Youth and beauty 

Is it possible to keep love at a distance. We live in different cities, so we can't be together

Thanks to the rapid development of Internet technologies, communication has acquired a new format, now it has practically no boundaries. A hundred years ago it was difficult to imagine, but now we can send a message to Zimbabwe with one click of the mouse and get a response in just a few seconds. People of different nationalities, races, mentalities sit down to their computers, and communicate with representatives of other cities, countries, continents - and, of course, genders. It is not surprising that the number of so-called "long distance relationships" is rapidly increasing, when lovers live in different cities, and even countries.


Convenience. There are not so few lovers of comfort in terms of personal life. Here is what one friend of mine from Moscow says about this: “It is very convenient for me to communicate with my girlfriend via ICQ or Skype. We see each other once or twice a month. It fits perfectly into my schedule: I can devote myself to building a career, making money without any problems; there is time for self-development, study and joint recreation with friends. There is no need to fulfill her eternal whims and whims. A career is built up to 30, you have to keep up. "

Indeed, living in different cities, you do not have to sacrifice your professional growth in the name of love, you can kill two birds with one stone. A fairly modern approach to relationships.

Carefully! Such a relationship will not suit everyone! You should first understand what he / she expects from you. Among the adherents of this type of relationship, we will find much more men than women. After all, the weak half of humanity just needs constant attention, and the execution of "little whims". So try to dot the i's right away.

Idealization of love. Love at a distance can be seen as an attempt to escape the daily routine. Here, perhaps, it is not even necessary to give examples: everyone has come across the concept of "everyday life", and more than one love boat has crashed against it. Living in different cities, you do not see how your love hiccups, sneezes, misplaces the toothbrush; you are not annoyed by his / her annoying cat rubbing against new black pants or a coat you just bought. In general, you can avoid many unpleasant little things that can lead you and the object of your attention to indignation. In addition, your relationship is permeated with quivering romance: you rarely see each other, you miss a lot and look forward to your next meeting. Such senses do not expire longer than standard senses. And this is an undeniable, very significant plus.

Carefully! You run the risk of trying on rose-colored glasses. It's one thing to see each other every two months, but always in a good mood and with open arms, and it's quite another to wake up with a person every day, live together and put up with his shortcomings (and believe me, he will definitely have them). The image formed in your head and the true state of affairs may not converge.

Work / study. Business trips or sessions turn your love into feelings, separated by many kilometers. Among my acquaintances there are several girlfriends (and even wives !!!) who find themselves in such a situation. Everyone is already serious, but it's still hard not to feel the warmth of a loved one for weeks. It helps to understand that this is just a period of life that needs to be endured. Love allows you to accept your halves not only with their shortcomings, but also with inconvenient work and study schedules. But when business trips and sessions end, these couples can be the envy of any other! They instantly have a stormy joint program, because they have so much to make up for!


Carefully! You will need an abyss of trust, and, if possible, constant communication with each other. Hysterics can play out because of the weekly message in the tube: "The subscriber is not available." Try to communicate more and come to a common understanding.

The statistics of love at a distance show that thanks to the mutual trust necessary for such a relationship, the rate of cheating in such couples is as much as 20% lower than that of ordinary ones. True, the percentage of partings is also high - especially after the first six months of love. Entering into such a relationship, both of you should understand that you will have to work a lot on them and on yourself. It all depends on your patience, desire and ability to find compromises. So if you love each other at a distance, do not give up everything at the first difficulties, and you will be happy!

Natalia Zhigalova

I like

Talk

Of course, various messengers are much more convenient than Skype - you can be in touch with them all day. But still, try to talk to each other more often - and preferably in Skype, and not write messages. It is impossible to accurately convey intonation in correspondence, even if you have been together for a long time and know each other perfectly. In a telephone conversation, you do not see each other's facial expressions - and you also lose a lot.

