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Feb 28, 2024 · Maintaining a healthy long-distance relationship takes effort, communication, and commitment. It's also important for people in long-distance relationships to communicate their boundaries and expectations for the relationship (and make time to have fun with each other).
- Overview
- What Being Apart Does to Your Brain
- Trust
- Communication
- Physical Intimacy
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Long-distance relationships can be problematic for the growth of a healthy relationship. The ramifications can also affect your mental health in negative ways. But it's also possible to thrive in a long-distance relationship. Distance can indeed make the heart grow fonder.
When you’re not living in the same household or near your partner, distance alone can increase your levels of stress. Results of one study indicated that being in a long-distance relationship was associated with more individual and relationship stress than being in a proximal relationship.
Because you are physically, mentally, and emotionally not as close to your partner, you might not get enough of the feel-good neurotransmitters or “happy hormones”: dopamine and serotonin. Both affect your gut health.
Dopamine also affects movement. This happy hormone is associated with pleasure and rewards. Substance abuse can, however, lower your levels of dopamine. Low levels of dopamine can adversely affect your neurocognitive functioning and is linked to major depressive disorder.
Here are common symptoms to let you know you might have inadequate levels of dopamine:
•Inattentiveness
•Lacking motivation or drive
When you’re not residing in the same city and you can’t reach your significant other, your imagination might take over. Are they out with someone else? Are they being unfaithful? Do they still care?
The physical distance between you both influences the development of romantic relationships or the demise of them according to one study. Scientists analyzed the partnership progression of couples in nonresidential relationships. Participants included couples aged 20-40 years old. They focused on the variable of distance in travel time between the partners’ homes.
Short-distance relationships meant the partners had to travel less than one hour. Long-distance relationships required travel of one hour or more. Findings showed that couples in long-distance relationships were more likely to separate than those living a short distance away.
Lack of trust might have contributed to the end of these relationships. Without trust, some people are filled with fear and anxiety. Just ask yourself if you’re suspicious about the other person, are you being reasonable? Or perhaps you might realize this lack of faith in your partner stems from your own low self-esteem, childhood trauma, or negative past dating experiences.
Effective communication enables you both to feel seen and heard. Both people in a couple need to be on board with committing to and maintaining the relationship, especially when miles separate you. It’s a good idea to plan regular times to catch up and share your experiences so you both feel secure in knowing when you’ll connect.
Using texts and Facetime can facilitate more communication and increase the odds that you will stay together. Good morning and good night texts are nice to receive, too. Based on a recent study, texting helps long-distance relationships by keeping both people in touch.
Be sure you don’t argue over texts and don’t rely solely on texts. Texts don’t replace hearing the other person’s voice and tone via phone. Nor does it take the place of reading their body language through video conferencing.
Here are some tips to enhance your communication when you’re dating long distance:
•Listen with empathy
•Validate your partner
Touch is critical to the health and well-being of human beings. Cuddling, holding hands and kissing are ways couples show affection to each other. Oxytocin, the cuddle hormone, helps bond us to each other in a relationship.
So, if your partner is living and working on the other side of the country, for the sake of your mental health and your relationship, be sure you get hugs from friends and family or book a massage. Physical touch is still super important for your well-being, even if it's not from your partner.
- Barbara Field
Are long-distance relationships (LDRs) really that different from relationships between people living near each other? What counts as a long-distance relationship, and how do people make them work? Let’s look at the science.
- Crystal Raypole
- Tips to keep things on track. Local and long-distance relationships require a lot of the same things for optimal relationship health. Long-distance ones, however, will require a bit more conscious thought.
- Activities to try. Walking through the grocery store, you overhear a couple debating whether to make burritos or risotto for dinner. You feel a pang of envy that you don’t get to shop with your partner.
- Things to avoid. Like any kind of relationship, long-distance bonds aren’t a one-size-fits-all situation. What works for one couple might not do much for another.
- Troubleshooting common issues. All relationships hit bumps in the road, but physical distance can cause some unique issues. Here are some key concerns you might face, plus a few tips to help you navigate them.
- Communication is key. Each person needs to be able to articulate their needs and desires and feel heard and respected, especially regarding expectations of frequency for talking, messaging, and visiting.
- Trust is built on good communication, and at the same time, effective communication is built on trust. For couples to function well at a distance, each person needs and deserves to be able to count on a comfortable rhythm of communication that enables them to feel cared for and loved.
- Emotional reliability is an important building block of trust and communication. This involves each person being accountable and truly showing up, both literally and figuratively.
- Long-distance relationships benefit from a healthy balance of planning, flexibility, and spontaneity. When couples communicate clearly about a framework for seeing each other that feels sustainable, they can more easily make plans with each other and socially with other couples, and they also know when they will have time for themselves and with their friends.
Apr 27, 2022 · Time differences. Physical intimacy. Growing apart. Things to avoid. Recap. Long-distance relationships may often require additional effort to be successful — especially when challenges arise. But...
Mar 8, 2023 · Long-distance relationships take work but it's possible to maintain a happy and healthy love life from afar, according to this expert advice.
