By the look of how many incredible questions I’ve had come my way around long distance relationships, and how relationship anxiety affects “LDR’s” (I’ll likely use this abbreviation throughout the article), this topic is long overdue for a blog post.
Long distance relationships have their own set of intricacies and nuances.
They have challenges, and they have benefits (like a lot of things in life do).
They have uniqueness within the individual situations of each couple, and yet many patterns and trends across the board.
They also require a whole lot of patience, trust, and strength, that’s for sure.
Add in some relationship anxiety to the mix and you make for what some would say is a more complex situation than the “cookie cutter relationships” we see in movies.
In this blog post, I’ll unpack my own experience of long distance, general long distance insights, and how to navigate relationship anxiety within an LDR.
I’m sure there will be some context missing from this article as I am writing it from my own limited views, and can’t possibly know the extent of people’s long distance experiences, as mine was so specific to me and Nate.
To add onto that last point, I wanted to give a couple disclaimers before we get too much further:
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Nate and I lived two hours apart (a drive away) which is much more convenient than many other people’s situations, and I realize that was a privilege. Two hours, however, is just far enough away that you don’t see your partner as often as you’d like, you have to plan things in advance, and you can very much still experience anxiety during the relationship
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I have no insight into long distance within military situations or living in two different countries where there may be travel regulations (for example: not being able to see one another for an extended period of time during the pandemic). On some of my long distance posts in the past, I’ve been told that my advice isn’y fully inclusive of these types of relationships, which I can acknowledge and be more mindful of moving forward
Some of you may have read my relationship anxiety story already, but as a quick refresher and to add LDR-specific context, my experience with long distance looked a little something like this:
I met Nate through a friend of a friend spontaneously at a concert up near where I live, and we hit it off and had a great time.
Nate grew up in Richmond, Virginia (2 hours south from me), and I grew up in Northern Virginia, but I was intrigued by him, he was intrigued by me, and we both wanted to continue getting to know each other.
We began “talking” (texting) pretty immediately and consistently after meeting and quickly developed crushes and feelings for one another.
Within a few weeks of first meeting, he drove up to take me out to a more formal first date and from there, I considered us an “item” so to speak.
We began seeing each other every 2-4 weeks, which was our consistent pattern throughout our time of being long distance.
It took around 6+ months for him to officially consider me his girlfriend, as he was internally worried about balancing a business he’d started with dedicated time to a committed relationship.
I’d say the ratio of him driving up to visit me vs. me going down to visit him was 65% - 35% as he felt like there was “more to do” and more friends to spend time with up in my area, less so down in Richmond (as many of his closest friends weren’t living there at the time).
Without going into too much more detail, it wasn’t until 3ish years later that we first moved in together (with his mom, due to the pandemic).
We’d been planning to move in together in our own place up in Northern Virginia around 3.5 years after we began talking, and of course plans changed (I wasn’t working and so didn’t want to pay rent), so the 3-year-mark was the timeline of when we ended the distance.
In my experience of long distance, there were many challenges + hardships, and also many benefits + rewards.
I will acknowledge that these things are much easier to see in hindsight.
Now that I know Nate and I were able to “close the gap” (move in together) and strengthen our relationship over time, I can share these with much more awareness than when I was in the thick of doing distance.
I felt it was worth sharing these upfront so that in the rest of the article you can understand that LDR’s are neither “all bad” or “all good,” they’re neither “all hard” or “all easy.”
And funny enough, when I zoom out and think about any relationship (distance, or no distance), I find the same is true.
While LDR’s do bring about a unique set of challenges, so do relationships where you live with them and see them daily…
Trust me on this one. I’ve now seen both sides!
Understanding this can help us release the desire to fall victim to thinking our circumstances are uniquely difficult, or assume that “things would just be easier if we lived together.” (there’s some truth to this, and some not-truth).
First, let’s start with the challenges + hardships.
