He Said/She Said: Do Long-Distance Relationships Work?

She Said

By: Laura Carpenter

Posted: 5/1/09

Several modern day situations conspire to keep couples apart. With unemployment on the rise, the likelihood individuals travel to different towns for jobs goes up, people start relationships over the internet often from different places, and the high number of individuals overseas in the military also keeps those in relationships apart. This makes maintaining the long distant coupling that much harder, but not impossible. It seems when it comes to relationships, author Thomas Haynes Bayly knew what he talked about when he wrote in The Isle of Beauty (1850), "absence makes the heart grow fonder."
According to The Center for the Study of Long Distance Relationships, more than seven million couples in the U.S. find themselves in a long distance relationship (LDR). That means 14 - 15 million individuals consider themselves in a LDR. These 2005 statistics stated 3,569,000 of those couples were married, making these LDR marriages 2.9 percent of all U.S. marriages. The same research concluded that around 4.4 million college students, almost 20 - 40 percent in some studies, lived apart from their partner.
"It seems like a good idea to continue the relationship when one of you has to move," electrician Mary Williams said. "But inevitably one or both of you gets lonely and wants out or worse yet, cheats."
Although Williams believes these relationships probably end in breakups more often number than conventional relationships, statistics prove differently. In various studies conducted by The Center, the rate of LDR breakups grafted only slightly higher than all breakups and in some cases showed lower.
Director of The Center Gregory Guldner, M.D., M.S. compiled research from a recent RAND (a research and development organization) study that contradicted the myth that military deployments end marriages. The researchers looked at the records of more than six million armed service members and their rates of divorce between 1996 and 2005. Considering the number of deployments in 1996 ran substantially lower than in 2005, it seemed likely the breakup rate would increase in 2005, but in fact they stayed the same.
Why relationships survive LDRs isn't exactly clear, but the reason may lie in the fact that these couples work harder at their relationships when they live in different places. They learn to share in each others' lives even while they're apart.
According to a Discovery Health website article by Faith Murphy, entitled "Making Your long-Distance Relationship Work," what you do before your partner leaves could make or break the relationship. Some steps you should take to keep your LDR healthy include defining it, practicing honesty, exercising patience and finally giving each other encouragement. Murphy makes it a "habit to always ask how things are going - with school, work or family - and then proceeds to encourage [her partner] in those areas where he is especially talented."
It's also important to involve each other in day-to-day life. With the availability of technology - e-mail, text messaging, free web telephone services like Skype and free web-services like Facebook and Twitter - keeping in touch gets easier. Also, making use of old-school forms of communication remains a wonderful way to keep connected across the miles. Whisper sweet nothings on video or audio-tape, take pictures when you go out or simply send your partner a love letter.
Long distance relationships work well if both partners remain invested in the relationship and take steps to insure it stays healthy. Remember it's all worth it when you're back together because absence truly does make the heart grow fonder.