5 Tips for Keeping Intimacy Alive in a Long Distance Relationship
How my husband and I make our international marriage work
This week I’m meeting my husband in Singapore for the next round of international marriage bingo. Our intercontinental relationship means we meet up when and where we can. This is life while my hubby’s residency application makes its way through the U.S. immigration system.
I won’t see as much of my husband as I’d like on this trip. I’ll spend my days in a convention center, working at a dermatology conference. It’s not an idyllic vacation, but when the love of your life lives thousands of miles away you take what you can get.
On the plus side, we’ll have a full day to explore Singapore together at the end of the trip. Then we’ll head back to our respective corners of the world to start the countdown until our next rendezvous.
With all the stops and starts, keeping intimacy alive is hard work. Anyone in a long-distance relationship can relate. We walk a fine line between living independent lives and staying connected while living apart.
Six months into our marriage, we’re going strong and are looking forward to a time when we can do life together in one place. While we wait for that day to arrive, we focus on keeping intimacy alive. Here’s what’s working for us:
We foster verbal intimacy
Words can be mundane or meaningful. We use them as a building block to help bridge time and distance. Verbal intimacy isn’t about the sexual aspect of a relationship. The focus is on building an emotional connection.
Technology makes it easy to connect, but there’s a real danger of falling into a rut given the routine of daily life. Over time the conversation slips into superficial pleasantries, like “What did you do today?” “How was work?” or “What are you having for dinner?” These are great check-in questions, and they make nice conversation starters.
Building verbal intimacy is like peeling away the layers of an onion, getting to the core bit by bit. We ask questions like, “How does that make you feel?”, “What’s important to you?”, “What do you really want?”
We discuss the challenges of time and distance. We share our hopes, dreams and fears. We talk about our vision for what life will look like in the not-so-far-off future.
We make the most of our time together
When we started down the road of an international relationship, we realized we had to choose how to manage our time together. We had two options. (1) Complain about the shortness of each visit and dread the thought of parting. (2) Enjoy the time together and see it as an adventure.
We chose the latter. It’s a point of view that lets us be present for our time together so we can make memories. Each memory helps build a strong foundation for our marriage. Brick by brick, we’re creating something intimate and special that comes from our shared experiences.
We try to surprise and delight each other
When we’re together, we surprise each other with small trinkets and gestures. It can be as simple as a bouquet of flowers, a good bottle of champagne, a couple’s massage or a handwritten love note.
We pay attention in our conversations, picking up cues of whatever catches the other’s fancy. I’m so impressed when my husband surprises me with something I mentioned in passing that I like. The last surprise was a bottle of Pol Roger champagne. My husband knows I’m a history buff and that I have history girl-crush on Winston Churchill. Pol Roger is the champagne he was fond of drinking — and yes, it was delightfully yummy.
We take nothing for granted
It’s easy to slip into a daily routine thinking all is well and everything will continue the same way without effort. Over time that thinking can cause us to take relationships for granted. When the object of your affection isn’t front and center, staying connected can be tough. Life’s daily demands can steal attention from our most important relationships.
My husband and I keep each other honest in this department. Some days work is wildly demanding or some drama on the home front begs for our time, so we have an agreement to manage this eventuality. After two days in a row of the relationship taking a back seat to the stuff of life, we bring it to the other’s attention. We make sure to reset and ask for what we need on an emotional level.
This keeps us on track. The key to success in these conversations is avoiding accusation and being kind to one another. It’s important to remember we’re only human and that we both have good intentions.
We cut distractions
Life is busy. If you have a massive time zone difference, making time to build intimacy can be tough. My husband and I have a 7-hour time difference that forces us to connect whenever we can. Sometimes we talk while one of us is cooking a meal or walking the dogs. Multitasking is a fantastic skill, but it means our attention is divided during busy conversations.
We balance the hectic pace of life by scheduling a once daily block of time to talk without distraction. During our time block we spend at least an hour focused on each other. We turn off the television and stereo and silence our phone notifications. We also stop scrolling or working on our laptops during this time. Our time block is for listening to each other, asking questions, and building intimacy. This happens best when distractions aren’t running in the background.
Wrapping Up
Long-distance relationships can be hard, but they can also be incredibly rewarding. It takes focus, patience, and perseverance to keep things going.
While my husband and I navigate our international marriage we keep finding ways to strengthen our relationship. At the core of our marriage is a sense of intimacy and connection. The investment we make while we’re apart will help us have a strong, successful relationship once we’re finally doing life together in the U.S.