Talk about the little things

If you feel like you have absolutely nothing to talk about every day, stop inventing topics for conversation. This is what gets in the way of keeping in touch — trying to come up with a topic for conversation. The people who are nearby do not need it, and your task is to create the illusion that you are within arm's reach. Therefore, talk about the little things that a couple living together would talk about: about household chores, about work, about the fact that the cat was hunting a vacuum cleaner again. This will bring you closer together than talking about shared dreams and plans for the future.

Don't talk about what separates you

If your sweetheart has left for another country, of course, it will be very interesting for you to know how life works there. But the less you ask about it, the better (unless, of course, you are about to move in with him). Because the feeling of a completely alien world will sooner or later become associated with a loved one. And he, too, will become a stranger.

Feel free to express your feelings.

How to keep a long-distance relationship? Writing cute messages gets boring in the second week, lisping with the phone is somehow stupid, video communication also does not dispose to special tenderness. But it's important to understand that you need it. You have already lost a huge layer in the relationship - lovers express most of their feelings non-verbally: holding hands, hugging and kissing. While you are deprived of this opportunity, you will have to make up for tenderness with words.

Meet regularly

It is clear that the frequency of your meetings depends on many factors: distance, study or work schedule, and finances. But you should set up a schedule of meetings on a "no less than" basis. Will it be possible to meet only in six months? Even so, but you must know for sure that this meeting will take place. Make an appointment beforehand - this is important advice for long distance relationships. The "how it goes" option doesn't work. Will not work.

Meet in neutral territory

If you have to part ways for a long time, choose a point on the map that will be convenient for both of you to reach, and meet there. Do not allow a situation in which you, for example, sit and wait for him to deign to visit you. He, too, will feel uneasy, because you are on your territory, you are the hostess, and he is just a guest. In neutral territory, you are on an equal footing, and this removes a lot of problems.

Do something together

Fortunately, modern communications allow you to choose food together for dinner in real time — for example, turn on Skype and go to the store. This brings us incredibly together, because, firstly, it creates the illusion of presence, and secondly, it removes the problem “we have nothing to talk about”.

Don't lie to each other

Lying in a long-distance relationship is extremely convenient because the partner will never know that he has been cheated. The problem is that you get used to lying. When you are around again, it will be difficult to wean yourself from the habit of lying and under-saying, hiding some uncomfortable moments. Of course, there is no way you can check if your sweetheart is lying to you. But at least don't lie to yourself. This will greatly help your future relationship.

Don't be jealous

Is love at a distance possible without jealousy? In general, jealousy is difficult to fight, and in a long-distance relationship it is almost impossible. Therefore, there is no need to start - this is the advice psychologists give about long-distance relationships. All you can do is trust your partner, there are no other options. This must be taken for granted. If you are not ready, it is better to leave. If he is not ready, it is simply necessary to part: it will still happen a little later, but before that he will have time to thoroughly ruin your life, forcing you to constantly make excuses.

Don't suffer

And one more important advice about love at a distance. Don't turn your life into a waiting room. It is important to understand that there are only two options: either you live life to the fullest - yes, as long as each is your own, but only for now, - or you break up. People are poorly adapted to suffering, our psyche tends to reject everything that is associated with negative sensations. So, the more you worry about the fact that your beloved is far from you, the sooner you will realize that this stranger, in essence, is a wildly annoying person. And, perhaps, you will stop answering his calls. If this result does not suit you, try to worry as little as possible about the fact that your sweetheart is not around. This is temporary, it is not permanent.

Long distance love is the worst kind of relationship. This is a psychological axiom. I myself personally had the experience of 4 long-distance relationships (to which I treated very differently), but most importantly, in my subsequent psychological practice, I analyzed more than 200 long-distance relationships.

My empirical experience with these situations is clear: long-distance relationships are the most problematic relationships possible. Love at a distance has its own strict laws, that is, the psychological laws by which they develop, regardless of whether we want it or not.

Since this article is being written immediately for both women and men, the person you love, I will call further for brevity "relationship partner."

A good, happy relationship has several key components: biological conformity (the first 3 biological markers of compatibility, you should like this person from the very beginning: 1) voice 2) bodily smell 3) laughter, how this person laughs); very good attitude towards you personally from the very beginning; general worldview; sexual compatibility; general geography, that is, it is extremely desirable that you live in the same city; psychological complementarity.

