Everywhere you turn, you’d come across facts about long distance relationships.
How about we talk about the harsh facts about long distance relationship nobody wants to talk about?
Long distance relationships are more like a test than love.
Long distance relationships are no less than a rollercoaster ride.
While on the one hand, you get to experience the feeling of pure love and affection.
On the other hand, distance and time zones make things a little challenging.
A long distance relationship comes with its own set of struggles and challenges that no one bothers to tell you about until you experience them firsthand.
Long distance relationships require a lot more mental effort than you might think.
It takes a lot of work to maintain a connection with someone who is far away.
You will think you are emotionally strong, but a long distance relationship will prove you wrong.
There will be all sorts of memory triggers that will cause you to wet your pillow at night.
Long distance relationships can be tough, so if you are planning to be in a long distance relationship, there are some harsh facts that nobody really tells you. In this article, we’ll explore 10 of these facts in detail.
10 Harsh Facts About Long Distance Relationship Nobody Will Tell You
1. Limited Physical Intimacy:
One of the most significant challenges of long distance relationships is limited physical intimacy.
When you are in a long distance relationship, the physical touch and closeness you desire from your partner become a challenge.
You have to live and daydream virtual hugs, kisses, and video calls to feel close to your partner.
In a long distance relationship, sometimes, you will feel the urge to relax in your partner’s arms only to remember that they are far away.
In addition, lack of physical intimacy is the major cause of infidelity in a long distance relationship because physical touch triggers the body to release oxytocin, also called the ‘love hormone’, that makes you feel out of the world when touched by your love partner.
This is obviously unachievable in long distance relationships.
Before you say yes to that long distance relationship, think about this, especially if you’re big on touch.
2. Communication is Key:
Communication is key and crucial in every relationship, but when it comes to long distance, it becomes even more important.
It can also be challenging when you’re not with your partner because it’s easy for miscommunications to happen.
For a healthy long distant relationship, you must have good and strong communication.
However, in long distance relationships, there are always communication challenges.
Texts and calls are great, but a minute of real-life talking beats a thousand text messages.
Also, calling/video calling usually experience disruptions due to poor network because one of the partners or both might have had no WiFi and relied solely on mobile data.
There are usually tons of unbearable connection problems and this may lead to misunderstandings as well as frustration.
You need to keep communicating with your partner regularly, or else your relationship might fade away or hit the rock.
You may start to feel emotionally distant because he/she hardly ever calls you, or only responds to a text every few hours later.
Long distance relationships without proper communication hardly make it through at the end of the day.
3. Trust is the Foundation:
Physical intimacy is extremely important in long distance relationships, but not more than loyalty and trust.
Trust is the foundation of every relationship, and this holds even more importance in long distance relationships.
The lack of physical presence gives rise to insecurities, doubts, and assumptions, leading to trust issues.
To make your long distance relationship work, trust is a crucial element but it’s not always easy.
It’s important to be transparent and honest with each other to build trust that will sustain your relationship.
The challenge in trusting your partner when it comes to long distance relationships is, you have to believe what they tell you.
You don’t know what they’re doing over there and the only thing you know about them is what they choose to tell you over the phone.
4. Cultural Differences:
When you are in a long distance relationship, you might find yourself dealing with cultural differences between you and your partner.
These differences may result in misunderstandings, arguments, or even irresolvable conflicts.
The environment you find yourself in can also influence your behaviour or way of life.
You both are in different places, meeting completely different groups of people from different backgrounds and schools of thought, which influence might affect your relationship negatively.
You either find common ground or throw it all out.
5. Time-Zone Differences:
Time-zone differences can make it more challenging to communicate with your partner.
This can lead to a lack of understanding, and series of conflicts in the relationship.
And one of the challenges here is you might have to adjust your schedule according to your partner’s time zone to make sure you get to talk to each other regularly.
The time difference is very tough especially if you and your partner stay in completely different countries.
They may be 4-8 hours ahead of you.
The connection issues are also tough and it can be frustrating at times to try and keep a conversation flowing.
The regretting part at times is that your partner won’t be around every time you desperately need them, not even on one of those “bad days” when you are one step away from yet another mental stress.
Not on those days when you fail and need more support that any sweet words of video call or text message can give.
The solution here is to stay strong through difficult times for each other.
Also, you will need to learn how to cope without your partner, and you will grow stronger and more mature in the process.
6. Finding the time to visit is complicated:
You won’t be able to come and visit each other every weekend or month as it should be.
Sometimes when you think of the distance and cost of transportation you become discouraged and unmotivated.
Unless you booked months in advance flights to save up because transportation fare gets insanely expensive during holidays and vacation seasons.
When you finally meet again, the rush of love hormones becomes high and you just get to pick up where you stopped, then it will seem like those lonely weeks apart never existed.
7. It’s Expensive:
It can be expensive to maintain a long distance relationship.
The cost of maintaining a long distance relationship can be very high and sometimes overwhelming.
You might have to spend a considerable amount of money on long calls, video calls, transportation, and other expenses just to keep the spark alive in your relationship.
The painful challenge is, if both partners are financially incapable; the relationship will be boring and tiring because a strong virtual communication is needed in a long distance relationship to keep it alive.
8. Limited Social Interactions:
When you are in a long distance relationship, your laptop and mobile phone become your real significant other.
You tend to spend most of your time interacting with your partner through virtual media, making your social circle limited.
This restricted social interaction can lead to a sense of loneliness and isolation, making the relationship more challenging to maintain.
In addition, it is also challenging because you will fall asleep while on call or trying to drop a love text message and the first thing you’ll grab in the morning is your phone to check if they’ve already sent you a romantic morning message.
The funny and romantic part of it is that, you’ll always put your phone next to your plate so you can eat together then promise yourself to do a lot of crazy things once together physically.
9. Work-Life Balance:
There are a lot of tough choices to make in long distance relationships such as:
How do we see our future together?
Should I leave everything and move to you?
Is it worth it?
Who will come and visit and when?
You have to get used to the endless complicated questions you both need to answer honestly and ensure to keep to it.
Juggling your professional life with a long-distance relationship can be quite challenging and exhausting.
It requires a lot of time, understanding, effort, and patience, making it hard to maintain a proper work-life balance.
10. Not Everyone Can Handle It:
The truth is that no matter how long you are in a long-distance relationship, how often you call each other daily or how strong you claim to be, you will always miss the love of life like crazy.
Long distance relationships can be thrilling, but it’s not for chicken-hearted people.
It’s important to be honest with yourself before you say yes because not everyone can handle being in a long distance relationship.
It requires a lot of dedication, self-control, understanding, patience, and effort to make it successful.
Moreover, if your partner is not ready to put in the same commitment and energy as you, it might not work out.
When you’re not around each other, it’s easy and tempting to start living separate lives.
The distance can make you feel lonely, bored and isolated.
Make an effort to stay connected and involved in each other’s daily routines, or consider having a support system outside of your relationship that can keep you busy.
Long distance relationships can be emotionally draining.
It’s important to take time for yourself and practice self-care to avoid burnout.
Long distance relationships can create unbreakable bonds.
But these relationships are extremely difficult in most cases, and it takes strength and a strong commitment to overcome the hardships that come with them.
Knowing these harsh but inevitable facts listed above beforehand can make the experience less daunting before you commit.
Long distance relationships can be interesting to give a trial, but they’re not for everyone, especially if you lack self-control.