Relationship Advice: Is Long Distance Worth It?

By David Wygant

A long distance relationship is probably the biggest challenge that you could ever try to face. I travel a lot. I’ve been all around the world. I’ve met some amazing, beautiful women, and I really wish that I had been able to connect with them and see them on a regular basis. I tried long distance and even though I’m a relationship expert, it has never really worked for me. It’s not that it’s impossible, it’s just not very realistic. And I’m going to explain why with some relationship advice.

Relationship Expert Gives Relationship Advice On Long Distance

Long distance relationships take so much work. It is a constant battle to truly stay connected to someone. Alright, granted, in today’s society we text and communicate with one another incessantly. You can actually communicate with somebody non-stop throughout the entire day. In a long distance relationship this can give you a feeling of connecting with someone, a feeling of getting to know them. But a relationship is a day-to-day grind, and I don’t mean grind in a negative way. It’s a day-to-day exploration of getting to know one another in everyday situations. Even when we do communicate with someone over a long distance, it’s usually through texting or social media. We hardly ever even use the phone anymore. In order to avoid relationship problems, there needs to be communication on a scale that’s difficult to get other than seeing someone face-to-face. There’s things we just can’t learn about them, as individuals, any other way.

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For instance, how does this person act when they’re with their kids? Or your kids? What are they like after a stressful day of work? How are they when they’re super busy? Do they have time for you? What are they like when they interact with their friends, their family? Long distance relationships are all about creating an illusion of closeness. You set up a time to meet one another. You spend a weekend together and you’re on the best behavior possible. They come and visit you the following month. You’re still on your best behavior possible. Everything is exciting in a long distance relationship because you’re not seeing each other on a regular basis, so the sex is always off the charts. The things you do are always fun. But, it’s like being in an artificial relationship; everything is fun all the time but not really in touch with reality. Everything is great, but you’re missing the day-to-day grind, the reality of knowing someone in a real way.

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Long distance relationships will only work if the two of you have an end goal. My relationship advice: The relationship needs purpose. The relationship will eventually need the day-to-day grind. You will both need to decide whether or not it is worth moving away from the illusion that the distance can create. The two of you will have to decide to be flexible enough so that you can close that distance and be together in a set amount of time. For some people this will never be realistic. For instance, if both of you are single parents, you’re not going to move your kids anywhere. So, a long distance relationship would be pretty unreasonable. Some people can make this kind of relationship work. If your relationship is made up of two people who are willing to be mobile, two people who are able to go and explore the world, then a long distance relationship has hope.  As long as you determine when one of you will spend real, significant amounts of time with the other person. That could even be a month living together, being with that person, and getting to know them on a daily basis.

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This also means having an end goal that you’re willing to go and move to another state, or willing to go and move to the city where your partner lives. Love can come from anywhere in this world. Love can come from anywhere on this whole planet. But, my dating tip is that you’ve got to be able to follow the very distinct guidelines to make it work. When you do that, you actually have a chance. You have a chance to be able to love.

David Wygant is an internationally-renowned dating and relationship expert, author of the book Naked, and speaker. Through his boot camps, personal coaching, and his website, his love advice has transformed the relationships and love of hundreds of thousands of people from every corner of the globe. 

For more expert relationship advice from David, click here.