9 + 1 Things I Learned Dating Long Distance

Our world is an ever modifying and socially accommodating place surrounded by an invisible force field allowing us to connect, friend, follow, snap, and otherwise engage in a mirage of relationships. While there are definitely cumbersome perspectives out there on using the net as a way to facilitate our social lives (or anti-social lives), there was a special something that once started out as timid and unsure, but blossomed into a bold and beautiful outcome aided by wifi.

A question my husband and I often get on our relationship is “How did you manage dating long distance?” In short, it was the hardest and best thing that both of us could have asked for. In the journey of a Canadian dating an American, we learned so much about each other and ourselves. We learned that the most precious things God gives us in life come through the process of refining. Our wants were sifted from our needs as we learned to trust each other from 1706 miles apart. My man and I dated long distance for 9 months and in that time we saw each other in person only 3 times before he asked me to marry him. Crazy! Yet, with God’s grace, the support of our families and friends, we got to know each other honestly in a dating situation where it would be much easier to hide.

As I was contemplating writing on this topic, I realized my audience wouldn’t be just singles looking to mingle long distance. Rather, in our accessible world with parents moving and children traveling, friends sojourning and business expanding, these ‘9 + 1’ things my husband and I learned to connect well with each other are transferable to many scenarios. A genuine desire of humans is that our hearts craved authentic connection. It is our hope that you’ll find ideas to help you build yours.

Dating apart can be hard and can be scary. At first, we actually said we didn’t want to date long distance. We were both scared to be apart of a long distance relationship. My heart ached with our first choice not to pursue a deeper commitment due to our distance. I prayed and processed quietly after we parted. I wanted to be level headed with myself, and I knew in my heart I really wanted to get to know him better. A week after I returned to Canada, he called me up and told me he had been wrestling with and talking to God and finally felt that it would be selfish of him not to pursue me. So there, together on the phone, we agreed we would give long distance a try. Looking back, it can be easy to sugar coat our experience having made it through, but the reality is we had to be intentional. Long distance dating is a refining, strengthening and empowering journey! I hope what we learned will encourage your heart no matter where you are at.

1. Pray. I will put this one first this time, because boy did we pray a lot. Before we began to date, we each spent intentional time seeking the heart of the Lord separately. When we chose to date each other, we made prayer a foundational practice in our relationship. Every evening when we’d talk, we’d pray together. But, he and I also prayed with friends and family along the journey. Inviting God into your friendship was the best thing we did and still do in our relationship with each other. Dating long distance is not for the ‘faint of heart’ – although you may feel nervous and very faint of heart! I sure did. But by seeking God’s heart for us as individuals and as a couple, on the little things and big things, prayer gave us both a vision and a confidence that God would lead us in our relationship – or out of it if that’s what it would come to! Hooray it was only further in!

2. Prioritize. I like to research things and learn the facts say about the pros and cons of being in a long distance relationship. Pretty much it boils down to the resolve of the couple. Will you make it a priority? Thankfully we have options that make this type of dating easier, but it still comes down to your efforts as a couple. Just like an in-person relationship, both people need to put in time. I was scared that I would disengage with my boyfriend because he was not in my space. We made sure to include the other person in our day-to-day lives, and let each other know that they were a priority (actually saying “You are my priority” and “this relationship is a priority to me”). We still interacted with our friends and communities – and we encouraged each other to spend time with our families, friends, and co-workers – but we made our relationship importance to us. When you make your relationship a priority, you will see fruit.

3. Date. Actually! Have fun! You are not alone. My husband and I were obviously not the first two people to date long distance. It is becoming a more common choice with the world becoming ever smaller. The 21st century makes it pretty doable. We didn’t have to write letters and have them delivered by a horse and wagon – although we sure did write a load of ‘snail mail’ love letters! Thankfully we have things like the telephone, FaceTime, Skype, planes, email, etc. There are also a TON of ideas on Google to date long distance. Some fun date night things we would do together included playing games together via an app or modified card games, watching a TV show or movie simultaneously, sending each other gifts (Amazon for the win), going on ‘walks’ together (FaceTime while walking), and sharing online Google docs with each other (we would write questions to each other and we’d both have to answer them). Please flirt. Please laugh. Please be goofy. All these fun ideas helped shorten the weeks between seeing each other, but we were not in a prison of sorrow waiting until we could see each other again– we enjoyed SO MANY moments in between. I needed to remind myself that dating long distance was not the destination, but a part of the journey ;)

4. Travel. A benefit of long distance dating is that the cost up front is low, so we both saved up and traveled to meet each other in different places. Between his home and mine, skiing in the mountains, going to a conference, and meeting up with our siblings, we made such fun memories going on adventures together! I even pulled off a trip to surprise him for a weekend with his family. Thank the Lord for planes ;) Get a credit card or an account where you can stock up on air miles! We really needed those ‘oasis’ times to be together. Our longest time away from one another was 72 days. It was rough, but these trips were the ‘golden’ times of our relationship.

5. Give space. As much as you are dating to get to know another person, give them space. You don’t need to be on the phone all the time. You don’t need to talk every single day. Let them do things they love to do. Celebrate it with them. I love to write so my man gave me space to write. He loves to hunt so I didn’t call or text him while he was sitting in a deer stand. Let your significant other keep their friends. We both are blessed with AMAZING and supportive friends. My man needs his guy time and I need my girl time (just like we do being married). I am so thankful that I got to meet his close friends and he mine before we got married. It is a VERY wise and VERY good thing keep your friends and family involved in your relationship – ask for advice, ask for prayer, ask for ideas. Your friends will see things your twitterpated little heart won’t. Give yourself space to process, too! It’s healthy. Communicate with your significant other what you are doing. On the flip side, trust your significant other. This is important throughout life.