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Missing your partner and wishing they were there with you in person (or not missing them as much as you think you “should”, then worrying that means something)
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You’re alone with your thoughts more. This can lead to insecurities or anxiety building up if you don’t practice managing them
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When there is conflict or disagreements, it can feel harder to resolve if you’re not in person, and, to add to that, there can be more frequent miscommunications via phone calls or text
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It can feel like you and your partner are disconnected, living separate lives, or growing apart at times
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There are underlying pressures that tend to creep in: when should we move in together? how long will the long distance work out for? what if this doesn’t work and I’ve “wasted my time?” who should be the one to move to the other person’s city, or are we going to find a new city to move to together? etc.
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On the surface it may appear there are more logistics or costs for coordinating visits and travel (yet, there are also logistics and costs when living together - so this isn’t the full story)
Next, some benefits + rewards.
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Time apart from your partner gives you a chance to connect to yourself and nurture other relationships in your life (friends, family, community)
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Time apart from your partner gives you an opportunity to practice self-soothing, managing your anxious thoughts, and pouring into your own growth
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Your communication skills are forced to strengthen, because if you don’t, you’ll find yourself having misunderstandings and frustrations
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There is a chance to deeply commit to the relationship and your partner, despite the unknowns, and despite the hardship
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Your patience, trust, and resilience will have many chances to be strengthened, regardless of the outcome of the relationship
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The time you spend together can feel like a mini-vacation of exploring each other’s hometowns and trying new things
Now that we’ve established that LDR’s can be both challenging yet rewarding, let’s add on the layer of relationship anxiety to all of this.
I’ll start by saying that I truly don’t know if my relationship anxiety would have been higher or lower had Nate and I not been long distance for ~3 years.
Of course I never will know this either, as it’s not what happened.
Looking back, I do sense that long-distance ultimately heightened my relationship anxiety, and yet, soon after I moved in with Nate (and was furloughed from my job - more of that story here) I experienced peak relationship anxiety like never before.
So all of this is to say I can’t know sure if LDR’s heighten or lessen relationship anxiety.
I’ve had clients and community members who experience relationship anxiety both in LDR’s and non-LDR’s, so it’s likely context-depended and personality-dependent.
The reason I think long distance heightened my relationship anxiety personally was because the time spent Nate and I spent away from one another was a prime time when I’d be stuck up in my head overthinking and overanalyzing, both which increase relationship anxiety.
Most of the times when I was with Nate in person, I felt more confident, happy and optimistic about the relationship (aside from the inevitable triggers that would come up in person).
Even when triggers would come up, I remember I’d try not to let them affect the time we did have together, which I always knew was short (usually a long weekend). This wasn’t always successful, but I remember not wanting to “ruin the time together” and thus I’d usually wait until we were apart to ruminate about any triggering experiences (which looking back, I could have managed much better had I known how to soothe and regulate my emotions like I do now).
Maybe me not addressing things in person as much was me being avoidant or resistant, but the upside was it led me to have great experiences in-person with Nate, and I do have many fond memories from our long distance visits because we had a lot of fun and tried to treat each long weekend visit like a mini vacation.
However, as I just alluded to, many times once the time in person was over, the intrusive thoughts crept in.
There were many drives home and Sunday afternoons after Nate left that I would start having intense worries.
They would often either be about something that happened during our visit that triggered me (”if he does that forever, will I be able to live with that?” “did we have enough fun together?” “if I felt irritated or annoyed by him during our visit, is that a sign something is wrong?”), or I’d get sucked into future-based thinking (”how can I be sure this will work out?” “what if we don’t do well living together?” “is he really The One? how can I know for sure?”).
As mentioned, at the time, I wasn’t as forthcoming with my communication around my relationship anxiety experience.
I’ve come a long way in the 5 years we’ve been together, but for most of the initial few years of my relationship with Nate, I’d spend more time in my own head than trying to share my feelings with him.
This was likely because I didn’t quite understand what was happening, either.