Love, speaking in our psychological jargon, always has two Components - the Wishlist and the Binding. Wishlist is a sexual instinct, and Binding is a deep emotional and mental connection between a man and a woman, which, metaphorically, we can imagine as an invisible thread or sea rope, imagine an image in which this "thread" seems to be stretching from a man to a woman through time and space. It is from these two components that Love is formed.

Wishlist (sexual desire) can flare up quickly enough (especially in our male case), but it can just as quickly cool down to some woman. Emotional and mental attachment, in contrast to sexual desire, is formed in a person's soul in relation to a partner (relationship partner) for a very long time - for months, even years. But in the same way, for a long time, this emotional and spiritual connection lasts after, even if the relationship is now in a deep crisis. The most powerful attachment very often remains even if the relationship has ended (attachment is when you think, miss this person).

Love at a distance - what do the statistics say?

I examined cases in which the relationship was very long distances (hundreds and thousands of kilometers), for example - a man in Vladivostok, his wife moved to live in Moscow (they see each other every three to four months). This distance can be small, up to hundreds of kilometers between cities, for example, a man lives in a large city, and a woman in one of its suburbs or in a nearby city. And in all these 200 cases (let me remind you that I provided psychological assistance to people in restoring broken relationships and examined their relationships at a distance with them in consultations), I discovered the following key pattern.

The first rule of long-distance relationships: if a man and a woman do not start living together on the same territory (a guy goes to a girl in her city, or vice versa, a girl goes to live with a guy in his city - it doesn't matter who is to whom), then the relationship is guaranteed to fall apart in 90-95% of cases within 2-3 years.

These are not random numbers, this is evidenced by my own statistics, which I conducted, doing psychological help in these cases. That is, even if everything is fine in your relationship now, but you do not settle together and do not start living together, then I guarantee you a serious crisis in a relationship within a year or two years, and most likely a complete breakdown in relations (disappointment in them) ... Yes, there are couples who are an exception, couples who are in a relationship even 3 years after the start of a relationship, although a man and a woman live in different cities (they see each other once or twice a month or even less), but let me remind you, according to my statistics, this is around 5%. And then these couples are all the time "at risk", that is, such a relationship may one day fall apart.

If your relationship at a distance is now undergoing a crisis, then the point here is not only the notorious "mistakes of yours and others," the point is that relationships at a distance are developing according to their own laws and trajectories. You can be very psychologically literate in relationships or completely illiterate, but in any case, the psychological laws of long-distance relationships will dominate your feelings.

Conclusion: in order for your relationship to develop and get out of the crisis, you need to live together, on the same territory (in “her” city, in “his” city, in some neutral territory - it doesn't matter, the main thing is together, so that a common life and common future). After all, who is a loved one? This is always a category of time, a loved one is the future tense. When you constantly think about a person and place him next to you in your future, then this suggests that this is a very special person for you, a loved one. That is, you have a concept of a joint future.

Relationships at a distance can, for one of the relationship partners, weaken this concept of a joint future so much or even completely nullify it that the joint future disappears, is weakened and is replaced by other “images of the future”.

If you want to save a relationship at a distance, you need to go to another city where this person lives and start living there, on the same territory.

How does love develop at a distance? 4 stages of love at a distance.

1st stage of "love at a distance".

This is the "spring" of relationships, the period of love. Perhaps one of the best times in life (remember all your loves!). You are covered with a wave of emotional euphoria and a feeling of lightness in the body, all thoughts and feelings are directed only to this person. A feeling of delight and deepest acceptance of the whole personality of this person and gratitude for a special, exclusive attitude towards you. You call and write to this person to the maximum of your free time, communicate with him, there is a feeling as if this amazing person reads all your thoughts, feels the slightest movements of your soul. This is a time of spiritual celebration, euphoria, recognition of each other, deepest interest in everything that happens in another person's world.

