Having a long-distance relationship is a bold and brave decision.
Every relationship in your life will make you grow in a personal way, as living different experiences makes you learn from your achievements and failures.
Having a long-distance relationship is already a challenge to overcome that will push you from one extreme or the other. And this is where the personal growth game begins: how you manage to achieve the defeats in your life.
This is an opportunity to deeply explore yourself. Because within the time you realize you need to save yourself first to save your relationship. And that you need to spend more time on your own to be healthy to be with your loved one.
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You become a More Independent Person
I have seen people who stop going out with their friends because they want to go out with their partners. But how about when the partner is not around and friends are busy with their lives?
There are certain experiences you only want to live with your special one because it’s the company you enjoy the most. And you know there is anyone slese you would like to share this experience with.
On the other hand, if you are in a long-distance relationship because you moved overseas to study abroad in France , then you have to go out and make new friends.
Having a long-distance relationship will make you face the extreme from being together with your loved one 24/7 to spending 6 months apart.
Wanted or not, you will become a more independent person. Respecting each other’s individuality is the best tip for making your relationship work.
I know the weird feeling of going on your own to a restaurant, to a bar or to the movies. You will feel like a weirdo. Eventually, you will feel more comfortable with the best company: yourself.
Being a more independent person will make you your favourite company because you will not have to rely on someone else’s state of humour or busy life to go out to enjoy the restaurant you always wanted to try out.
This is about enjoying your self-company.
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You Discover New Ways of Showing Your Feelings Like Love, Gratitude and Appreciation
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Being in a different location makes it difficult to express love through the normal affect signs to show love and care towards others. For example, giving a warm hug, a kiss on the cheeks or a pair of pampers while sleeping.
You and I were taught that if we love someone we may give them a warm hug to express our feelings. But how about when it is not possible to be in the same geographical location?
In this case, you have to figure out new ways for expressing love and gratitude to your beloved who is miles away.
This is something you will figure out with your partner and that will probably make sense only to you two, and that’s fine. For example:
- Dedicating quality time or a Beatles song
- Sending a picture of the lovely sunset
- Texting random and nonsense messages
- Sending funny memes
- Hand writing a letter and send it through the postal service
It’s all those little details reflect the complicity between you two.
Showing love doesn’t rely on physical contact and this past year we all have learned about that.
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You Become a Confident Version of Yourself
To make this long-distance relationship an enjoyable experience you have to carefully choose the correct person.
Once you confess you will have a long-distance relationship for a while, people will undoubtedly ask sensitive questions and make comments from your decisions. These kind of comments may make you doubt the decision you have made.
Being with the correct person will make all these insecurities disappear.
The correct person is someone who makes you feel positive that the effort, the patience and the love you are putting into this project called long-distance relationship are not a waste of time. That’s it.
A healthy long-distance relationship will bring off the confident version of you because you are trusting your feelings that you have made the best decision. Making this love succeed through distance and time.
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Dedicating Time is the Most Thoughtful Habit You Can Do For Others and For Yourself. You Learn To Appreciate The Value of Time
There’s nothing more beautiful than dedicating time.
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You learn that respecting each other’s time and sleeping hours are a way to say “I care about you”. For example:
- Being on time for your online dating is a gest of caring.
- Blocking time for communication is certainly a way to express that you care about the other person.
- Pausing all your responsibilities and your busy life for dedicating time to keep building your relationship with your other half.
Dedicating time to yourself is also a way to keep the relationship healthy. If both parties are safe and sound, surely whatever comes from each one of you will be healthy as well.
Blocking time in your busy agenda for spending quality time with others is a pointer that you should do the same for yourself.
This is part of your personal growth, about learning how to manage your agenda to make most of it high-quality time.
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You learn about patience and how to stay resilient
Having a long-distance relationship is already a challenge itself but maintaining calm and patient in these situations should be considered a superpower.
Some long-distance relationships have an ending date because you know you’ll be together once your or their work contract ends in one year, or your study stage ends in six months.
However, sometimes life can become more complicated because there’s not a determined date for when you can happily live in the same location. Or it just comes a worldwide pandemic, for example.
These experiences make you realize that times pass at the same speed and there’s anything you can do to speed up the time.
Once my boyfriend told me: If there is something you can do to change your uncomfortable situation, then do it. But if there is anything you can do to improve your scenario then stressing out and getting anxious will not make it better.
This is the same advice I can give to you. As time passes by you will be learning how to deal with anxiety and calm yourself down.
Although I would say that being occupied and worry less about the timing is the best practice to speed up the time.
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You will learn that invest time in yourself is the best way to calm your countdown anxiety
The best way to speed up the time to your next encounter is to maintain yourself occupied.
Being less aware of the missing days till your encounter day will make the wait more tolerable, and almost unnotable.
Maintain yourself occupied means that you have to invest time in yourself.
You know you have to block some time of your day to dedicate to your loved one but other than that you have the rest of the day for you and yourself. Make the best out of it.
You can enroll in a crafts workshop, learn a new language or subscribe to a dance class.
Investing time in yourself will not only learn your new skills, but it will also help you to survive the long wait.
Enrolling in different activities will make you live new experiences, have anecdotes and therefore you having new topics to bring to the table.
Having an enjoyable conversation is the best you can do for maintaining a healthy relationship. You want to avoid that your conversation turns out boring and trite because then the communication will not flow. And in a long-distance relationship as in any other, communication is an important pillar to take care of.
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You Will Become More Adventurous
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You have an excuse for travelling to a different city or country. This was the reason why I wished I had a Canadian boyfriend.
Being adventurous doesn’t limit exploring the world but exploring deeply inside yourself.
Having a beloved one on the other side of the globe or a few miles away will make you reconsider your fears.
For example, the fear of travelling on your own. This time you know that your treasure is on the other side of the rainbow.
This is the time to get adventurous and risk yourself to live new experiences you had no clue you could live.
Having the eagerness to maintaining a long-distance relationship is already a bold and adventurous decision.
You’ll never know what you can achieve if you don’t risk to discover it. Live experiences, then you can mark them as: No regret but rather not repeat.
Being adventurous is about thinking outside of the box and reconsider the decisions you have previously made. Consciously or not.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash