Can Long-Distance Relationships Work?

The answer to that question is that it can do. I am assuming most people reading that question will think of boy, girl love relationships but I think that it can also relate to friendship relationships between two people.
I have many long distance friendships of 40 years involving the occasional visit and phone call.

When I was 18(nearly 40 years ago) I had a long distance love relationship which survived for a year.
I shall tell you about that and the way we kept it alive.

We met through my advert in a music paper (but that’s another story) When we met I was at college in his home town.

When I was 18 my boyfriend started university about 170 miles over 3 hours driving time away from me.

Remember this was 40 years ago things were a little different then.
Neither of us drove, anyway we could not afford a car. Although trains linked us fairly well the train fare was so expensive we could rarely afford it.

There were no computers so no emails, no web cams, no mobile phones. My parents had a home phone, boyfriend had to use public phone, no phone in halls it was expensive to phone and not private for my boyfriend in halls.
My boyfriend did go home at holiday times so we met then although that distance was still 30 miles. Remember this was 40 years ago and parents were not so liberated as to allow us to sleep together at their houses, in fact that year we did not stay at each others homes. However I did stay at his Nan’s a couple of streets away from his home for weekends.

So how did we keep our love alive? We wrote to each other every day rarely missing a day. Mostly at night before sleep I would write my letter, I think boyfriend did the same. We would tell each other what we had done that day, we would declare our love and passions for each other and say how much we missed each other. I used to get a thrill getting my daily letter it was agony when I did not get one or postie was late I had to make sure mum and dad did not see my letters as some were a little raunchy, we discussed future plans and when we would see each other. (I still have most of boyfriend’s letters to me somewhere)

We did talk on the phone occasionally maybe once every other week these calls were mostly to confirm and arrange visits. I did catch the train on some Friday nights for weekend visits and return home Sunday with dad picking me up from station 12 miles away from home. I can remember the excitement I would get going to see him and the gloomy feeling going home , the tears I shed when we parted
So boyfriend and I would spend a couple of days and nights together at his uni digs a few times each term. Yes mum, dad I slept in his friends, a girl’s room honest.

Then between my visits and at the end of term he would hitch hike home and I would stay at his Nan’s house.

I can not say it was all roses. I was jealous and suspicious of the girls he met at uni, However we saw each other often enough to keep the memories and fires burning. I do remember in the early days visiting him and making sure the girls around knew he was mine. We did used to spend a lot of time in bed.

All our time was not spent in bed we did go for long walks and see music bands together we went to a couple of festivals.

Our interests were similar so we spent time talking about them and going places doing things together when we met.

This was a long year for us. I missed him so thought about him day and night.
We were strangers when we met not knowing each others friends, I did become friends with his group of home friends and I went out with them when he was not home sometimes.

After a year I finished the course I was on and went to live with him.
We married after he finished uni 3 years after we had met so in my case yes this long distance relationship did last the year. I think it would have lasted even if we were apart for longer.

Love changes over the year’s, I do still love my husband of now a month short of 40 years from when we met. We were at a distance while our love was fresh and very intense and still developing. I did really know from early days that I loved him and wanted to be together forever.
I think our letters helped keep our love alive and that we saw each other occasionally. We had the same interrests and thought the same way about things like politics.

I think to keep any relationship going at a long distance be it a love relationship or just friendship you do need to talk / write /see each other occasionally. It is of course a lot easier to do this now than when I was 18 as most people have mobile phones and access to computers to email. There is more car ownership than there used to be, instead of a few teenagers having a car when I was a teenager a lot if not the majority do.

I do not really think that absence makes the heart grow fonder unless you work at it.

There are many quotes relating to absences and love some are :-

Absence doth sharpen love, presence strengthens it; the one brings fuel, the other blows it till it burns clear.”
William Shakespeare

Absence - that common cure of love.”
Lord Byron

Absence is to love what wind is to a fire; it puts out the little, it kindles the great.”
Roger de Bussy-Rabutin

Out of sight out of mind ?