What are the dangers at this stage? You can fall in love not with a real person, but with the image you have created, especially if you have never seen him BEFORE you met (for example, the acquaintance happened on the Internet). And the image and the real person can differ at times. You yourself invented a fairy tale, and then you do not like reality, so from the very beginning, the relationship had to be built realistically. There can be a gap between your overactive expectations and the real person.

You can actually fall in love with a person only after you have repeatedly had sex and you have lived together for some time (a common life arose, you worked together), then you cannot be mistaken - you actually made sure that a friend is suitable to a friend as a lover and mistress, that in sex you can be 100% good, that partnerships are reliable and strong - after that you CAN lose your head and heart, figuratively speaking.

2nd stage of love at a distance.

Checking mutual expectations. Here, the foundation of future relationships is laid and the characters are grinding in (after all, we do not live with appearance, but with character), you move in to each other and you mutually run on each other as a wish (your sexual instinct) and attachment (deepest emotional and emotional connection). You have sex like rabbits or not at all (there is a misfire, there are dozens of reasons for that). You spend the most time together. You will get to know each other for real, and not on the basis of some invented images. Here, either an image is laid, the concept of a joint happy future, or it is not laid down at all. Intentions for the future are being clarified.

What difficulties may arise at this stage of the relationship? 1) 70-80% of information loving people receive non-verbally, that is, reading this information from the "body language", and not from words. In a long-distance relationship, it turns out that you lose up to 80% of information about each other and "know" each other only by 20%, and the information deficit can grow; 2) Lack of recognition of each other due to emotional closeness, mental burns introduced from past (unsuccessful) relationships, incorrect projections (you see not a real person, but your projections at his address, or this person does not see you, but sees his image of you, which can be quite garbled); 3) Excessive expectations or mismatch of expectations (for example, to make an offer right away without really understanding your feelings); 4) Fear of uncertainty (everything is fine now, but what will happen next when we part?)

If the relationship is at a distance or has developed and consolidated in such a form, fixed in position (for example, a man visits a woman once a month in her city, sometimes once every half a year). Or the relationship did not work out right away (due to the psychological illiteracy of both partners in the relationship, sexual, emotional, cultural or psychological incompatibility) and a crisis in the relationship has already begun.

At this stage, the couple may even get married. The concept of a joint future arises (we will live together someday) and at first everything is really good, there is absolute loyalty, there is deep trust, there is an understanding of each other's emotional needs, love, care, tenderness and attention. But the couple continues to live in two cities and their meetings do not take place every day, but once a week, a month, or even half a year. During the first year of a long-distance relationship, love maintains psychological inertia and the relationship is still very strong, but after a year in a couple, internal conflict begins to grow.

3rd stage in a long distance relationship.

The growth of internal conflict. Relationships at a distance are severed from within by the very nature of these relationships. With the geographical factor, people do nothing, and as a result, the problematic nature of their relationship is growing and intensifying, discontent and internal conflict begin to accumulate in the couple, which begins to be projected onto another person. What happens very often here:

1) The concept of a joint future begins to be gradually undermined by time, weakened and destroyed.

2) How to solve all problems in a pair? That's right, having sex. In a long-distance relationship, this is simply impossible, therefore, all mutual conflicts do not receive emotional relaxation through bed, but gradually accumulate. The internal problematicity of these relationships is growing

3) Relationships have two pillars on which they stand - these are Value and Community. Gradually, the value of this person begins to fade (after all, there are many others around you), your once huge psychological community (ie "common reality") also begins to gradually weaken.

4) There is a loss of Trust. Very often, instead of trust, such destructive phenomena as Control and Surveillance are triggered (what is this person doing now? Where did he go in the evening? With whom? Etc.)

4th stage of love at a distance.

Cooling and crisis. A crisis in a relationship could come both at the second and at the third stage of a long-distance relationship, but at the fourth stage, a crisis is almost inevitable (for 95% of couples). The crisis is accumulating and comes into such a relationship at different rates, from a year to three years. A lot depends on the psychological literacy of a man and a woman, on the number of psychological mistakes made (both are always responsible for mistakes in relationships, by definition) and on the degree of erotic tension (whether there is a spark of erotic tension or not - and why) in a couple.