A couple times I would say things like “divorce scares me, and sometimes when I worry about that happening to us I start to get anxious” or “something feels off but I don’t know what”—and Nate would always be very supportive, but at the time I didn’t have the verbiage to articulate what relationship anxiety/ROCD was and wasn’t able to give Nate (or myself, really) more insight.
All of this to say, when you add the additional layer of relationship anxiety into the distance, it can feel very difficult, and understandably so.
I know just how hard long distance paired with relationship anxiety felt in the moment.
The days of being so distracted at work that I could barely get anything done because I was so panicked that something was wrong in my relationship.
The mornings where I’d wake up with a sinking feeling in my stomach and immediately jump to associating it with Nate.
The hours and hours of rumination spirals trying to find answers and certainty (that weren’t ever going to be there).
All of it caused me to question if I could really do this.
However, in hindsight I can say without a doubt that my relationship anxiety paired with Nate and I being long distance gave us both a strong foundation that I see as being very lasting and sustainable.
I can’t predict the future, of course, but based on how our relationship has grown over the last 5+ years, I can say I am grateful for the challenges of relationship anxiety and long distance and how they led to us being stronger as a couple.
Knowing what I know now, here is what I would have done differently during the years of long distance to reduce my relationship anxiety:
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I would have learned as much as possible about relationship anxiety/ROCD so I was more self-aware of what was going on and why I was feeling the way I was feeling. At the time, I was certain my doubts were a sign I was in the wrong relationship, yet something kept pulling me forward. If you’re here reading this blog post, you’re in a much better position than I was in the thick of my anxiety because you’ve found a resource that you can use to help you better understand the experience for yourself (and optional - to share with your partner). I didn’t come across this information until a few years of feeling anxious, and wish I’d had it sooner. If you feel lost at where to begin when it comes to understanding RA/ROCD, I’d make sure you’ve read all my blog posts (about 100 of them!), and if you’re looking for more guided support, dive into Deconstruct the Doubts course, where I walk through exactly what information helped me to feel less anxious and more confident in my relationship.
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Once I felt like I understood my relationship anxiety better, I would have tried to help Nate and a group of my closest friends or family (only ones you trust deeply!) understand what I was experiencing earlier on and let him in on my feelings so he could support me. [Check out my telling your partner about RA blog post if sharing with others scares you - I walk you through how to decide if you want to, and how to do it in a way that feels loving and kind!]. Bottling in my relationship anxiety led to a ton of shame and guilt, and while I did try to talk my way through the doubts with friends or family, I didn’t have the insight to help them understand my situation, so I can imagine it was confusing for some of them to hear my fears and doubts without understanding the root causes.
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Lastly, and maybe most importantly, I would have stopped at nothing to learn what methods of soothing and emotional regulation work for me, and practice them consistently. Would it be deep breathing, movement, tuning into the space around me with my five senses (see 5-4-3-2-1 technique for more insight on this!), was it it having a good cry to let the emotions pass through me, maybe putting on my favorite music and dancing or shaking my body, or doing nothing at all and allowing myself to sit with the discomfort until it passes? I wish I had spent more time learning how to ground myself instead of allowing so many days to go by completely up in my head, and I know a lot of my community feel the same way.
Here’s one last thing I’ll say about relationship anxiety and LDR’s specifically: if you’re experiencing RA/ROCD in addition to being long distance, please know you’re 1. not alone (so many of my Instagram community shared they were in the same boat!) and 2. there is absolutely a way to work through both the relationship anxiety/ROCD and find a way to end the long distance if all parties involved are committed to figuring things out. I can’t promise when, or where, but I know that when there is a will, there is a way.
This article is already getting pretty long and detailed, but I did want to answer a handful of the questions I received from my Instagram community on the subject.
I received almost 20 different themes of questions about long distance and long distance + relationship anxiety, and there’s no way I could get to them all without making this a full on book chapter, lol, so I am going to pick some that I think are most relevant to this blog post, and then who knows...I may have to do a part 2 of this blog post... (add a comment to this blog post sharing if you want me to write a part 2!).
