7 Long-Distance Relationship Tips to Help You and Your Partner Thrive While Apart

There are many reasons you might seek long-distance relationship tips. Perhaps you’re dating someone you met online, and they live in another city or state. Your spouse may have taken a job in another state, but you’re still working to sell the house where you’ve been living for the last 10 years.

It could be that a friend of yours is dating someone she met overseas while studying, and she’s asking you for advice. Or you might be a military family with long periods of separation because of your or your spouse’s career. Even if your spouse simply travels several days out of every month, you can benefit from tips to grow your relationship while you’re apart.

Whatever the reason, long-distance relationships are nuanced. It can be tricky to maintain a deep, empathetic relationship when there are so many miles between you. But there are things that can help.

Long-Distance Relationship Tips

Check in regularly about the business side of life

One mental health counselor talks about a marriage’s “babies and business” season. She’s referring to the long stretch of a relationship that a couple spends in the stage of having children, raising young children, and starting their careers.

If you think about a relationship like a well-watered garden, you need the basics. You’ll need simple elements such as soil, water, and sunshine to grow the garden. Relationships need the basic check-ins about what’s going on in the children’s lives, at work, and even in household updates.

If you’re talking with your spouse about these things regularly, you’ll have more opportunities to get to the meat of the relationship when you can be together in person.

Use AI or creative cards to keep a list of questions nearby

Whether it’s a new relationship or a decades-old marriage, learning the art of asking good questions never goes out of style.

Don’t be afraid to ask an AI model to give you some relationship questions that help you and your spouse go deeper after you feel like you’ve already gotten to know as much as you can about each other.

Some questions you may want to keep in the rotation are:

• What is something that has bothered you (like a pet peeve) this week?.
• How have you relaxed or taken care of yourself this week?.
• What do you need from me?.
• How can I support you right now?.
• Are there any attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors that you regret lately? How so?.

Notice that none of these questions is a simple yes-no inquiry. The idea behind asking good questions is not just to get to the answer. Questions like this spark a conversation that helps you go deeper in an otherwise fast-paced lifestyle.

Don’t give up on dating

This may seem like an obvious tip, but it’s a reminder to tend the relationship the same way you might if you were in person. How do you date when you’re miles away from each other?

Consider playing a game over Zoom to share the fun side of marriage. Contrary to popular belief, one of the greatest obstacles to a long, thriving marriage isn’t communication or even financial discord; it’s drift.

Drifting apart is easy to do when you haven’t shared something fun lately. Maybe you decide to always go on a date when you see each other in person, whether that’s every two weeks or every two months. Choose a date activity that’s more than just heading out to a restaurant.

If you and your spouse both enjoy video games, order a pizza and play your favorite game. If you both enjoy bookstores, head to the local store and browse together over a cup of coffee. It’s important to do things while you are together that remind you why you fell in love in the first place.

If you’re not together, you can still date

Dating ideas you can use virtually are taking long drives in your respective areas and talking while you drive. You can also each listen to a podcast before your phone call, so you’ll have something intentional to talk about. This idea is based on the old-fashioned road trip.

The reason you and your partner or spouse connect more deeply when you’re on vacation is that you have concentrated time together traveling, and you’re not as caught up in work or kids as you might normally be. You can take elements of the traveling mindset and use them to your advantage over the phone.

Find a way to meet in the middle, so to speak. Not geographically, but in your conversation. Agree to only talk about one hobby each for 10 minutes the next time you schedule a call.

For example, if you’re an avid tennis player, you might decide that’s all you want to share when you talk. You tell your spouse about the latest match, which team you played, and how you feel you did. Then, if your spouse loves to hike, let him share about the new hiking spots he’s discovered wherever he is.

By giving each other a solid 10 minutes to discuss your respective hobbies, you are demonstrating respectful dating. Remember those first few dates when you listened to each other (or emailed or texted) intently about whatever the other person was passionate about?

This idea stems from the season of your early dating life when you couldn’t hear enough of what your partner loved.

Keep communication central in more than one way

Most people think about long-distance communication in one of two ways: phone or email. Whether you prefer to talk, text, or email, these are still limited when it comes to everyday encouragement.

