1) Trust - You must definitely trust the other person. Being insanely jealous without reason will cause you unnecessary heartache and tons of fighting.
2) Communicate, communicate, communicate! One big fight we had was when I was going through a mini-crisis and Phil hung up on me because he was playing World of Warcraft. Seriously?!?! I was P.O.'d for days. We made a deal to have a minimum 15 minute conversation each day, no matter how busy we were. This was broken a few times when I was on-call at the hospital or he was at camp with no signal, but otherwise, it worked really well. I thought this was one advantage to an LDR. Because we couldn't be together physically, we had to really communicate with each other to make the relationship work.
3) Have your own life. Please don't bug your S.O. because you have nothing else to do, like 24/7. Pick up a hobby! Have some girl/guy friends! Cook dinner! Watch some T.V.! Develop a fictional crush to Edward Cullen!
4) Have a plan to be together in the near future. Don't just drift in your relationship and think... "oh, we'll see where this takes us in the next 5-10 years." If you don't have a goal to move closer to each other, then you might never be near enough.
5) Don't forget to show him/her how much you DO care. After all, we can't see facial expressions or receive hugs during our down times.
6) Work on your relationship. We used to do bible studies once a week (over the phone) to work on our relationship. It worked out really well and was a good idea. It strengthened our relationship, our communication skills with each other, and our understanding of how the other person thinks. We haven't gone through a relationship book yet, but that is something we have planned for the future. We are also going to do pre-marital counseling, which I think EVERY engaged couple should go through before they get married.
What advice do you have that was pertinent to the survival of your relationship?
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