6. Be honest/authentic. This is a biggy. Happily, my husband married me. I married him. We didn’t put up a façade. We sure didn’t know (and still don’t know) everything about each other, but everything we did tell each other was authentic. It is way too easy to hide your true selves from each other. He and I knew from the get-go we liked each other because we were honest with one another. Also, our journey of being open and honest with each other was rooted in the fact we weren’t dating each other just because, but rather we were looking intentionally for a spouse. Neither of us wanted to ‘play around’ and we knew that if it wasn’t working, that was ok. People are really great at hiding, but in the end, it’s not worth it. Build your relationship with kindness, grace, understanding, safety, forgiveness, and love. Read 1 Corinthians 13 to get what true love really is. It is patient and doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. It doesn’t slander or gossip, but rather it trusts in, and hopes for, and believes in. Building a relationship on the foundation of authenticity allows for good, timeless things to grow.

7. Be vulnerable. If honesty and authenticity were the ship, vulnerability is the sails. You can’t be honest and authentic without being vulnerable. We need to be vulnerable; we needed to open up our hearts, our fears, our pasts and our hopes to one another as time called for it. We would both separately and together set up boundaries of what we felt God was giving us permission and grace to talk about. Both of us were learning how to trust ourselves and each other. Being vulnerable requires a lot of grace and wisdom (for yourself and the person you are dating). I cried many times on the phone talking and listening to the heart of the man I was falling in love with and so desperately wanting to just jump in my car and go over to knock on his door to get a hug or hold his hand. Yes, there is a lot of heartache dating long distance – those many, many days wishing to be with each other, to go for a cup of coffee and look in each other’s eyes and talk about life. This is why inviting your friends and family into your relationship is important. Vulnerability is a beautiful thing and it can be looked at as something to abuse or as the glue that bonds us together.

8. Learn together. While we were dating, my parents bought us a Christmas gift – access to doing an online e-course on personal identity (Shout out to Single Life Workshop www.nothinghidden.com). Many of my friends and family had gone through the course and at first I didn’t really feel the need. But, as someone who was dating, this proved to be a GREAT way to grow together as two individuals! There are other fun and beneficial courses you could take together, but I loved how this one spoke to our identities as individuals. I found that as I was spending a lot of time and attention on learning about my boyfriend, I was struggling to grasp who I was in this space of life. Side note, this was my first time dating. Ever. And while long distance dating is like learning how to sky dive (ok, maybe not that crazy), this was the first time I had ever dated so I was quickly learning I do not have it ALL together. Now I was learning about a whole other side to myself. Having my boyfriend to go through the course with me put trust and vulnerability to the test. Later on, when we did premarital counseling together, I celebrated that the things we learned alongside each other then only strengthened us as a couple. While taking a course on personal identity like we did was good for us for where we were in our relationship, there are other awesome things to learn together like a new language or doing a virtual bible study. There are so many options!

9. Boundaries. Boundaries are important in anything we do. I alluded to it before by giving your person space and learning what healthy honesty and vulnerability is. But, let’s speak plainly about one particular thing: Ladies and gentlemen, when you are building a relationship, essentially apart from each other, you still have sexual temptation. We were not exempt from sexual temptation pre-marriage just because we were over a thousand miles away from each other. Sexting (sending sexual pictures via text) is dangerous. Don’t sext. Promiscuous talk and banter is a temptation. Don’t. Our imaginations will entrap us. Hear my heart – purity is not only for single people or dating people. Being married, my husband and I still practice purity. Purity is not sex. Purity is a mindset. So practice purity. Practice self-control. Practice having physical boundaries. When you are in each other’s physical presence – you need to have a game plan just like if you saw each other every day. Curfews are great. Hanging around other people is great. Communicate to your person about what your boundaries will be. Don’t leave it till you finally get to see each other after months of being apart. If you do get caught up in something you know crossed the line, talk to your safe people. Remember that respect for another person only goes as far as self-respect. Sex is awesome. For marriage. I want to be frank, but not condemning. My husband and I kissed all through our relationship – we had to set high boundaries to keep pure. It was hard. But, it was SO WORTH IT in the end.

And “+ 1” is brought to you by my man!

+1. From Her Feller. Folks, I cannot stress enough how much hard work and dedication has to be put into a long distance dating relationship. Not to say that normal dating is a breeze, but to each his own. I had come from a completely different past than Kristi. Whereas she had never been in any sort of relationship, I had been involved in several long, but unhealthy one’s. So wouldn’t you know it, God puts us into a long distance relationship where getting to know one another and learning how to be honest and vulnerable has to take a much higher priority than anything else. If you want any relationship to go the distance, I cannot stress enough how hard you have to fight for purity and truth. God used our distance to help me reinvent my dating priorities. Never before had I been so in love with learning about someone else, and guess what, I still am and I’m loving it. Dive deep. At times it can easily feel like there’s nothing else to talk about or learn, but I promise there is. If you have the will power, work ethic, and that special kind of determination mixed with a whole lot of trust in God and prayer, dating long distance is can be so, so worth it.

#christian #home #reality #truth