Do you have a happy long-distance marriage?
A happy marriage must be built on mutual respect, trust, and communication. Especially in a long-distance marriage, spouses are lack of face-to-face interactions that are more effective in maintaining a relationship than any other forms of connection. Therefore, the vast majority of long-distance couples are (or were) agitated or worried about the same thing – “Will the long-distance kill my marriage? How to maintain the long-distance marriage?”
And there is a series of major relationship problems that most long-distance couples have to face, such as below:
- They may fear of growing distant emotionally.
- One spouse fears that the other one may act needy and thereby choose to cling to someone else when he/she acts indifferent towards the other one or does not respond to the other one in time.
- They may worry that their children have trouble dealing with long-distance family relationships.
- For one spouse who has to stay at home to run the house and raise children, he/she may fear that he/she will bear excessive stress over time.
- If a married couple can not pay enough attention to treat and educate their children, their children may feel left out, betrayed, or even isolated.
- Marital conflict may arise constantly due to possessiveness and misunderstandings.
- One spouse may have to take on too much responsibility for taking care of the family, apart from dealing with his/her job, etc.
If you’re also struggling to maintain the long-distance marriage, here’re 9 tips on how to deal with a long-distance marriage:
(1) Keep in touch regularly:
Regular communication is a key point to maintain a long-distance marriage. And during communication, make sure to talk openly about issues that will probably go wrong, rather than hide them; it must be pointed out that sometimes a spouse has to cut a long story short due to the long-distance, understandably, a spouse may accidentally miss some issues when he/she has to finish speaking within a limited time. However, it should not be a reason for deliberately hiding family and relationship issues.
In modern society, you two can still keep in touch with each other anytime as long as you want, despite the long distance.
In modern society, you two can still keep in touch with each other anytime as long as you want, although the long-distance makes it hard for you two to stay by each other’s side. You can communicate with each other via different means, such as phone calls, video conferencing, text messages, and email; and it is very necessary to make these things a part of your daily routine.
If you have children, don’t forget to let your children engage with regular communication between the two of you. And allow your children enough time to freely speak about their daily events during the process; such an action is so warm that both of you can feel happy and at peace.
(2) Make full use of time to share the positive:
Make the best of your time devoted to each other to share happiness, humor, love, or naughtiness. Let your significant half clearly know how much you miss him/her and how you look forward to meeting him/her as soon as possible. Even though you are far apart, there are still many things that you can do together, such as watching the same movie at the same time and playing online games together.
(3) Put yourself in your spouse’s shoes:
If your spouse is the one who has to leave regularly in the long-distance relationship, don’t simply believe that you are the only sufferer. Actually, in a long-distance relationship, both sides have to take great stress. Your spouse also has his/her side to a story, and maybe you can hardly understand how much your spouse needs to deal with things at the place away from home.
Yes, when your spouse leaves, you have to take charge of all the things at home, and it is up to you to be everything to everyone at home. However, don’t simply hold the one-sided view that your spouse has it easy; just put yourself in his/her shoes, if you were the one who had to hurry and queue up to get into buses or go aboard, live in a lonely hotel room just to handle work issues (e.g. meeting the local customers, and surveying on strange places), would you still think such routine is easy for him/her? Doesn’t your spouse like to stay at the bustling home where he/she can spend time together with you and children happily?
So the blame game is never a constructive way to deal with a long-distance marriage, remember, the marriage is about “WE” instead of single individuals.
(4) Recognize that there are times when one of you is not in the mood:
In the long-distance marriage, inevitably one or both of you will encounter times when you have had a hard day and feel exhausted and cranky. In such cases, you or your spouse may not be in the mood for anything; and for a spouse who is just in a bad mood, it is better to seek understanding of the other one and cut the regular conversation short.
If your spouse continues the conversation in spite of your bad mood, you may go on to entertain him/her a little while, then end the conversation in a kind manner. And don’t see your spouse as disgusting at that moment, instead, you should feel happy because you are always being cared for and needed by your significant other; so anyway, treat your spouse with the same care and affection. And likewise, if you feel your spouse is feeling blue, you might show empathy with him/her and just be brief and to the point when you have to talk with him/her about an issue.
(5) Avoid unnecessary complaints:
When your spouse is far away, don’t spend time complaining about unimportant things that are going wrong at home during conversations with your spouse, especially if you are sure a problem can be easily solved by yourself. Because of the long-distance, your spouse can hardly help you address those things; your complaints will only unnecessarily increase the anxiety on his/her part; even though sometimes you have nothing to say to your spouse during a conversation, you don’t have to kill time complaining about trivial matters to him/her, instead, you just need to express your love and care like usual, and then end the conversation.
(6) Don’t deliberately drag a conversation:
Being unable to live geographically in the same place does not necessarily mean that you should make up for your lost time by letting conversations linger. When there is nothing to talk about with your spouse, deliberately prolonging your conversation may not only embarrass each other but also result in unexpected problems (e.g. unnecessary arguments). In such a situation, it is better to say what you think you should say, listen to whatever he/she has to say; then hang up the phone affectionately.
(7) Show affection regularly:
If possible, visit your spouse at regular intervals; if not, it is also ok to regularly send small gifts, letters, cards, and so on. This is always a simple but effective act of caring and affection.
(8) Don’t be possessive:
You should not be possessive with your spouse, because that will suffocate him/her and thereby make him/her want to keep himself/herself distant from you. You have to be aware that you have already lived far away from each other, and that your possessiveness will further increase the distance between you emotionally; narrowing the emotional distance is much more difficult than the geographic distance.
(9) Don’t be paranoid about your spouse:
In love relationships, couples should not easily undermine mutual trust. And it is even more so for long-distance relationships. To maintain the long-distance marriage, mutual trust has to be sorely tested. However, even if you suspect your spouse of infidelity, don’t easily pass judgments and accuse your spouse without sufficient valid evidence. And as long as you do not gain irrefutable evidence of your spouse’s extramarital affairs, you should go on to respect him/her and keep treating him/her with affection.
Don’t easily destroy mutual trust, because mutual trust is particularly important to the maintenance of a long-distance marriage, it can be ruined easily but can’t be rebuilt easily. Don’t accuse your spouse’s misdemeanor unless you can be sure of its truth. Of course, you should also not indulge in any possible things that can cause your spouse to feel cheated or suspicious.
The final word:
The tips above are all about what you need to do to make you both feel happy and secure in the long-distance marriage. And it seems simple enough to follow these tips; however, they are easier said than done, and they require enough dedication and patience. Maintaining a long-distance marriage is never a one-sided endeavor, you both need to put in a great effort.
In the long-distance marriage, the genesis of discord is usually derived from one spouse’s fear of losing the beloved, then the discord progresses into suspicion and mistrust… To sustain a healthy long-distance marriage rather than fall into a negative pattern that leads to marriage deterioration, you should both have faith in the integrity and fidelity. And as your long-distance marriage evolves and matures, you will both learn to understand and respect each other on a deep emotional level.
If you want to learn more about how to keep a long-distance marriage alive, you might go on to read the page below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
How to keep your marriage alive – Maintain a happy long term marriage.
7 tips on how to get back emotional intimacy in marriage.
How to survive an emotionally disconnected marriage.
How to survive in a sexless marriage – Is a sexless relationship doomed?
What a healthy marriage looks like – How to maintain a marriage.