I have been asked by a number of people: how do you do long distant relationships?

I will start with this statement: It’s not for the faint-hearted.

It is hard; it can be messy. There were days where I would miss him so much that I would sit alone in my apartment and cry. I don’t usually cry. Also since we mostly talked through Whatsapp, there was a lot of room for misinterpretation which caused its own set of problems

But we managed to work through each of these problems through communicating and helping each other when the other is having a hard time with the distance.

Then there’s trust.

I know you are rolling your eyes at me because I sound so cliché talking about ‘communication’ and ‘trust.’ But honestly, when you have thousands of miles between the two of you……that’s all you have. You cling to what you can and use that to grow as a couple.

My parents had a long distant relationship before they got married. They knew each other in Peru for a couple of months and then dad when back to the States while mom was left behind to ponder her future. She quit her job and moved to Connecticut to be closer to him….but he was still in Indiana. Mom tells me that they only spoke on the phone twice a week for those six months that they were apart. They spoke on Sundays and then on another random day during the week. That’s it.

Thorsten and I have Whatsapp, which we use every day. We also have our own Sunday ritual where we chat through FaceTime on our iPhones. We have used Skype a few times but FaceTime has given us less problems. We are so lucky that we have the technology that we have because it does help facilitate what is a difficult situation. I feel luckier than other couples throughout history who have had to do long distant relationships.

But it has been hard. And it also has gotten easier with time. This is also due to the fact that we kept talking about plans. We knew that this distance was only temporary; we had an end goal. I mean, I am sure a lot of couples have an end goal; however, if you make the decision, you have to work at it.

Anyway, I don’t regret having gone through it. But you both have to really want it, because if it is one sided then it won’t work.