An understanding of the wrongness of such a relationship comes to someone, but instead of a positive agenda (listen, we have problems, let's think about how we can solve them in the best way in order to be happy again?), The fiercest criticism of the personality of another person is turned on. There is no genuine understanding that in this situation it is not you personally and not another person who are to blame, but the very LOGIC of DEVELOPING relationships at distances, which leads most couples to just such a scenario.

The repulsion of the personality begins. It is not your individual actions (misdeeds) that are criticized, but your entire personality (the classic phrases of this stage sound: “You have always been that (bad, terrible, etc.) , evil, etc.) was, is and will be ”). Deliberately absurd, delusional accusations sound. Moreover, both to your address and from outgoing ones. Sexual infidelity is either already taking place or is about to begin to occur, in any case, one of the relationship partners may already be actively flirting, recklessly getting to know each other and cheating.

People in a pair do not hear each other and do not understand, although they speak the same language. The "body language" completely changes - when they meet, people feel not a desire to hug each other, but an unnatural feeling of stiffness (the so-called "muscle shell"), muscle clamps appear, incongruent behavior, emotional instability, body language becomes "cold", then there are strange, closed poses ("defensive").

Again, the vast majority of long-distance relationships, if a man and a woman do not move in and do not start living together for 2-3 years, is doomed to collapse and disintegration. This is exactly what happens, relationships begin to crumble, divorces and disagreements occur.

Parting with a loved one is always difficult. And it would be better not to do this at all. And if you have to? And if you have to live in different cities,

There are different circumstances. A person can go to study, get poisoned on a long business trip, join the army, find a job in another city, and now, due to the crisis, there will be more and more such cases. What to do: break off the relationship, since their prospects are very dim? Or continue to develop them in the hope that someday you will be together?

However, only here people perceive this situation as exceptional. And in the United States, for example, 700,000 people live in different cities with their families or other half, and most of them successfully build their relationships. So rumors about the inevitability of the death of love in separation are greatly exaggerated.

In the waiting room

Although, of course, when lovers are forced to live in different cities or countries, their relationship is severely tested. There is a danger:

  • Begin to idealize your partner: from a distance, all the positive qualities seem exaggerated, and the shortcomings are just a "cute twist". This happens especially often if people met little before parting or never saw each other at all - for example, they met on the Internet.
  • Become a victim of "over the horizon" love. With a person who is far away, every meeting is a holiday: flowers, confessions, fantastic sex. If you "get hooked" on this romantic needle, then it will be difficult to build normal relationships - with their daily problems, the pressure of everyday life, mood swings, fatigue and poor health.
  • Begin to be jealous and poison yourself with pictures of your beloved's betrayal. For some reason, it is believed that a man physiologically cannot keep faithfulness in separation for a long time, although any adult knows alternative ways to relieve sexual tension. There is also a danger that you will become jealous and demand that you take your mobile phone even to the bathroom and toilet.
  • Turn your existence into a "waiting room": consider that life is those two weeks (month, day) when you are together. Spending all your time at the phone, in front of the computer, hoping to receive news from your loved one.
  • Make your separation endless. Still, this state is not entirely normal, and it would be good to know how long it will take for your separation to end.

Magic "but"

They say that parting is for love, like the wind is for fire: it extinguishes the weak, blows the big one. All of these disadvantages can turn into advantages for a couple who have real strong feelings for each other.

Will you start idealizing your partner? But in separation, you can find in your beloved those good character traits that you might not notice in everyday life. By the way, recent studies say that slightly exaggerating the merits of your other half strengthens the marriage.

Is your relationship all about romance? But you are not in danger of bothering each other. And besides, there will be something to tell your grandchildren later - about your flights to each other halfway across the country, about daily e-mails (by the way, keep them), about unexpected SMS with a declaration of love.

