How Can I Make My Long-Distance Relationship Work?

How can I make my long-distance relationship work if I’m too scared to do it?

It takes more than love and faith to keep a relationship alive, let alone a long-distance relationship (LDR).

Long-distance relationships have always been a bane for most people; they think it’s tiresome to maintain—too much work, a lot of uncertainty and doubts, and they think it’s a breeding ground for unfaithful people to have an excuse to fool around.

They’re not wrong. They are right to feel this way and to express their grievances about long-distance relationships.

Not a lot of people can survive an LDR, and not everyone is emotionally strong enough to withstand the anxiety it causes—so what should you do?

Keeping the Relationship Intact

Distance and relationships are two things that usually don’t go together. When a person leaves the country for work, they leave behind their friends, family, and especially their partner. Their partners can’t help but accept the fact that they need to be away from each other to have a sustainable life at home.

When a couple isn’t together, a lot of things can ruin their relationship, even if they consider their relationship to be strong.

Can you make your long-distance relationship work? For starters, both of you need to cooperate to make it work. Like Tango, it takes two to make your relationship succeed.

You need the following to know how to survive a long-distance relationship:

Faith

Faith is believing in someone or something even if there’s no concrete evidence to support it.

Similarly, in LDRs, you won’t entirely know what your partner is up to; they might be sleeping on the job, out drinking with friends, or maybe they’re cooped up in the apartment.

Having faith in your partner means you rely on them not to make a mistake, and hope that everything they do is good and true. Even if they don’t tell you the whole thing, you still believe they’re being honest.

Although you shouldn’t be relying on blind faith, it’s healthy to have a little doubt in them, so it’s best to talk to them and tell them how you feel—in short, you need assurance to keep your faith unwavering.

Communication

What’s a relationship without communication?

A relationship is like a captain and his mate navigating a ship. A captain communicates with his mate to ensure where they’re supposed to be and what maneuvers to perform to get there; the captain’s mate, on the other hand, ensures the ship’s integrity by maintaining its power and capabilities.

As captain and mate, both of you need to communicate what you see, what you feel, and where you think the relationship is heading, especially now that you’re both away from each other. Open and honest communication allows you to navigate your relationship properly.

For effective communication, allow one person to say what they have in mind without judgment. Let them express what they feel and think.

Never forget to be an active listener. If you’re hearing things and not listening, then you’re being a bad communicator—that works both ways as well if your partner is listening and you need to speak out.

Keep things in context, don’t shift a serious topic into something else if you’re not willing to listen.

There are many long-distance activities you and your partner can do.

Planning

Your schedules won’t be the same; you have work, they have errands—you both live in different time zones. Time won’t be your friend.

How do you do long-distance activities together, knowing your schedules are different?

You both need to plan!

Find an hour or three to bond; there are many things to do in a long-distance relationship.

Compromise and Sacrifice

Plans can and will go wrong. Hence, you need to compromise. If none of you is willing to give in, what’s even the point of being together?

Sometimes, one needs to sacrifice to appease the needs of the other; time is scarce between you two, so you need to be open-minded and understand that someone’s activities or sleep will need to be sacrificed.

At the end of the day, it will be worth it because one selflessly sacrificed something so you can spend time with each other, and that says a lot about one’s sincerity.

But then, what’s sacrifice without dedication and consistency?

Dedication and Consistency

Compromise and sacrifice will be all for naught if you’re not dedicated to making the effort.

Dedication doesn’t mean you always have to be 100%; it’s enough to do what you can with the energy you have left.

What’s more, dedication is useless without consistency.

Consistency is what builds trust; your actions reflect how much your partner trusts you.

Being consistent with your efforts not only builds trust but also assures your partner that you are serious about your intentions.

Honesty and Integrity

Every relationship should be built on honesty.

Being honest doesn’t always mean telling the truth to your partner about what you’ve done; it’s also about being truthful to yourself, whether you’re able to pull through with a plan, you’re not feeling well in the relationship, or rethinking things—anything that speaks about what you feel.

Honesty helps keep the relationship stable, and if you have the integrity to be honest when no one is looking, then your relationship will be secure.

Being faithful is one thing, but having integrity is another. Having the integrity to be honest when you’re all alone shows how serious you are to your partner.

If you are honest with your partner and yourself, then you have no reason to feel guilty or be doubted.

Trust

You could say that trust is like a glass cannon; powerful, but make one mistake and it shatters.

Trust is the most powerful and at the same time the most fragile thing in a relationship. It creates a deeper sense of love, but if broken, it can be difficult to rebuild.

You need to trust your partner, as your partner needs to trust you; it’s something to be earned and not given immediately. If your partner trusts you in whatever you do, make sure you won’t do anything to break that trust.

Being trustworthy not only ensures your relationship’s strength but also assures your partner that whatever you’re doing will not hurt them.

Sadly, the majority of long-distance relationships fail because of trust issues.

Balance

Just because you’re both far away doesn’t mean you should be helicopters, always looking out for the other, trying to see if they’re doing something fishy.

You’re both human, and you need time for yourselves. Don’t be a security camera.

Allow yourselves to have some space to regroup, take care of your mental health, and catch up with what’s going on in your personal lives.

Most couples get the wrong idea of having to update and be available to each other 24/7, but in reality, you just need to figure out how you both can work with each other while not taking away too much of your personal time.

Love

There’s no point in doing all of these if you’re not doing it for love.

You can be faithful, honest, and consistent to your partner, but if you’re doing it out of obligation or service to each other, then there’s no point in all these.

Love sounds cliché, but it’s the driving factor for other people to keep the relationship alive, and if you do all these things through love, it won’t feel like a chore.

Love makes you enjoy the process; it makes you look forward to the next day, hoping the days fly faster so the time to be with each other will come sooner.

Knowing how to survive a long-distance relationship means understanding each other.

Want to Make it Work? Then Put in the Work

Is a long-distance relationship worth it? That ultimately depends on how you see it.

Some people find it difficult, but in the end, they find it was all worth the pain and tears. However, others can’t say the same thing.

If you want to make your relationship last and if you want to see your partner again in person, then you both need to work together. It takes two to Tango.

Encourage each other to do better—don’t point fingers or look for flaws, and make a big deal about it. Hold each other accountable for your words and actions.

Are you afraid your long-distance relationship won’t work? You’re not alone. Some people go through the same experience as you, so you need to understand that if your partner is doubting you, it means they need you more— they need you to reassure them that no matter what, you’re there to help ease everything.

Do all these things slowly and persistently, and everything will follow.

External References:

Olivia W. “13 Tips for Making a Long-Distance Relationship Work.” Utah State University Extension, 12 January 2024, https://extension.usu.edu/hru/blog/13-tips-for-making-a-long-distance-relationship-work. Accessed 8 May 2025.

Cohan, Deborah J. “9 Proven Ways to Maintain a Long-Distance Relationship.” Psychology Today, 2024, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-lights/202401/9-surefire-ways-to-nurture-a-long-distance-relationship.

Huntington, Charlie, and Matt Huston. “How to make a long-distance relationship work.” Psyche, 5 March 2025, https://psyche.co/guides/research-backed-tips-for-making-a-long-distance-relationship-work. Accessed 8 May 2025.

Lee, Bruce Y. “How Do You Make Long-Distance Relationships Work?” Psychology Today, 9 September 2024, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/a-funny-bone-to-pick/202409/how-do-you-make-long-distance-relationships-work. Accessed 8 May 2025.

Manson, Mark. “How to Survive a Long Distance Relationship.” Mark Manson, https://markmanson.net/long-distance-relationships. Accessed 8 May 2025.