Image from Ciscolo

It’s surprisingly easy to find yourself in a long-distance relationship. A chance meeting on a Greek island, a job opportunity on the other side of the world – fate constantly conspires to place these obstacles in our way. With a world population of six billion, it’s unsurprising that many people’s soul-mates don’t live just down the road. Distance can be a brutal test. Even the strongest and most loving couples will suffer from spending a lot of time apart. It can be too much to handle and often causes relationships to end.

But, with constantly developing communication technologies and the new online dating boom, long-distance dating is likely to continue to increase. So, estranged couples, do not fear – there are ways of coping with this kind of relationship. If you really love each other, you will find a way to handle the distance. Here are a few pointers to help you survive:

Keep in contact

If you can’t see someone, make sure that you at least speak to them as often as you can. Drifting apart is easy when distance is involved, but not if you have daily conversations. Make sure you update each other about everything that’s going on so they still feel like they’re a part of your daily life. It’s also easier to feel jealous when you’re far away from your partner, so make sure there are no gaps in what you’re telling them or suspicious new friends on Facebook. You may be thinking that frequent contact like this will blow your phone bill out of proportion. However, there are many solutions – Skype is a program that allows you to speak to people anywhere for absolutely nothing. This includes people overseas and in every area of the globe as long as they’ve got an internet connection, speakers and a microphone.

Focus on yourself

The temptation is to mope around the house, cross off the days on the calendar and eat lots of chocolate when you’re missing your other half. But this really isn’t the best approach and will often make you miss them a lot more. Keeping busy is the best way to distract yourself – get back into that old hobby of yours, run a marathon, organise a fund-raiser – whatever works for you. You may find that this is actually the perfect opportunity to work on yourself and fulfil all of the personal goals that you may have been neglecting.

Use the mail

You may see the postal system as a slow and somewhat dated way of contacting someone, but receiving letters and parcels from the person you love can brighten up a day or even a whole week. Planning what to send back can also be extremely fun. Hand-written letters and objects that have been carefully selected are so much more personal than phone conversations. It can seem like your lover’s scent still lingers on the pages, which you know they’ve touched, and for a moment it’s like they’re actually in the room. Getting into a cycle of sending and receiving letters and packages can really help in a long-distance situation.

Plan your time carefully

Those few special days you do spend together should be carefully planned so you get the most out of them. If you’re in Birmingham dating, find something unusual to do in the city – go to the theatre, see your favourite band play – just make sure it will be a weekend to remember.

Wherever you are in the world, don’t let something like distance break up your relationship. There are many ways to survive!