Guest Post: Tips To Strengthen Your Long Distance Relationship

Relationships of any kind take a lot of hard work and patience. Being able to do so face to face is a huge plus, a plus that’s absent in long distance relationships. Distance can complicate small matters and lead to unnecessary heartache. Here are 25 tips on how you can work to maintain a healthy long distance relationship.

1. Agree on the relationship parameters: Right at the onset, both of you should understand the nature of your relationship and how much you are willing to sacrifice for each other. Are you prepared to relocate to be near your partner? Is this a mutually exclusive relationship or are you allowed to date others?
2. Set up communication channels and timeframes: When you’re away from each other, calling at random times might be inconvenient. Again, if your call is not received properly, it’ll give rise to suspicions. To avoid all this, set up daily or weekly calls.
3. Share everything: Being away from each other, you miss a great part of the daily camaraderie. Make it a point to share as much as possible about your daily lives, the people you meet and the things you do. This allows the other to feel as much a part of your life as possible.
4. Enjoy things together: Watch a TV show or movie at the same time, with the phone on so you can share your opinions and thoughts. Come up with creative ideas to ‘do’ things together, the way you would if you were living in the same place.
5. See each other often: Web cams are a great way of seeing the person you love. Set up web conferences; do not dress up for the web cam. Be natural, just as you would be if you were next to that person.
6. E-mail each other: Share news, forward jokes and send each other greetings for every occasion via email. Make an effort to make your emails warm, loving and detailed, to show you care.
7. Send gifts to each other: You don’t need an occasion; just send small gifts, books or flowers whenever you are able. Make it spontaneous!
8. Set up reminders: Use good reminder software to set up reminders of important dates. Include your partner’s special days, your special days as a couple and birthdays of your partners’ friends. Always remember to commemorate special days.
9. Don’t forget friends: Send cards or gifts to your partner’s friends on their birthdays; this extra effort will not go unnoticed.
10. Pursue common interests: Take up similar hobbies, or attend similar events in your individual cities. You can compare notes later and enjoy the shared camaraderie.
11. Find creative ways to bond: Join an online forum together, follow each other Twitter, and take up an online course together – you can come up endless creative ideas to bond.
12. Give and take space: Don’t hog each other’s time to the exclusion of other things, just to make up for the distance.
13. Don’t control each other: If you are both interested in being in the relationship, you’ll stick it out. Don’t control who each other can talk to, where each other can go and so on.
14. Challenge each other: The distance between you can motivate you to do things you’ve put off. If you or your partner was planning to lose weight or learn cooking, you can challenge and motivate each other to do it before you meet next.
15. Discuss your future: Talk about where you’re going to live and what you’re going to do when you’re finally together in one place. Working towards a common goal will keep you motivated.
16. Visit each other: If you don’t live too far apart, try to visit each other as often as possible. Even the best long distance relationships will fail if you see each other only once a year.
17. Be consistent: Be consistent when it comes to your visits, frequency of communication and so on. Spending a solid hour chatting one day and ignoring your partner for the next three days won’t help your relationship grow.
18. Trust your partner: Allow each other the trust any healthy relationship needs; keep the jealousy, drama and obsessive possessiveness away. Remember, Everyone is trustworthy unless proven otherwise.
19. Stay positive: Even if your partner did not return a call or did not keep up a commitment, stay positive within. Even the best laid plans can go awry sometimes.
20. Focus on yourself: Focus on your needs, career objectives and hobbies for self growth and to keep from obsessing over your partner.
21. Share personal items: Keep something that belongs to each other to hold on to when thinking of each other.
22. Prioritize each other: Even if there are other pressing obligations in your lives, prioritize each other when it comes to emergencies, or urgent situations.
23. Write letters: Buy some expensive stationery, scented if possible, and pen long, romantic letters to each other. These are the ones you can store and read when you’re old, tied up in blue ribbon.

This post is by Marina Chernyak, a freelance writer and co-owner of an online wall clock store located at - 1001WallClocks.com.