The Positives Of Long Distance Relationships
Everyone talks about the negatives of being in a long distance relationship, how they are destined to fail, but not many people talk about the positive sides.
Long distance relationships have definitely become more common after the pandemic separated many couples and with the rise of social media making it easier to communicate with people across the globe. But they’ve definitely been an integral part of many relationships for hundreds of years.
Before facetiming and phone calls were a thing, those in long distance relationships sent out handwritten letters to each other. Victorian poets Elizabeth and Robert Browning were known to send lyrical letters to one another throughout the 1800’s when distance kept them apart. But who said the letter had to be all poetic – James Joyce wrote to his partner “Goodnight, my little farting Nora, my dirty little fuckbird!”
Just because we have easy access to smartphones, doesn’t mean that a handwritten letter or a small ‘just because’ gift in the mail won’t brighten up their day, especially if differing time zones make it more challenging to communicate in real time.
Long distance relationships can come in many forms from meeting someone online who lives elsewhere, to your married partner getting a job in a different city for a while, to those who are actively in the military. And while these can bring about their own challenges, they can also be highly positive for all parties involved.
Promoting Individual Growth
The romantic cliche of finishing each other’s sentences isn’t actually something to admire. When you spend every waking moment outside of work & seeing your friends with your partner, sharing the same bed every night and hanging out often with their friends, you can pick up parts of their personality and behavior. There is very little ‘alone time’. What was once your own individuality has now merged with their own to form something entirely new. And this isn’t always a positive thing. With your own individuality compromised, this can cause problems between you two as well as if you break up – you might not feel like you know who you are anymore without them.
Forming Stronger Emotional Bonds
Modern media tells us that regular sex is a dominant component for a healthy relationship. And while it can be important, it isn’t the be all and end all. When there’s miles of land or sea between two people, you might have to take things into your own hands…quite literally.
Studies have shown that long distance relationships are heavily related to higher levels of intimacy – a term we often confuse with something exclusively physical. An intimate relationship is “an interpersonal relationship that involves physical or emotional intimacy.” You can have non-sexual intimate relationships with friends & family. While your relationship might lack regular physical contact, it means you can dedicate more time to building a stronger intimate emotional bond with your partner. In 2013, four researchers found that long distance relationships have higher levels of adjustment and a higher conversational quality, while having lower levels of problematic communications and less psychological aggression.
A Growing Appreciation For Time Together
When someone is constantly around you, it can be very easy to take them for granted. You’re both wrapped up in your social & work lives that you don’t think twice about them not being there when you get home. Because they always come home. Distance teaches us the value of a relationship and those special moments together – your shared time becomes more valued and sought after rather than a common daily occurrence. A 2013 study by Jacobs & Lyubomirsky showed that couples in long-distance relationships have more time to reminisce about the positive times spent together rather than the negative ones, which puts a focus on “resetting” their emotions that leads to an increase in the quality of the relationship.
Putting Your Love To The Test
A long distance relationship can really test your limits, boundaries, commitment and most importantly, your love. It is a big thing to be willing to spend months or sometimes years physically apart without losing interest or develop relationship-breaking doubt. It can make your love stronger or fall apart quicker. It can also help you form a clear differentiation between lust & love since long-distance relationships focus more on an emotional connection than a physical one.
Practicing Patience
When the world is available 24/7 from your fingertips, it’s easy to forget that not everything happens instantly; we can send messages instantaneously, order our weekly shop to be delivered to our doorsteps and find out anything we need to know in seconds. But when your partner lives in a different time zone, you might send a message while they are snoozing away meaning you have to learn to be patient for a response in a hard and fast society. Practicing patience can help you to become a better version of yourself and become less likely to feel anxious when it’s been a few hours since their last message or call.
The pandemic has taught many of us that distance doesn’t end all relationships – both romantic and platonic – and that there can be positives in having some time physically apart from one another. So don’t let people tell you that it is destined to fail, it might just be the key to success…
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