How to Keep a Long Distance Relationship

While travelling you often find yourself. When you have found your true you, it is also easier to find your other half. So, it happens that you fall in love abroad, not only with the country but also with the people. How do you deal when you go head over hills for a person from another part of the world? How does it work? Does it work at all?

“A long distance relationship is definitely not for everybody“, says Liva Nagle. She is from Latvia and her boyfriend Markus is from Estonia. They met in Luxemburg in the European School. They were one year together there, but then Markus went to Glasgow to study. At this point they did not see each other a lot of times, only every few months.

Some people get jealous very easily or they cannot stand the pain of not seeing their partner for a longer time at all. For these kind of people, a long distance relationship may be probably not the best idea. I think it always depends on the person in general and the way you look at things. But with the right state of mind almost everything is possible!

If you truly love someone, it is hard to imagine a life without them anyway. I think it is like a proof of true love because you would not go through all this struggle if you do not really love the other one. You just have to concentrate on the positive things. Like for everything there are not only good sides, but also bad ones.

The obviously hardest thing is to not see each other for weeks or months, especially when you are maybe surrounded by some couples in your home country. Some people may get weak here or think it is not worth it. That is when you have to stay strong and think of all the wonderful times you will spend together in future.

“It’s sometimes hard to wait to meet again but then you have to think about the next meeting and the joy to be reunited again.“ says Soizic Guenneuguès. Her boyfriend Jeffray is from Belgium and now he lives in London. She is living in France. They met at her prom night because he was the bass player of the band.

Soizic likes the idea to keep her life like this for the moment. She has her life in France and she has her life with him when they meet. They fully enjoy their time together and always plan to meet soon again.

It may sound easier than it is sometimes, especially when you do not see each other for months. According to Liva you get to miss the person and that makes you want to think about the person a lot.

“If I can choose I’d rather be with him all the time. It’s something you just have to like deal with and get over it and think about the next time you’ll be together. I think you learn to appreciate the other person more and when you are together those moments are kind of more precious. When you’re meet you’re more excited.“
– Liva Nagle

One of the hardest parts is definitely not to be able to meet spontaneously. “We can’t call each other and say do you wanna meet up, half an hour?!”, says Liva. But they make up for that by long messages, chatting and calling every day.

I think a very important thing is to always plan the next meeting. So you have something you can look forward to. While waiting you can enjoy your own life in your own country and still stay in touch with your beloved one.

It may seem to be hard at first, but it can really enrich your own world. You get to know another country in a way, you would have never discovered it otherwise. You learn so much about other cultures and maybe even languages. I think it can really enhance your life and change your way of seeing things. You can talk about so many different things and never get bored.

Of course, it is hard when you do not see each other for a couple of months, but today there are a lot of different ways to communicate. You can write messages via the Internet, use your phone, skype, write an email or even a love letter like Liva. “Next year I will be writing him love letters when he is in the army from Spain.”, says Liva.

When you finally see each other again, you know it was worth all the waiting and it will be again!

Another very important point is trust, of course. If you do not completely trust each other it will be quite difficult to deal with such a distance. You will probably get jealous all the time you do not see the other one. But I think if you really love each other, it should be easy to trust the other entirely. As Liva said: „If you wanna be together you can do it perfectly! “