Here are a few more ways to keep the foundation of communication exciting:

• Hide notes in your partner’s bag the next time you see each other.
• Send a note or card in the mail just because.
• Find out the name of a restaurant that serves your spouse’s favorite cuisine near wherever your spouse is staying this week, and send an e-gift card to that restaurant.
• If his or her favorite song plays while you’re apart, record a snippet on your phone and send it as a text letting your better half know you’re thinking about them.

Get creative. Try to look at these long-distance relationship tips as ways to add spark to your marriage in areas where it needs one.

Plan ahead

One of the biggest predictors of long-term success in a relationship that spans many miles is that at least one person in the equation agrees to plan ahead.

This may seem lopsided, but take a minute to ponder your strengths and your partner’s strengths. They’re different, right? Most of us are attracted to people who are not mirrors of us. That is why there is usually one person in the relationship who is better at planning than the other.

If this person is you, take the lead on planning a few non-negotiables.

• How will you handle friendships with someone of the opposite gender? Do you need to agree on boundaries now that you’re dating from a distance?
• What is your rule about time and how long you’ll go without seeing one another?
• When you see each other, is there an icebreaker hobby you can plan for that allows you to warm up to each other again? Try to plan and decide what this activity will be, no matter where you meet, and how to use it as a jumping-off point to reconnect. Some couples take a walk while others grab a hot coffee or tea, and still others always pack a deck of cards to play a quick game before they move on to other topics.
• Agree on some yes topics that are always fair game, some not-right-away topics that you can discuss once you’ve been back together for a little while, and some not-right-now topics that tend to cause tension. Whether these are topics you’ll only discuss in person or topics you can wait to discuss once you’re both on the same side of town, it’s worth talking about ahead of time and sticking to whatever your mutual guidelines are.

If you aren’t the plan-ahead partner, ask your significant other if he or she can do some preliminary planning. Throw out some of these questions or let them plan in a style that works for them. Remember, one of the keys to any relationship is to let the other person be who they are without trying to change them to be more like you. Over time, we all change, and it’s best to let that happen organically.

Decide what matters to your partner

This tip can transform your relationship even when you’re in the same place.

Whether you’ve been dating just a few months or you’re about to celebrate your twentieth year of marriage, it’s easy to forget that agreement is not the goal. Mutual contentment, encouragement, and support are the overall goals of a healthy relationship.

Being able to be together and disagree on a few things doesn’t depend on 100% accord. You can pursue each other’s best interests without agreeing on everything.

Of course, knowing what matters most to you in a partner can be crucial if you’re in a new relationship. That way, you’re not dating someone long-distance who does not share your values or overall perspective on matters like having children, where you’d like to live ultimately, and who will work if you start a family.

Faith and politics may be equally important to you. If so, it’s essential to know yourself and who you’d like to grow old with. If someone you’re dating long-distance doesn’t share enough of your big-picture values, it is okay to part ways as friends and learn from the experience.

However, once you’re settled into a relationship or marriage and have already discussed your shared values, remember that agreement isn’t necessary on everything. Some relationships we know divide specific categories that matter most to each person.

For example, one of you may be strongly opinionated about how your children are educated, while the other one doesn’t care. One idea is to let the person with passionate ideas about education make decisions about how the children will learn and grow or what kind of school they’ll attend.

Another issue that some disagree on is household responsibilities. You don’t have to fold the laundry the same way. In fact, you both don’t even have to fold laundry! Maybe one of you excels at it while the other takes care of anything related to yardwork and kitchen cleanup.

Decide on a division of labor that works for you so that when you are together, you aren’t spending most of your time debating minor issues that could’ve been settled or just agreed to be different and disagree.

Enlist help when you need it

Relationship and marriage counseling is here for you when you want to make the long-distance relationship work but can’t figure out how.

If you feel like you’ve tried all the long-distance relationship tips and don’t know where to turn, contact one of our offices. Many counselors specialize in couples counseling and can help you and your partner through any rough patches that may try to prevent you from achieving your happily ever after.