How to Foster Connection in a Long Distance Relationship

Spoiler: The first part applies to all relationships

Hey friends. This week’s question is from someone in a long distance relationship, but the first part also applies to relationships where you see each other every single day.

📘📘 This week’s awesome indie bookstores are: Pocket Books in Lancaster, PA, Beanbag Books in Delaware, OH, and A Room of One’s Own in Madison, WI. You can pre-order Come Together from those links, or simply check out the stores! 📙📙

And on to the question:

Q: My name is [redacted] my pronouns are she/her. I wanted to know more practical advice about implementing connection with your partner when you don’t live with them and are you know, seeing them maybe two or three times a week. Something I’ve noticed is that I’m someone who really takes some time to think about their thinking and process things. And then when I see my boyfriend in person because we don’t spend every day together, sometimes I hesitate to bring those things up. That includes, kind of a sexual health and sexiness and stuff. And so I’m just wondering what are some ways to foster connection even when you’re not together and then making that feel more approachable when you are together and how to extend that into kind of sexy time and extend it into situations as well where you might be a person with responsive desire.

A: This is answer is going to have two parts. First, I’ll talk about evidence-based strategies for fostering connection in a relationship, whether or not you share a home and regardless of how often you’re physically together.

And second, I’ll talk about what I think might be the actual problem in this situation.

Fostering connection is (can be) fun and easy! Let’s go to the Gottmans, who say that just six intentional hours per week can strengthen a relationship!

These first two examples, Amelia and I describe in Burnout:

The Stress Reducing Conversation. This takes just 30 minutes, and you can do this as often as you like, in person or on the phone or online or even by text. (The more senses are involved when we communicate with people, the more connected we feel, but all connection is connection.) First, one person spends about 15 minutes talking about all the annoying things that happened in their day not related to the partner, and the partner listens and responds as a teammate. You can do classic active listening if you want, but what matters most is that you’re communicating that you’re on their side. You’re not trying to understand or explain what was going on for the jerk in the office who pissed off your partner. You’re not trying to solve the problem or tell them what to do, as if you’re the boss or teacher. You’re a teammate. You’re on their side, and you trust them to understand and deal with their own life and to ask for help when they want it. And then you switch, and the other person talks about whatever annoyed them that day (not related to the partner), and the partner listens as a teammate. I’m on your side. I believe you can understand and manage your own stuff, and I trust you’ll ask for help if you want it. (More details in the link.)

The Six Second Kiss. You can do this every time you are physically present. Here’s what we wrote in Burnout:

“Six seconds is, if you think about it, a potentially awkwardly long kiss. But there’s a reason for it: Six seconds is too long to kiss someone you resent or dislike, and it’s far too long to kiss someone with whom you feel unsafe. Kissing for six seconds requires that you stop and deliberately notice that you like this person, that you trust them, and that you feel affection for them. By noticing those things, the kiss tells your body that you are safe with your tribe.”

Here’s one you can do literally every day:

Fondness and Admiration. Couples who sustain a strong positive connection express abundant admiration and appreciation. They feel lucky to have the other person in their life, and they say so, out loud, regularly. Like, every single day. They say, “Thank you for having my back at that party last night; I was ready to leave but didn’t want to be rude, and you were so there for me.” They say, “I went to take a shower and I noticed it was clean! You cleaned my shower! Thank you so much!” They say, “I’m so lucky you’re in my life. Look how gorgeous you are! Look how funny and smart you are! Look what a good friend you are! Look at all the ways you make me feel cared for! I’m so grateful you choose me.”

(Every time I talk about this in front of a group somebody says, “People don’t really talk to each other like that!” but they do. My own relationship sounds like this much of the time. Imagine how much easier it is to talk about the difficult stuff, when the easy, good stuff has established a rich store of affection, appreciation, and trust. For real, I can’t overstate the value of just being as nice as you can to each other, as often as you can.)

And here are two “bigger,” more occasional ways to build connection:

Your “Story of Us.” Every now and then, especially at points of transition, change, or growth in the relationship, retell each other your “story of us,” which is the narrative you tell when you answer, “So how did you two meet?” or “When you reflect on the beginning of your relationship, what do you think about?”

The “State of the Union” Meeting. Spend an hour a week talking about “areas of concern within the relationship.” Start as you generally start all interactions: with the good stuff. What has gone well in your relationship since the last meeting. Then offer appreciation for five specific things that you haven’t expressed yet. Five things each! Take turns!

• Partner A: A list of things that have gone well this week, especially things that have been different in response to last week’s State of the Union.

• Partner B: Agreement and/or gratitude for that list. Reiteration of some of those things, and maybe addition of other good things.

