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Long distance relationships?

Long distance relationships? Can they work why / why not


  • Total voters
    22
The optimist in me wishes they could but alas...I don't think they can. Humans desire contact. Being emotionally invested in someone you can't touch is a horrible experience. I know. I've been in one of these relationships before. You can't hug them. Kiss them. Hold their hand. You can't be intimate in any other way other than mentally, which can only go so far. Can't see their smile or hear their laugh when you want to. Being able to talk only when convenient through the use of technology due to whatever is going on in your day to day lives. It's stressful and puts loads of strain on the bond.

Some people can make it work, especially if it's only temporary and can make time to see each other in person now and again. But extensive long term relationships...feels like a fools errand. :(
 
I think they can work for short term periods. Long term, no. I don't tho k they can. Like Mel said, humans crave contact. It doesn't necessarily mean sex but any sort of intimacy and the space doesn't allow that.

And from my own personal experience, they're tough. They hit a level where it hurts because all you want is a hug but they're X miles away and you simply can't. It is one of the worst feelings in the world to love someone that deeply and not be able to do so much as hold their hand.
 
I personally don't think long distance relationships will work. My opinion is based on my own experiences and what I've seen from people I know. The first problem is not being able to see the person and only being able to talk to them when time permits it. That's hard, especially when that person lives in a different country with a big time zone difference.

The second problem is trust, are they cheating on you? are they who they say they are? etc. This is what happened in a potential long term for me. Let's face it, If it's a relationship that you procured over the internet, it's hard to really know the person for who they truly are. It's hard to decipher if what they tell you is truth or something they want you to hear to keep you hooked. And if it's someone you met and they moved away, how do you know they are not seeing someone or living a double life.

The third problem is, if it's an internet relationship do they meet your expectations when meeting them in person or even after marrying them? Like, do you connect with them in person? is their personality the same in person as it is over the internet? etc. As an example, my sister married someone from the UK. She admitted to my mom that if she had known her husband back then as she knows him now, she wouldn't have married him. I believe he does love her, but certain things he does she wasn't aware of because of the distance.

After the one time, I know I could never be involved in a long distance relationship. I crave human contact and closeness with my partner. The people that manage to make it work, kudos to you, you're stronger than the majority of the human population.
 
I'm currently in a very long distance relationship. My S.O lives on the other side of the planet, and we still talk every day barring some circumstance that our lives sometimes puts in our way but even then we find time to speak even if its just for a half hour. Hell we manage to be with each other for a few months out of each year and even when we aren't physically together we manage to do simple things like game and watch anime together. I have been married in the past but never in my life have I loved someone the way I do the woman I'm with now. She makes me the person I am and I couldn't be prouder or any more lucky than to love and be loved by her. It's hard but if you want a relationship to work long distance you need to set rules and have a lot trust in your partner. without those things it's true that a relationship won't work but that is sort of the case in any situation. If you want it to work all you have to do is try hard and don't give up.
 
It's complicated. Yes and no.
It has the potential to be successful as much as it does a failure.

In my personal experience, long distance can and does work so long as the partners commit themselves to finding time to spend together. It has to be a balanced relationship and normally requires a fair bit of money and/or travel time to allow for trips to see one another. It of course depends on distance and scheduling - but that's what makes it challenging.

Some people require more physical contact than others - so a long distance will definitely fail in these scenarios. It will also fail if either partners cannot make time for each other or cannot manage to travel to see one another. I do think physical contact is the key to success in this situation - but that's based on a very stereotypical relationship involving emotional, mental, and physical conmection.
 
Huh. I guess I'll be the odd-ball here.

So, me and my real life spouse [Veinexes on here] actually started out as a very long-distance couple. Not only were we long-distance, but a couple that met online. We stayed 2,000 miles away with me residing in Texas and him in Minnesota for a bit under two years. I will admit ahead of time, however, I did see him during summer or any occasion one of us could get time/money so we weren't necessarily separated the entire duration. Most of it, though, we were apart from one another.

I'm not gonna sugar coat it though. It definitely was tough, especially with parents [mine mainly] getting involved. Trying to ruin what we had and stuff. A lot more obstacles than I wanted to face somehow found me.

But all the same?

Pushing through everything and continuing to fight for what I wanted has been one of the best things I've ever done. I'm now with my best friend, my lover, my world, my everything. Someone I want to wake up to every morning. Yeah, we have our fights like every couple. But I have absolutely no regrets with all I gave up to get from point A to point B.

Can they work?

Yes. Not easily, hell no. But they most definitely can. You really have to do a lot of talking, goal setting, planning, etc. to make it work though. And, more likely than not, that's probably some of the reasons they don't work for others.
 
It didn't work for me. It was a catastrophe of longing and sadness & I didn't even like him that much!

I was also immature and kind of a hot mess, so that probably didn't help.... Maybe if I tried it with someone else and used some of my newfound maturity to ground myself with, it would be easier.

I am so proud of the folks who have made LDR's work! <3
 
Yeah i believe and also you should know long distance relationship deep than other relations and each other felling too much loved every moment.
 
I'm of the same mind as several others in here which is, No, not unless the "Long Distance" part is only temporary.

LDR can be successful for a time, a few weeks, months...maybe even a few years but in the end it will fail. There is the much noted, contact which is quite vital for a relationship, even just sharing the same space. From sex to just being in the same room with them in comfortable silence while you do different things, things like that cement a bond. You can certainly have a bond with someone long distance but cementing it down is another matter entirely, there is only so much you can do through pieces of technology.

But then in come doubts too. I would assume that most peoples end goal in a LDR is to meet and actually be together but the longer it takes the more negative feelings do start to rise. They have their own internal struggles and doubts and more likely than not, people around them are also talking about those same doubts they're holding [if they know about the LDR]. This part also hits at different stages, you might not feel anything like that for several years but the point is, is it will happen. Like someone else mentioned a LDR that remains Long Distance ends up hurting severely.

It doesn't matter if you talk every single day or video call each other all the time, send gifts to each other, none of those things will fulfill what a person actually wants from a genuine relationship and it never will.

Thats just my two cents on it~!

EDIT::

I would honestly like to be more hopeful about this x.x
 
They are hard. But can work out. However its been my experience that many people lack the fortitude required to make normal adult relationships work, let alone one done over distance. They require a strong existing foundation, maturity, trust and a mutual desire to make it work.

That said they don't work indefinitely.
 
It works if there is an end game in mind. If there is solid communication and creativity. Also, you have to put your insecurities aside in a way. If you live 24/7 thinking they are cheating...you will be miserable. It takes a lot of work and definitely isn't for everyone...but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
 
It depends on the circumstances. I've had relationships which were strictly online--met online, never in person--and yeah those were pretty terrible because there was no trust and they didn't last more than a couple months. However, I met and started dating my husband while we were both stationed at the same base. Because of the nature of the military and because we weren't married, we wound up being long-distance for two years when we didn't even know whether we were going to last. But the advent of things like Skype and stuff makes connection a lot easier. You can't hold hands or go out for dinner, but you can each make dinner and have a Skype-and-Netflix date at home. The thing about this though is that it takes a lot of trust, and if we hadn't trusted each other we wouldn't have made it. As it was I texted him once to let him know I was going out drinking with four other friends and I was the only female because the other two had bailed on me; his response was to tell me to call if I got in trouble and needed help or an excuse to get away or something, and to keep an eye on my drink. Once we finally got things lined up and were at the same base and legally married, we knew that because we'd made it long-distance for that long we could make it through anything.

tl;dr: Trust and communication are key to making long distance work, but it can definitely work.
 
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