For a relationship to survive, communication is key. Everyone hears this way too often, but not everyone knows how to convey themselves in a way that the other person would get. This involves knowing each other’s love languages to appreciate each other more and recognize efforts. It also means taking time to get to know your partner’s different ways of showing affection.

To express what you want in the relationship and understand your partner better, you also have to communicate. Couples have to physically see each other and talk. In this area, people in long distance relationships have it hard. Chatting online takes away a lot of tone in the messages, which could cause a few misunderstandings here and there. Sometimes, it helps to just have the presence of your partner to comfort you because not everything can be communicated with words. For partners who are separated by distances, it can get really frustrating.

Communication Obstacles

Image credit to The Gender Spectrum Collection

It can be difficult to maintain communication in a long distance relationship when it seems like there are too many obstacles. My boyfriend and I have been in a long-distance relationship for a little over a year now. We met online, and since then, our primary modes of communication have always been through Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or Telegram. This means we send each other photos, videos, and lots of voice messages.

Through the course of knowing each other, we’ve only seen each other a handful of times. We are about 4,290 miles apart. As if the distance isn’t hard enough for us, there is a huge 4-hour time difference as well. This makes communication even more difficult because we have a window of only 8 hours to talk in a day. We both have work, reducing that window of time significantly. Sometimes, we sacrifice precious sleep just to talk to each other a bit longer.

As if all that isn’t challenging enough already, we also can’t make voice and/or video calls. I know a lot of long-distance couples that video call each other a lot, but I’m afraid that’s not even an option for us. He is from a country whose telecom providers absolutely do not allow free internet calling services. This means no video calls from either Facetime or Skype, or voice calls from Telegram, WhatsApp, Messenger, or Skype.

They don’t offer it for free – it comes at a price. Of course, I know that this is something out of his control. I’m not going to force him to pay for something just so we can avail of internet calling. It’s not his fault that he happens to be residing there. Still, this limits our communication even way more. We’ve tried overseas calls using phone credits (or load) but we both know it’s very expensive, so we’ve tried it only twice.

Communicating Our Needs

We have a lot of obstacles between us that make communication more difficult – distance, time difference, and lack of calls. Despite this, we make it a fact to understand each other’s situation. We adjust to each other’s work schedules, we inform ahead of time if there’s something out of the ordinary in our daily routine, we make sure to tell each other when we’ve reached home safely, and most of all, we always give each other constant reassurance. Even if we can’t talk to each other that often, we still communicate our needs, situation, and more importantly, our love.

This is what couples in long-distance relationships should remember to do. Not being able to talk and see each other as much as most couples can get lonely. What’s important is to understand each other’s predicament and know that some things are out of their control. It’s tough being so far away from the person we call our home, but we have to be tougher and be comforted by the fact that we will see them again soon.

Take Advantage of Every Opportunity

As for me and my boyfriend, we managed to call each other online once. When he visited his friend in another country, it dawned on me that we could finally hear each other’s voices in real-time. It was completely magical and I smiled the whole time. It sure beats exchanging voice messages back and forth, which has seconds and minutes of conversation delay. I remember thinking, “So that’s how it feels!” I don’t think most people would grasp how much of a big deal it was. We were able to actually laugh together and just talk. I didn’t need to wait for a sign that he’s seen my message and wait for a reply because we were actually talking to each other in real-time. It used to be such just a concept for us!

Something so small meant so big for us. Other couples are so lucky that they get to spontaneously visit each other and go on dates, or even call each other when there’s something they want to share about their day. These are some privileges that long-distance couples simply can’t have.

Communication is one of the most important things in any relationship, and we have all sorts of difficulties in our way. In the end, what matters most is the love we have and the effort we put in. Even if there are some days where we’ve hardly even talked, it’s no worry – we are completely secure in how important we are to each other.