Can a long distance engagement work? Or do you have to live in the same city at some point?
On Mondays I like to take a reader question and try to answer it, and lately I’ve been doing things a little bit differently. We’ve been answering our reader questions via video! Here’s this week’s long distance relationship question, which I had my daughters help me with:
Reader Question
My boyfriend and I have been dating for 2 years long distance. We see each other a couple times a year and plan on getting married one day in the future. I am a freshmen in college and he is working full time , various people had told us that in order for us to get to know each other more I would have to move to Texas to be closer to him. The thing is that if I do then I would have to pay out of state tuition while I’m actually getting a full ride scholarship in my home state. Also, he wants to propose with both sides of our family watching; we really want to take the next step in our relationship but don’t really know how to or where to begin, how do plan a long distance wedding & how do you make this relationship easier and less stressful?
Great question! Katie got married in February after a year of dating long distance, and Rebecca has seen many of her friends date long distance, so I thought this was a good one for us to tackle when we were all together (I really didn’t want to tackle one of the sex questions with my daughters! 🙂 ).
We spoke together at a conference this weekend, and we had just gotten home when we filmed this. It’s always fun to speak with my daughters!
And so, before they each climbed into their cars and drove home on Saturday, we tried to give some advice to this young woman about how to make long distance relationships work:
I’ve written a lot more about long distance relationships (and long distance engagements!) on the blog, and here are some other posts that can help:
10 Great Long Distance Date Ideas
If you’re apart, can you still “date”? Absolutely! Here are 10 ideas for actual dates you can take together when you’re not in the same city.
How Do You Prepare for Marriage Long Distance?
If you’re apart, how do you actually prepare for marriage? How can you make sure that you really know each other? Some thoughts here!
50 Conversation Starters for Couples
Looking for things to talk about? Here are some conversation starters to keep those Skype dates fun!
Hope those help!
Now let me know in the comments: Did you date long distance before you got married? What are your best tips?
God made sex to be AWESOME!
It’s supposed to be great physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 25 years and happily married for 20! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
I lived in Charlotte in 2009 when I was told about my wife in Atlanta. I emailed and started communicating with her in August. We started dating in September, met in October, I proposed in December, and we were married in July.
On the 24th, we celebrate eight years together.
It can work.
Happy anniversary!! 🙂 Yes, it definitely can work. It just takes wisdom–like all other relationships.
I think everyone should have a long distance relationship- it makes you realize what’s important and forces you to sharpen your communication. Long distance marriages can work also but at some point, you have to remove the distance. So it’s for a time, not forever.
I wouldn’t blow a scholarship for a relationship if it were me. And if neither person’s situation can change then they will be long distance until it can.
My husband and I met at a church camp 7 years ago. That same year, my family moved from Kansas to Michigan. It was my senior year in high school and his sophomore. We were long distance for 4 years! We Skyped, texted and called every day, and would see each other once maybe twice a year. Once I was finished with college, I moved back to Kansas where we now reside and are happily married! Long distance can work and I feel it can make relationship structures that much stronger. It was hard, but definitely worth it in the long run.
My husband and I met online and spent our whole relationship online. By the time we got married, we’d spent less than two weeks together in person. I really can’t say I recommend it as a rule (!!), but it’s worked out swimmingly for us. We found the distance made us have to communicate. We couldn’t just coast along on happy feelings and romantic dinners, so we spent our time discussing things in depth and found ourselves very well prepared for marriage. We did a semester of marriage long distance afterwards, and I actually found that much harder than the dating.
One of my classmates did four years of long distance dating while she and her boyfriend were both in college. I think they started dating junior year of high school and stuck it out all four years of college too. They’re not engaged yet, but I think it’s probable sooner or later. My husband and I barely stuck it out six months, so I’m very impressed at how well they’ve handled all these years apart.
That’s a great story! And I think that spending all that time talking probably really helped you.
