A year ago, a miracle happened: I was accepted into graduate school in New York and, fulfilling a dream I’d harbored since the womb, I took out a painfully large student loan and moved to Manhattan.
There was just one catch: my significant other was based in San Francisco. Though I will always appreciate his encouraging me to study and live in the Big Apple, neither of us had any idea what it meant to have a relationship with a three-thousand-mile barrier.
When I arrived in New York, my fears were temporarily eased; it seemed everyone in school had someone back at home. Long-distance was the new “no distance” for the highly evolved couple. I scratched my head, but without much choice, I went along with it. It didn’t take long, however, to notice that as the year progressed, the percentage of singletons climbed as quickly as our collective loan debt. By May, I was the only “evolved” person left. While relationship standards are different for every couple, I must confess there are still days when I wonder just how many people are equipped to pull off such a feat.
Then, walking past Lincoln Center last week, I had an epiphany. Beneath the bright lights of the bus stop was a poster for Drew Barrymore’s latest rom-com, Going the Distance. And I wondered: if Warner Brothers is willing to fund a film about the trials of a long-distance relationship, there must be a universal thread. How many of us are living miles away from our mates and making it work? And how? Or, as was the case with the majority of my classmates, how does one know when it’s no longer worth going the distance?
Although I’ll be the first to admit that my graduate work is not in the area of relationship therapy, below is a list of challenges couples are often faced with and suggestions to soothe the inevitable frustration. If, in the end, you still don’t feel any better, well, you can always see what Drew Barrymore does.
Who Are You and Where Are You? Getting Down the Day-to-Day
One of the biggest adjustments when first beginning a long-distance rapport is that you’re no longer as familiar with what your partner is experiencing on a daily basis—arguments with roommates or problems at work, for example, or issues that you would be more attuned to if you lived together.
Suggestion: Get down to the nitty-gritty.
Painful as it may be at times to dredge up the details, try to keep each other included in small happenings as well as big ones. While it’s easier to relay big events that come our way—such as promotions, moves, the first day of school—our lives are inevitably composed of all the smaller, minute-to-minute events that befall us. Try to fill each other in as best as you can about the little stuff over email or the phone. It makes you feel like you’re still involved in each other’s lives and are connected, despite the mileage between you.
Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman: Reviving the Lost Art of Writing Letters
Before my grandparents were married, they were separated for a year during World War II. My grandmother worked at Pan American Airways in New York City, and my grandfather was stationed in Africa. I never got the chance to meet my grandfather and see firsthand his relationship with my grandmother, but what I do know about them comes from that one year’s worth of letters—stacks of them—that they wrote to one another. Some were grand proclamations of love, others simple hellos, but I can only imagine what it must have meant to find them in the mail week to week, month to month, without being able to see each other.
Suggestion: Try scribing some of those feelings once in a while.
Granted, today’s advances in technology—video chats, picture texts, and even the simple ability to make a long-distance phone call—can make the miles between couples feel less extreme than they once did. But I still can’t shake the romanticism of those letters. Even if you don’t have the courage (or gag reflex) for grand proclamations of adoration and heartsickness, it’s always nice to receive a letter in the mail, old-school style. Try writing your beau or sending a simple “I miss you” card. Mail that isn’t from a major credit-card company always makes a person feel loved.
