Long Distance Relationship - How To Make It Work!

Distance means so little when someone means so much!

The best and most beautiful thing in the world cannot be seen or even touch. They must be felt with the heart.

I was asked by a friend recently on how I managed to cope with my long distance relationship (LDR). I couldn’t really give her a full detail of how I coped but I told her in a gist that a lot of effort and hard work were put into it. LDR can test the strength of even the most faithful relationship. It’s painful enough that you have to face the fact that you are far away from your partner and for most part, for a very long time too cause you just don’t know when you will see your partner in person. To keep the LDR passionate, loving and intimate along with some challenges can be ultimately rewarding because at the end of the day, you can return to your partner and relive the love you both have for each other.

In my circle of friends or rather ‘clique’ at one point in my life, I was the only one that was in LDR. Most people do not grasp the concept of LDR so it’s hard for them to relate to the things a person goes through with his or her LDR. I was one of the unlucky ones, in that most of my friends feel that LDR is just something that won’t work due to the distance and lack of physical intimacy (re: doesn’t necessarily means sex). Besides that, they keep bringing up the trust issue which is a valid point, come to think of it.

However, along the way I managed to get past all the discouragement from friends. My late mother was supportive along with my eldest brother. My other brothers didn’t seem to have any opinion on this ‘smile’ although they both have had their own experience (I guess that’s why!). To me, that’s what is important – family support and in the year before I got here, my best friend has been supportive all the way.

Now that I have a bit of time to kill, I thought I’d blog about my LDR. So how did I make my LDR work?

First of all, in the beginning of the friendship or get to know stage (whichever suits you) – I asked myself if this person is worth it for me to go all the way with LDR. I’m serious. It may sound harsh but the more you get to know one another, the more you’ll realise how important this is. LDR is hard work, I tell you. You have to put in a lot of time, effort and countless devotion into it. It’s important that you realise sooner rather than later how worthwhile is this person seeing that you have to devote a lot of your time, hard work, tears, money etc to someone that isn’t living in the same city, let alone country!

Communication is the key to LDR (actually, it’s the most important factor in all types of relationship). Constant communication, be it via sms, phone, chat, email and video call – is vital to make your LDR work. Those were the things we did to make it work. I can tell you now that it wasn’t smooth-sailing for us most of the time. We had our fair share of arguments about not making time to see each other on Skype among many other issues.

Patience is one more thing you have GOT to have when you’re in LDR. As I have said above, there were times we weren’t patient enough – maybe it was just me. There are times when you are able to go online and your partner is not able to so that can cause a bit of a rift between you two.

It’s difficult living thousands of miles away from each other. It can get lonely as well when you go out and see couples holding hands or showing affection towards one another. This is when a video camera becomes handy. We went on webcam on a regular basis or at least we tried to. It was the next best thing for me as I got to see him live. With video cam, you can blow kisses, hear each other’s voices and have great cam-sex (oh admit it, you have always wanted to try that!) ‘smile’. Hey you gotta do what you gotta do make things happen!

One other thing is – being faithful. This is something that is hard for some people to do. As we all know, there is a lot of temptations out there. But if you really love the person you are in LDR with then you can say no to temptations. Keep in mind that after all the hard work you have put into your LDR, cheating or being unfaithful is just not worth it. Best thing is to put yourself in his or her shoes and imagine how you’d feel if he or she cheated on you. Better yet, remember that karma’s a bitch ‘smile’

Be strong and always be in constant contact with your LDR partner. Set a plan to meet up every few months (if you have the means), if not once a year until you both decide to you want to go all the way and live together in the same city/country.