We did long distance (3ish hours so many weekends were spent visiting, at least) for the entirety of our dating and engagement, minus school vacations. I don’t recommend it but I do think a major pro is that it makes it more difficult to engage in too much pre-marital extracurriculars…
Ah, I have to disagree with that. Because you are going to see each other ~sometimes~, and those times the temptation/desire can shoot waaaaayyyy up. But like anything, just pray about it.
I’m getting married in two weeks and my fiancé and I have been long distance for our whole relationship.
We started out being two time zones and a five hour flight away for the first year and a half, and for the last year we have been only a three hour drive apart.
Long distance truly taught us how to communicate and I think a period of long distance could benefit most couples. Because we didn’t have the ability to hang out with each other regularly or go on lots of dates, we focused on sharing about our lives and learning each other’s hearts, which has really set us up for marriage.
That said, being closer and being able to visit with each other and our families more has been a blessing. If a couple is long distance and moving toward marriage, I would encourage them to put more time and money into focused time with each other and both families.
Long distance is HARD!
Ok, there I said it. Hahaha! Now don’t get me wrong, I do think that long distance is terribly hard, but I also know it can be incredibly rewarding. You have to arm yourself with patience and lots of conversation topics!
I agree with Sheila, long distance can give you an incredible opportunity to really go deep in your conversations and to explore many areas people don’t really talk about until forced to at marriage counseling (or worse until they are married). Talk financial, spiritual, family stuff, really get to know each other. Learn how to listen and how to encourage with your words. It is incredible what words of encouragement can do for a relationship.
Yes, there’s no making out, but there are plenty benefits in the wait (we keep a tally of kissy emojis hahaha!!!! which we’ve promised to work on once we’re married). I will warn that after a long time apart, it’s really, really hard to not be making out all the time… I try not to but sometimes it’s just too hard not to hahaha! When you do spend time together, I agree you should try to just do normal life stuff, not normal dating stuff. Whenever I got to see my boyfriend, we’d get together and serve at church or host a dinner (so we’d go to the grocery store, cook, and clean together). These events have become pivotal in our relationship. So yeah, watch out and be more intentional with your actions when you get together.
My long-distance boyfriend and I just got engaged this past week and are hoping to marry within the next few months!!! So, yes, it is possible to do, it just takes lots of planning and quite a good number of compromises and sacrifices on each side (but hey, what a great way to learn to give even before marriage!)
My hubby and I were long-distance for most of our dating relationship, which was my last semester of college. After graduation (he came and walked for his degree), we went home with my parents, got engaged 3 days later, and then traveled to his parents’ house 3 days after that. Once we got there, I just never went home! We’d already spent four months apart, and we thought it would be silly for me to move back in with my parents, when I’d been on my own at college for four years already. So, we married 3 months to the day after college graduation.
All that to say, I’m not sure long-distance really helped us much. Communication has always been an issue for us, though it’s getting better. We suspect that we’re both on the autism spectrum though, so that could be part of our problem.
I think it can work for some couples but really not for others. My mindset was always that if your lives were likely to take you in different directions then it wouldn’t be a good idea to enter a relationship with that person. I wouldn’t feel like I knew someone that I mostly only spoke with on a screen or a phone because I hadn’t seen them living normal life, interacting with others, reacting to situations, playing games etc. There’s just so much you learn about someone by doing things side by side that you don’t get to see on Skype. Obviously some couples are in town together then unexpected circumstances separate them, or they grew up together, etc. I have no clue how I would have handled that!
I’m really glad that it works out for a lot of people who do long distance, but I don’t know how they manage haha! (And my husband and I didn’t kiss until our wedding day so it’s not like I would have been missing out on making out 😉 )
My husband and I met on Christian Mingle. I lived in the Yukon and he in Colorado. We dated 3 years long distance, and although we missed each other, advances in technology , esp. Skype, make this doeable. Not only that, but out is a non threatening way to meet someone and you can learn so much about them before you meet in person and the fireworks get in the way! Lol