Do you have any essential advice for a 2-year long distance relationship?

My fiance and I have been together for 4 years. We will be getting our graduate degrees on the East and West Coast, separately. His program is 2 years, after which he will be joining me in LA while I finish my program, which is 5-6 years.





Though we've been through a lot, we've never been apart for more than 3 months. As we are engaged, we are obviously committed to making this work. We already have plans to visit each other every 6 weeks. Do you have any other advice? Thanks.Do you have any essential advice for a 2-year long distance relationship?
Make sure you fix a time every day to communicate exclusively with each other and regard it as a date. This will be partly online and partly by phone, depending on financial resources. Invest in extra gadgets if you don't have them, such as webcams so you can see each other as well as just writing. Online chat is much much better than email.





Make the effort to tell each other about all the trivia - people who annoy you, somethig nice you ate, what your family has told you on the phone - because sharing all these tiny ups and downs are what make you feel less distanced from each other.





Your active social life will decline as you will spend more time attached to the phone or computer. You will probably be put under pressure by friends to ';get out and enjoy yourself more'; but you have to resist this, because if you are out all the time your distant partner will feel forgotten.





Be prepared to drop everything and take a plane over if either of you has a problem even if it seems fairly trivial, like catching flu or something. You need to be there helping each other to reinforce the fact that you are your partner's main support in life. If you learn to cope all alone without your partner, your relationship is in grave danger.





I think that when you are long distance, sharing the bad bits is almost more important than sharing the good bits.





I think your 6-weekly visiting is good and about the max you can go. With my husband we usually only held out for 3 weeks before we desperately needed to see each other, but with commitments of studying and money limitations I think you are being realistic.


Make sure these visits are as wonderful as possible. Organise as many new and exciting activities as you can. This way you will have plenty of shared experiences to reminisce about and look forward to together in the in-between times.


There is a temptation to shut yourselves up together and stay in bed for ages but if you do this you have little to talk about afterwards. Action-packed shared times are the way to sustain the interest across the distance.





Good luck.Do you have any essential advice for a 2-year long distance relationship?
Hey,


I recommend getting skype (if you dont already) its really great to be able to talk to each other for free through your computers, and invest in a webcam so you can see each other. Also if you're game for it, i suggest skype sex as a good way to kind of keep you connected sexually.
all i can say is... i hope that two years aren't a very long time for you guys. i would say what you're doing right now is working coz you guys are still together. just continue to be open with each other.:)





you two seem sweet, i hope everything works out!
Wow, that's pretty amazing. Just continue to trust and love each other.


And keep the communication open.