The top themes of questions I received were:
“Sometimes it feels "too hard" to make something work with someone far away without 'sacrificing', and normalizing that experience would be helpful.”
I want to validate this, 100%!
There are times when long distance is more inconvenient than being in person, and there are extra levels of planning and coordination involved.
In some ways, that is a sacrifice: time spent at home with friends or family can get traded for a visit to your partner’s area, for example.
And yet, I think this question/note ties back to something I said earlier:
While LDR’s do bring about a unique set of challenges, so do relationships where you live with them and see them daily.
There are sacrifices involves on both ends.
When you live together, there are sacrifices, too.
For example, sometimes you sacrifice alone time that you’d like, or maybe you sacrifice the plans you wanted to make because there is an event of your partner’s you are going to.
So while I want the person who submitted this to feel extremely validated, I also want to help zoom out into a potentially bigger picture; one that notes that sacrifice happens in all relationships, and maybe not needing to look at it as a negative experience, but rather something that is meaningful in order for the greater good of relationships (there is nuance and context missing to this — of course this doesn’t mean sacrificing majorly important life values, etc.).
One of the biggest topics submitted was around insecurities and struggling to trust your partner during the time away.
This one is tough.
I definitely had my moments of desiring to know exactly what Nate was up to, who was with him in a group, and felt a sense of lack of control.
And yet, in the same vein, I have always trusted Nate so deeply and never really thought he would cheat on me to a deep degree. (The reason I say “to a deep degree” is because I’ve had some more surface level fears or moments I am not proud of where I’ve thought something like “all men can’t be trusted!!!!” after hearing about a celebrity cheating on their long-term partner, for example, which is of course not a true belief...).
I remember the feelings of checking in with Nate while we were long distance at a frequency that was probably driven by anxiety more than curiosity.
I remember the feelings of wanting him to check in more, because that would mean “he cared about me more”.
I remember the feelings of seeing if him and his friends were posting social media updates if I wasn’t there in-person.
And when I look back at all of this, it had very little, if not nothing to do with Nate and everything to do with me and my own self worth.
Worrying if your partner can be trusted is not likely moving you in a more open-hearted, trusting, loving place (which I think we all can say is where we’d want to be in a relationship).
Unless your partner has given you reason not to be trusted, it’s not worth the energy.
And if they have given you a reason not to be trusted, if you are choosing to continue moving forward in the relationship, consider having clearly communicated boundaries and then still trying to lean into trust instead of monitoring and controlling.
Without some basis of trust in a relationship, it’s going to feel like an uphill battle for everyone involved.
The hard and scary part about trust is that there are no guarantees.
Whether someone can or cannot be trusted is something we’ll only know in time, and trying to over-analyze or control someone because of our own lack of trust usually backfires, not helps the bond within a relationship.
*none of this applies to abusive relationships.
Also, please take what I am saying here with a grain of salt from the lens that I’ve never experienced being cheated on in this or a past relationship. The trauma that comes from that is a whole other layer I can’t speak to from my own experience, but recommend processing in therapy if you feel like you are having a hard time moving beyond it.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t add that insecurity also plays a large role in worrying about what our partner is doing when we’re not together.
Insecurity may have us thinking that if our partner is around someone more attractive or “fun” than we are, that means they will no longer want to be with us.
Insecurity may have us thinking that we need constant updates or check-ins or else we’re not worthy.
Insecurity may have us thinking that our partner enjoying their time away from us means that they don’t love us enough.
None of these things are inherently true.
And if you’re reading this and have a past experience that says otherwise, I’m so sorry and can only imagine how hard it is to trust again after a negative relational experience...
Yet, once we recognize that this is our own reactions to stories we have about our worthiness, we can slowly begin to unlearn the beliefs or stories that tell us we aren’t worthy.
By building our self worth we can slowly trust our partner and ourselves more and allow there to be space for both us and our partner’s to spend our alone time in the ways that fill us up, without the need to monitor or think there’s something deeper happening.
