We’ve also dealt with several different types of long-distance. Sometimes we were only a hour and fourty-five minutes away from each other. Other times, he was on one side of the world while I was on the other. The longest we’ve ever been without seeing each other has been six months and we’ve done that at least three times. So long story short… after eight years I think we have finally conquered the long-distance thing.
Our long-distance relationship has not always been pretty.
In fact, up until about two years ago, we still had not figured it out. We
would be great for about two months and then at each other’s throat the next.
Just when I would be confident that we had figured it out something crazy would
happen. It has been a roller coaster ride, but I do have some tips on how we
finally got things to work. Well...at least for the most part (ha).
COMMUNICATION. This is the key to any long-distance
relationship. Talk with each other every single day. Even if its only for five
minutes. That way you are at least keeping in contact with each other. Let each
other know what you are doing and when your free time is. Blake and I had a
hard time because he would try to call me and I would be busy and then an hour
later when I had free-time I would call him and he would be busy. It was frustrating.
Time-change made this even worse. So many times he would be asleep while I was
awake and vice-versa. We learned that we had to start communicating better. We
didn’t have tell each other our whole days schedule but we did have to communicate
on when we would both have some free time in order to at least say hi to each
other. We had to say “hey, I’m going to bed, can I call you for three minutes
and tell you goodnight” and the other person had to be willing to pause for
three minutes to make it happen. Communicating is hard. Especially when you are
not face to face but if you talk to each other about what is important then you
will be so much more successful.
GRACE. We struggled with this a lot. Being
long-distance meant that we were both living different lives without each
other. That sounds terrible but we couldn’t just sit and do nothing all day
because the other person wasn’t there. We had to go do things, meet people, and
interact with our own communities. This came with a lot of frustration because
it sometimes meant that we didn’t have time for each other. Remember those
three minutes I was talking about earlier? Sometimes there’s only three minutes
because your just plain busy. Life didn’t stop because we were long distance.
We had to learn to show each other grace. Sometimes I would just forget to call
Blake back after being interrupted. And that was ok. He knew I was busy. I wasn’t
ignoring him. I was just living my life.
TRUST. This is probably the most important. And not
just for a long-distance relationship. Blake and I did not trust each other for
the longest time. And we had very good reasons to not trust each other. But for
a long-distance relationship or any relationship to work, you’ve got to learn to
trust each other. I would spend so many nights having anxiety attacks that
Blake was cheating on me because he wasn’t answering the phone. Most of the
time the reason he wasn’t answering is because he wasn’t connected to wi-fi
(overseas problems) or was at work. I would work myself up and make myself
miserable over nothing. Not worth it. I finally realized that I had to just trust
him. It was hard at first, but I was so much happier once I let it go and just
put it in God’s hands. If Blake wasn’t to be trusted, then God would handle it.
EFFORT. For long-distance to work, both people in the relationship
have to be willing to put in the effort to make it work. One person can’t pull
all of the weight. It takes sacrifice and determination from both sides. So
many times, it was either just Blake trying or just me trying. We couldn’t seem
to get on the same page. But once we realized that we had to work at it
together, it became a lot easier. We realized that we were both going to have
to put in the work or we would never be happy.
Cherish the time that you do have together. Since
Blake and I were long-distance, we basically just saw each other on the weekends
and then during deployments we wouldn’t see each other at all. One of our problems
was when we were together, we would still fight and argue instead of cherishing
the time we had together. We would waste that precious time being mad and
frustrated instead of enjoying the few days that we had. It’s difficult to go
days without seeing each other and then seeing each other for a few days. It
messes up everyone’s routine. About the time we would get used to doing things
on our own we would get to spend a couple of days with each other and it would
throw everything out of whack. It was just an endless cycle of learning to be
independent and then having help. It was confusing... especially for me. I'm stubborn. I had to navigate how to get help from Blake and cherish the
time I had with him in person instead of proving to him that I could do it all
by myself. Remember that those moments
are few and far between. You don’t want to spend the time you do have together
arguing. Show a little more grace and patience during that time.
You find out a lot about your significant other and yourself
when you deal with long-distance. I would almost suggest that everyone couple should
go through it before they are married. It brings a lot of problems you will
deal with to the surface. It helps you learn to be independent while also relying
on your partner. It also helped me to lean on Jesus. It’s not easy. In fact, it’s extremely hard. And we were not
great at it. (Just ask my friends… I complained a lot.) But I am so thankful
that God allowed us to learn and grow in our relationship. With that being
said, after eight years, I am so excited to not be doing long-distance anymore
(well at least until Blake’s next deployment).