• Partner A: Five moments I’ve really appreciated about you over the last week. [E.g., the time you texted that amazing joke, the time you called to let me know you’d be late, the other time you were perfectly on time, the time you were so supportive of your friend, etc., etc.]

• Partner B: Five moments I’ve really appreciated about you over the last week.

• Either Partner: Who would like to describe an area of concern?

And then the partner with the concern opens the conversation with as much warmth and positivity as they can muster (“uses gentle start-ups,” in Gottman lingo). E.g., “I know you’ve really been working on incorporating my feedback into our erotic connection, and it feels great when I notice the change,” rather than “You’re still not doing oral sex the way I like it.”

And you conclude with, “What can I do to make you feel loved this coming week?” (Both of you ask, and both of you answer!)

Okay, that was the first part of the question. Readers who just wanted to know how to foster connection, there’s your answer, thanks for reading and I hope it helped!

The reality is, your question worries me. Two things:

First, when I read “because we don’t spend every day together, sometimes I hesitate to bring those things up,” and “those things” are just thoughts and feelings you’ve had over the last day or two about experiences you shared the last time you were together… that’s… not promising.

Talking about your thoughts and feelings about experiences you shared is, as you can tell by the exercises that foster connection, a very large part of what makes a relationship strong! In a great relationship, it’s easy most of the time! It can even be fun! Even when you have a concern or a complaint, you still admire and trust the other person and they admire and trust you and so you can manage your concern or complaint without much defensiveness, stonewalling, contempt, or criticism (ye olde 4 horsemen of the relationship apocalypse).

Spending intentional, focused time together two or three times a week is not a small amount. And I’m assuming you talk to each other on the phone, text, and otherwise have contact with each other. And maybe you feel most comfortable having these types of conversations in person, but you don’t want to… “waste”? … your limited time together talking about your feelings? Because talking about your feelings is a waste of your not-unlimited time in each other’s presence?

So there’s a skeptical reading of your question that says, “I’m in a relationship with someone with whom I don’t feel comfortable talking about my feelings related to things that happened a couple days ago, if those feelings might inconvenience or discomfort him.” And that right there is an inadequate relationship, frankly. Your thoughts, processing, and feelings are not an inconvenience. If his response is, “Why didn’t you say something at the time?” your simple answer, which you already know, is, “I’ve learned that I’m someone who really takes some time to think about thinking and process things.”

Then you could have a great, bonding conversation about his style; does he take time to think and process, or does he know fully, in the moment, how he feels about everything that happens? People do just differ in this respect; people who take time may be introverts and people who have their understanding immediately may be extroverts. People just vary, and there is no right or wrong.

And someone who cares about you, whom you respect and trust enough to have sex with, has the opportunity to be someone who really likes that you take time to think and process. And if they don’t like it, they should at minimum understand that that’s true about you and something they can expect in your shared relationship. They absolutely should not be someone who judges that about you and believes you should change or adjust for their convenience. 

There’s a second, less alarming but equally important is my worry about your confidence and joy in discussing your sexuality.

You submitted a private question and yet you wrote nothing detailed or specific about the sexual health, sexiness, thinking, or processing you’ve been experiencing. That’s liberating for me, because I can just respond in a general way, knowing that it’s impossible for me to address your specific situation, since you haven’t told me about your specific situation. You have a boyfriend. You “see each other” two or three times a week. Does that mean you have sex each time? Does it mean you spend time together in public? Who knows? You do! Apply advice as is relevant, reject the rest. Thanks for sending such an amazing, generalizable question!

But it makes me wonder… if you can’t tell me any details about your sexual health or sexiness, can you tell him? Can you say your thoughts aloud? Do you believe me when I say that your sexual health and pleasure deserve be to a topic of discussion with a sex partner? If you can’t write it down or say it out loud to yourself, it makes sense that it would feel daunting to say it out loud to somebody else. Practice that part. Practice saying what you’re thinking and processing about your experiences out loud, to yourself, and notice how it feels. It might feel great and liberating or it might feel embarrassing and painful, or it might feel all of that at the same time! Ambivalence is normal! We’ve all been saturated with negative ideas about sex our whole lives and it takes time and determination to reclaim our personal sexual wellbeing from a culture that thrives when we hate ourselves.

You deserve peace and joy and pleasure and affection. You believe your partner deserves those things, right? It’s true for you, too. And conversation about your thoughts about shared past experiences is just a small, necessary, inevitable part of making sure you experience them.

You can do it. It just takes practice. (And a partner who’s willing to practice with you.)

Hope that helps!

Emily

More info here

And please check out these awesome indie bookstores: Pocket Books in Lancaster, PA, Beanbag Books in Delaware, OH, and A Room of One’s Own in Madison, WI.

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