“What if our LDR leads to: loss of connection, feeling okay without them, not “needing them”, feeling less attached, us growing apart?”
In LDR’s, I think there can be a thin line between feeling like we’re okay without our partners and enjoying the time we have away in a supportive way, and potentially growing apart (which may not feel as supportive to you if the goal is to make the relationship work).
I don’t have the exact recipe of what that would look like for each unique relationship, but here are a some thoughts from me:
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It’s okay if we don’t “need” our partner but rather “want” them instead. What does this mean? That if we’re enjoying our time away from our partner and don’t “need” them there to make us have a great time, that’s okay. We can still “want” them there and miss them (or not, no right way to feel!), but needing comes from an energy of “I need you or else I will not be okay” whereas wanting is “I know I am okay as my own individual person, but I want you in my life to add to it”
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While attachment is a part of any relationship, it’s okay to feel “less attached” - this isn’t always negative. There can be balance between attachment and separateness, between connection and space—it’s okay to feel less attached to your partner or the relationship if it means that you’re connecting back to yourself
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It’s normal to go through ebbs and flows of connection and disconnection in ANY relationship, and while LDR’s may exacerbate this natural relational pattern, know that it isn’t necessarily too different when you live with someone (Nate and I go through periods of more closeness and not-closeness even when living together)
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Just because you’re in an LDR doesn’t mean you automatically grow apart. My definition of growing apart would be when you no longer respect or support the trajectory or vision of someone’s life and how it fits into yours. The distance between you in MILES (aka, how far away you live) is not a sign you’re growing apart, rather if you are growing into people that no longer align in core values, lifestyles, visions, etc. This said, you can wholeheartedly still “grow together” while doing distance as long as you maintain emotional connection and a commitment to relational growth in whatever unique way works for you
Transition from LDR to living together; how do you know if it’s right, addressing the fear of the transition to living together
This last one is a common fear and unknown for those who are currently in an LDR but want to eventually transition into living together.
There are inevitable uncertainties at play before “closing the gap”:
“What will it be like living together?”
“Will we get along when we’re around each other all day?”
“Will there be anything I discover about this person that makes me change my mind?”
...and so many more other potential thoughts.
I’ll be candid and say that LDR or not, I think moving in together can be a big deal, especially for the mind who resists change, transition, or loss.
Because as exciting as moving in together can be, it is also very much all the things I just listed: a transition, a change, and has losses on both people’s ends (alone time, doing things “your way,” and others).
Transitions, changes and losses can stir up feelings.
And not just the positive feelings people associate with moving in together.
There can be frustration, irritation, disappointment, grief, overwhelm, you name it—all in addition to the “warm fuzzies” you’d expect, too.
Can we create space for all of the feelings, no “right” or “wrong ones?
Can we allow the moving in experience to be whatever it will be without creating stories of how it “should be”?
Can we trust that nothing is permanent, so if there is a phase of getting used to things, that will pass?
As far as knowing if moving in together is the “right choice”—sometimes the only way to know if a choice was “right” is to make a choice, jump two feet in, and see what happens.
We don’t know for sure if it’s better for one person to move to one city, or the other partner to move to the other city.
We don’t know for sure if you will enjoy living with this person.
We don’t know for sure what habits of each other’s will grind one another’s gears.
But what do I know is that we find out by DOING the thing, not by sitting and wondering about doing the thing.
Whew!
This was a long one, y’all.
If you made it to the end, I hope you’re feeling more informed about LDR’s, LDR’s and relationship anxiety mixed, and how to feel more at ease.
As someone who’s seen the light at the end of the tunnel in “making it” past long distance to living with Nate, I want to inspire you that it’s absolutely possible for you, as well.
Same with the relationship anxiety piece. I feel more confident than ever in me and Nate, something I could not say two years ago.
I say this not to brag but to give you hope for the possibilities.
Sending a lot of love to any of you doing long distance—hang in there!!!!!!
