Challenges of Long Distance

Salamu

Public Disclaimer: This E Mail contains a lot of information that people may feel the need to use in their own relationship. I am not an expert on relationships. I am not a marriage/relationship councilor. Every relationship is different because dynamics are different. These are merely my opinions on a matter.

Challenges in life make us human. We all have our crosses to bear. God gives his greatest challenges to his strongest warriors.

To feel pain while overcoming a challenge leaves a person with an irrevocable sense of achievement which is the closest that a human being can come to feeling an eternal bliss. The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.

I have never been a fan of having too many challenges in my life. Just like Muhammad Ali took a stance and defied the draft to Vietnam I have taken a stance and have not welcomed to much drama or to many challenges into my life.

But like everything in life. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction and it is often the reaction that turns out to be so severe that it shakes the world as you know it to its foundations.

I am being very deep here and one would be excused to think that I am dealing with a significant family crisis or a death of a loved one. It is not this. The challenge I am dealing with at the moment is very different, yet at times leaves you with the same uncertainty. It’s having with a long distance relationship.

One of the biggest challenges with a long distance relationship is  not being able to spend time with your significant other on a regular basis. Because of this, you cant create memories. There are VERY few walks along the beach or in the park, VERY few picnics or dinners, VERY few moments of tenderness when you just sit enjoying a movie or series holding each other…not saying a word…just enjoying others company.

This leads to problems in that for the initial period of the relationship you have a lot to say to each other because you are still discovering things about each other. But what happens when that is over? I used to speak to my girlfriend every day on the phone. Now we call each other every other day because we ended up repeating what we were saying to each other.

I used to freak out because I thought we had run out things to say to each other. Which in a way, we did. But we ran out of things to say to each other because of the lack of memories and not the fact that we didn’t love each other.

Another challenge a long distance relationship presents is that you have to be your own pillar of strength a lot of the time. When you miss someone that’s far away, there is only so much that the other person can say when you say you miss them.

Again this is can become a problem. I have overcome challenges in my life that would have broken many people. I wont go through them now because I am a private person when it comes to these things. I am lucky in the sense that I have overcame these challenges without too much emotional scaring. But at times with a long distance relationship, I admittedly am an emotional wreck. There are times when the storm rages around me so severely that I don’t know where to turn to find safety or strength.

There are many challenges that are associated with a long distance relationship and there will be more posts about this topic. So these are by no means the be all and end all of the challenges.

You need to find coping mechanisms. Something that will help you cope. If you can’t do this. You have a long road of pain ahead of you.

Besides the obvious option of seeing each other as often as possible you need to become creative.

My girlfriend and I have started watching TV programmes together and discussing them. This is a perfect mechanism as it’s like we are sitting next to each other talking about the programme and it’s a way to break the irritation of the monotonous conversation.

Another coping mechanism I have is telling my girlfriend that I love her as often as I can. This is becoming a contentious mechanism as she is a person that does not like to over use the phrase.

It sparked a conversation about how many times it’s acceptable to tell your significant other that you love them. I found a blog where the general consensus is that twice a day is about acceptable.

Love is shown in action. Do things to show your love for a person. And I fully agree with these sentiments. However, while we are doing the long distance thing and I can’t give my girlfriend flowers often and I can’t hold her tight while watching a movie/series…the phrase is that reminder of my feelings for her.

However, every relationship is different because dynamics are different. Dynamics are different because people are different. My girlfriend doesn’t like to overuse the phrase. That doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with our relationship or that she is a difficult person.

I need to adjust my approach because I don’t want to rub my girlfriend up the wrong way. So we are trying an experiment. We are going to try and not say: I Love You for two days.

In a way I can see her point. If you are secure in your relationship and you know that the other person loves you…why feel the need to say it? However, it is un-natural to go days on end without saying it and couples MAY run the risk of becoming complacent and from past experience, complacency is a relationship KILLER. (I say MAY in caps because although I feel that the risk for complacency does exist, there are no guarantees that it will be the case.)

Many people will ask about the trust issue. How can you trust that your girlfriend or boyfriend is not cheating on you while they are so far away? I must say that this has never been an issue in our relationship and never will be. I trust my girlfriend completely and she trusts me completely. This is because from early on in the relationship we decided to play open cards with each other in every situation. If she is going out with her friends she tells me. Not because I want to check up on her, but because we don’t want a completely innocent get together to be misconstrued as a date with a guy. The same applies with me, when there rare occasion comes about that I do go out with my mates I tell her about it.

There are many many more aspects about a long distance relationship that I can talk about. And this may well be the first of many posts. My posts have never had many comments in the past and I am hoping that this one will. I would like to hear your feedback so please comment below.

Mei jua daima kuwa kabla yenu, na vivuli nyuma yako!