Every relationship has its fair share of trials, rough patches, and obstacles to overcome. But being in a long distance relationship takes all of those challenges and multiplies them by at least a million.
My boyfriend is from New Hampshire, and goes to school in Keene. I go to school in Boston, but I’m from New Jersey. At our closest, we’re still nearly 100 miles apart – a distance that nearly triples when I’m back in Jersey for school breaks. We’re both so busy Monday-Friday that our only downtime to talk is after I get out of my co-op at five and after he’s done with classes at six. Between busy weekdays and his weekend shifts at work, we’re lucky to ever get to spend a full weekend together (since the only time we can see each other is the weekend).
Despite all of that, I still think being in a long distance relationship is great – though obviously not ideal. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible. And even though there are a ton of challenges long distance couples have to deal with, there are also a ton of great things about our type of relationship, too.
1. You appreciate the time you have together so much more
On one hand, it’s hard to have to be away from someone you care about so much. We don’t get to have dinner together every night, or visit each other at random times during the day to say hello, or even have face-to-face conversations during the week (because FaceTime doesn’t count). But not getting to experience all of that makes me appreciate the time that we do spend together so much more than I probably would if we saw each other for hours a day, every day. We’ve been together for almost a year, but have only ever had a handful of short-lived fights – partially because we don’t have much to fight about, but also because fighting would be a waste of the 48 or so hours that we get to spend together. When we get to spend time together on the weekends, we make the most of it and focus more on enjoying each other’s company than on having petty fights that could ruin that time together.
2. There’s a level of security in your relationship that a lot of others don’t have
While this one isn’t universally applicable (I’m sure there are plenty of people in close and long distance relationships who worry about what they’re partner is up to when they’re not around), it is definitely a benefit to this type of relationship. Being long distance with someone requires an extra level of trust in order for the relationship to last. If I was worried constantly about what my boyfriend was doing when he wasn’t answering the phone, I would probably never be able to sleep at night. But I don’t worry because we’re both two young adults with busy lives that have things to do that require us to put down our phone and focus. I trust him 110 percent, not only because he’s honest and kind and would never do anything behind my back, but because I need to if I want our relationship to work. The little green jealousy monster has to take a backseat because if we didn’t trust each other, the entire relationship would fall apart.
3. Communication is the foundation of your relationship
Obviously, physical attraction plays a huge factor in relationships. If my boyfriend and I didn't think that the other person was attractive, we wouldn’t have ever spoken in the first place. But because we met at the end of the spring semester, right before I was heading back home for the summer, our relationship started out with 90 percent of our interactions being through a screen. Because we see each other so infrequently, being able to communicate affection, or talk about big things like how we feel when we’re upset or angry with each other, is so important. We need to try harder to make sure that we have meaningful conversations (or even conversations in general) because we don’t physically occupy the same space every day and therefore, lose the taken for granted feeling of talk to someone because they’re there. If we didn’t put in the effort to make time to talk to each other, it would be easy to get swept up in all of the things we have to do and lose track of our conversations.
4. You both need to be completely committed
Because my boyfriend I live so far apart, the only effective way to get from point A to point B is to drive, and since he has a car, he’s always the one trekking down from New Hampshire to come pick me up form work on Fridays to spend the weekend in Boston, or sometimes turning right back around and bringing me up to Keene. Whenever I tell people how much driving he puts in for me, I always get the same response: “Wow, that’s so far. He must really love you.” And I couldn’t agree more. I’m sure that if he wasn’t 100 percent committed to the relationship and to seeing me when we both have the time, he wouldn’t bother sitting behind the wheel for two hours to come see me because it wouldn’t be worth it. As a couple who has to deal with the pains of being long distance, my boyfriend and I always say that we would rather be with each other and be far apart than not be together at all, which is something that I think is true in any successful long distance relationship.
5. You realize that if your relationship can survive the long distance, it can probably survive everything else
Being in a long distance relationship is no walk in the park, especially when we’re both in college. There have been plenty of times when we missed full weekends hanging out because we had made plans with friends we couldn’t back out of, or because he had to work and had no time to hang out, or because my sorority was having events that I couldn’t skip. It’s really easy to get discouraged in a long distance relationship, especially one where you see each other even less frequently than we do, but I think it’s weekends where we sometimes have to miss out on seeing each other that help make the relationship even stronger because they help me realize that it’s important to not take the weekends we go get to hang out for granted. Living far apart and having to make sure we dedicate time to see each other has helped our relationship grow in a million different ways.
Long distance doesn’t work for everybody. I don’t think I could even try to tally up the amount of “I miss you” messages that have been exchanged, but between all of the late-night phone calls, the weekend adventures, and the date nights we make sure we have at least every few weeks, that number doesn’t seem to matter so much. What really matters is the experiences we have together and the effort that we put into our relationship. There are a lot of negatives that come with being in a long distance relationship, but if you can work through them and realize that there are just as many great things that come with it, you can be just as happy with your significant other being across the room from you as you can be with them a state’s length away.