Tortured by jealousy? But you will maintain a certain intensity in the relationship. As you know, a man has to fight for a lady all the time. But, so that mild jealousy does not develop into paranoia and does not destroy the relationship, always keep the subtext: many have sought me, but I preferred you.
Will you think about a relationship with your beloved all the time? But you have a unique opportunity to understand yourself: do you love him, do you want to stay with him all your life? Sometimes it is helpful to step back a few steps and look at the situation from the outside.

Does your separation seem endless? But this is a good test of the strength of the relationship. Real feelings during a breakup are only exacerbated. And light love crumbles to dust. And finally, without parting, there would be no meetings!

Personal experience

Tatiana R .:
I had a long distance relationship. The first time I met a young man for quite a long time, and then left to study in another city - two thousand kilometers away ...

I was sure that I was madly in love. But, apparently, a lever called "out of sight - out of mind" worked. In general, when I returned six months later, we parted. We were just not ready for parting.

A good lesson, but did not go for the future. Because exactly a year later I stepped on the same rake: I met a young man from another city. But with him everything was more than serious. And we both knew where we were going.

For three years we maintained a long-distance relationship. And today I am sure: you can be far away physically, but at the same time remain close spiritually. Can.

But we parted anyway. No, love has not gone anywhere. But there was another important component - relationships. Yes, every our meeting was a real holiday. But life cannot consist of holidays alone ...

At some point, we realized that it was difficult for us to understand each other. We change under the influence of our environment - whether we like it or not. And because we did not see each other for a long time, we did not accept these changes in each other. And gradually they moved away ...

Alexander O .:

If there is love, then separation is bullshit. Three years ago I left for the States, my girlfriend stayed in Russia. But we didn’t want to lose each other and continued to communicate on the phone, wrote each other letters by e-mail. A year ago, my beloved came to me, and now we have a wonderful family. A similar story happened with other Russian guys who work with me: everyone brought their wives, loved ones in a year, two, three ... And no one died of "physiological need."

There was a short holiday romance - just one day. I left, not really hoping for a continuation. But he called. And then he began to call every day. I could no longer imagine life without his voice. A month later we met, spent a whole week together. Everything was just fine, but after some reason the relationship began to decline. Maybe we are real, not invented, disappointed each other ... Calls became less and less frequent, there was no longer the same warmth in our voice. We decided to leave. I was very worried. A year has passed. I came to St. Petersburg, where he lived, on a business trip. I called him. Two years have passed since then, we live together and are very happy.

Valentina D .:

There are no unsolvable situations. My husband worked for a foreign company and spent several months on a business trip in Sweden. Yes, we called each other, wrote, but the relationship began to deteriorate. We realized that this could not continue. No job, beloved or highly paid, is worth the sacrifice. Career is good, but close people are more important. The husband is now in a different position. There is less money, but we are together.

Natalia K .:

I didn't have any special feelings for the person I was dating. He seemed to be some kind of boring, ordinary. When I left for France to study, we agreed not to be faithful to each other, to act according to circumstances. But then his letters began ... And I found out what a delicate, warm, unusually kind person he was. After graduating, I returned to Russia (although there were plans to “catch on” in France), now we are together ...

Make as many reminders as possible about each other: surround yourself with photographs of the two of you, souvenirs given to each other. When you are visiting a loved one, leave a secret message (for example, in a drawer of his desk), which he will not find right away.

Warm up your relationship periodically. Send a surprise gift - for no reason, just to say, "I'm thinking of you." Use more than email - a handwritten letter sent in an envelope can be very moving. Call your friend while he goes to bed and say good night, sweet dreams.

Take an interest in the life of your loved one and talk about yours. Not just at the level of “how are you? - ok! ”, but with details, details.
It's good if a friend knows the scent of your perfume. The receptors for the sense of smell are located near the part of the brain that is responsible for memory. When he smells a familiar scent, your image will appear in his imagination.

Think about it. Believe it or not, lovers are amazingly able to feel each other at a distance.

Try to see each other as often as possible. Then it will not be a revelation for you that your man has this or that habit, that he now thinks this way and not another.

Most importantly, believe that you will stand the test of separation. And in those moments when a loved one begins to doubt the reality of your relationship, do not lose heart yourself and support him.