times apart.
Inevitably, you will have to make concessions in your relationship – long-distance or otherwise. Time spent together might be limited, but your feelings for one another are not and, for the right person, it can be done and it’s totally worth it.
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