long distance lovin'

- August 13, 2012

In case you missed it.. Last week, I was part of a series about long distance relationships on Just Bri.

When I heard about Bri's Long Distance Lovin' series, I knew I had to be a part of it. This is what I posted as my part of Bri's series:

I think my story is kind of unique because I have lived through both the good and the bad (and the ugly) of long distance relationships (for the sake of repetition, let's call this an LD relationship). I've been through more than one serious LD relationship. (It just kind of happened that way. You can't choose who you fall in love with, right?) My last LD relationship lead to marriage and I could not be happier! :)

I know every relationship is different, but I can tell you what did and didn't work for me. There are 4 things that I think make or break a LD relationship. As you know, I'm a list person, so here we go!

1. Communicate. This is obviously so important in any relationship but especially in a LD one. LD relationships don't have the luxury of being physically there with each other all the time. So tell each other about your day. Tell your partner about that coffee shop down the street that you love and that new girl at the office who is totally driving you crazy. That way when you guys are together, it's more real. You'll walk down the street with him and he will say "Hey, that's that coffee shop you like, right?" and you'll smile because it's like he's been there all along.

2. Trust. Trust and communication. They go hand in hand. In a failed LD relationship that I had, we had little communication. Sure we talked on the phone a lot but he never really mentioned his life. I didn't know about the little things like his favorite thing to eat for breakfast or who was in that group that he went to the movies with. It lead to problems. A lot of them. If that girl wasn't a big deal then why didn't he ever mention her before? Is he seeing her? If I didn't know about her, does she know about me? Yes, I did turn into one of those psycho girlfriends, but I had good reason. He actually was cheating on me. More than once. And in 4 years, I never knew. This is the ugly part that I mentioned earlier. Let's not go too much into that though. The point is that I should have known from the beginning that our lack of communication meant that I couldn't trust him. Without trust, there's nothing.

3. Be normal. What I mean by this is just because you are in a LD relationship, doesn't mean you have to miss out on everything that "normal" relationships have. Set up Skype dates. Watch a movie together (just play the move at the same time). Eat the same dinner. The possibilities are endless! Before Jared and I got married and moved in together, we had date nights via Skype all the time. Sometimes we even played drinking games which always turned out to be pretty hilarious. Get creative!

4. Stay positive. If you don't believe that it will work, then it won't. You have to stay positive for each other. I always had a really hard time with this especially because of my previous relationships. Thank God I was with someone who lifted me up and stayed strong enough for the both of us.

There are obviously a ton of things that factor into making a relationship work, but I really think that these are the basics to make a long distance one work. You can read more about my long distance journey with Jared and how we ended up deciding to tie the knot here. I can honestly say that our marriage was worth the wait.

I tried to keep this short and sweet but if you want to talk more, I'd love to get to know you!
To view the rest of the series, visit Just Bri!

Bri: Thank you so much for including me! xx