The most challenging aspect of a long distance relationship is maintaining the feeling of simply being part of one another’s lives. Couples that see one another only once a week or once a month often can feel disconnected from their partner. This disconnection can lead to an erosion of intimacy.

Think of intimacy as requiring two components: 1) the sharing of emotions, and 2) inter-relatedness of daily activities. Couples in long distance relationships (LDRs) usually do a great job of sharing the emotions that they have for one another. But the second part of the equation, “interrelatedness” requires a great deal of effort. Interrelatedness means being somehow involved in your partner’s, often mundane, day-to-day activities, adventures, struggles, and accomplishments. Geographically close couples do this almost unconsciously as they chat about little events that are upcoming or recently past. These little events seem relevant when discussed right away, but they lose their interest and excitement when discussed in retrospect. For example, “Guess what happened to me at the grocery store?” would be a comment that geographically close couples would share later that night. Although the content may seem trivial, the unconscious connection formed between partners with each little interaction, such as this, forms the foundation of intimacy. But the same couple, placed in a long distance relationship, would likely not think to discuss this little adventure at the grocery store or would find it has lost it’s interest when brought up several days after the fact.

I sometimes compare intimacy to a rope that holds two people together. The inner core of the rope is the sharing of emotions between one another. But around this core are thousands of tiny fibres made up of each seemingly mundane exchange or experience that occurs between a couple. While no one fibre is terribly important, as a whole they create the true strength of the bond. Couples in LDRs usually have a great inner core, but by itself it will not be strong enough to hold the couple together. They have to really work on adding the outer fibres by learning how to share in each others world even while they’re apart.