Long-distance relationships often receive a lot of speculation about not being successful and being painful for all parties involved. However, I personally believe any relationship, given the right mindset and set of tools can be successful, even ones that involve long periods of separation.

I met my love on a cool fall afternoon, in a gym where I had never expected to find someone I'd love as much as I to her. She was outgoing and beautiful, and I felt I was shy and awkward. Over time, our love bloomed into something more beautiful than a sunset over the ocean on the most beautiful day of the year, and a time came in our relationship where we decided it was worth pursuing long term. With this in mind, we also came to face a truth that we had to consider and prepare for if we wanted our love to last: she would be leaving to join the Navy, and be gone for several months at a time.

At first, it was something we both had to come to terms with in our relationship, and establish that even though it would be extremely difficult and cause us both some hurt, that if we could survive that, our love was true and that nothing could keep us apart for the rest of eternity. These are some things I thought about and still continue to remember as her time of departure approaches.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder. There has always been different sayings along these lines, and anyone who has ever missed someone they love or loved knows this to be true. If you love something, let it go; if it comes back to you, it's yours forever. You don't know what you have until it's gone. Both of these sayings go hand in hand with the idea that once something you love and appreciate is gone from you, you learn to appreciate it more, and in ways you never imagined. Simple things that you used to take for granted become things you wish you would've wished had never left you, and this makes you appreciate it so much more once it comes back to you.

Find appreciation in everything, even the bad stuff. Every couple fights, it's a part of being in a relationship and finding what's different about you and the person you're with. Sometimes, you feel like you can't stand to be with the person, but when all is said and done and the smoke clears, you still stand with them at the end of the day and everything that stood between you becomes meaningless. You learn to find that if it wasn't for things like disagreements or pissing someone off, you wouldn't fully understand how much you mean to each other and what it means to work things out and have a feeling of growth. Once everything is taken away from you in the context of a long distance relationship, you miss everything about that person, including the fights.

Know that if the love is real, you're not alone. One thing about really feeling reciprocated love is knowing that if you hurt, they hurt and if they hurt, you can feel their pain and hurt too. Going into a long distance relationship brings about many fears, but the other person will most likely have the same fears as you; the best thing for both of you to do is to trust in each other and your relationship, and push those fears away because the more you help quell the fears of the other person, the more your fears will calm as well.

Don't let fear and doubt ruin something that's perfectly good. As I've said before, long-distance relationships can cause a lot of fears arise: What if we grow apart? What if they find someone else? What if they come back and things aren't the same? It's completely normal to feel these questions, but you cannot let that fear be what drives you apart. If you grow apart, then it was never meant to be because true love knows no distance. As for things not being the same when they return, the fact of the matter is they most likely won't. Time will have passed, and time changes all things. What's important is for you and your partner to be able to adapt and grow with this change, and still find what it is that keeps you together and keeps your love so strong from the beginning.

As we all know, everyone's relationship is different. People love each other in different ways, and no one person can tell someone else how to fix or keep their relationship. My hope with this article isn't to guide every long distance relationship to success, it is simply to give some insight as to what has calmed my mind and heart about the fears and worries and given me confidence about my own relationship. True love conquers all, including distance, and that is the best advice I could give anyone.