Tips for keeping long distance romance alive
When you’re dating or married to someone in the armed forces you’re no stranger to the art of keeping long distance romance alive.
Mr Tin Box is in the Royal Navy and has probably been away for several of the 15 years we have known each other, both before and after we got married.
Long distance relationships are not for everyone and we know quite a few people who have not been able to make it work. But when you’ve got something good going it’s worth a shot.
Here are our tips for keeping long distance romance alive:
1. Plan something special – spend a bit of your time a part planning something special to do together when you are reunited. We’ve booked festivals and holidays while we’ve been separated. It passed time and gave us something to look forward to.
2. Write to each other – it’s a bit old-fashioned but receiving letters and emails makes your heart skip a beat. Really take time to share what you’ve been doing and how you are feeling. You miss out on a lot of the day-to-day stuff when you are a part and even the trivial things are nice to catch up on, making you feel closer.
3. Keep busy – whether you’re going to be a part for a few weeks or months don’t sit at home festering. Get out, see friends, go to the gym. Time passes a lot quicker when you are doing things.
4. Send care packages – this is a bit of fun, after all there’s not much that you can’t pick up from the corner shop or order on the internet these days. However it is a bit more difficult when you are on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic. Popping a few treats or personal items in a box and sending it with love is a great surprise for your other half. And if you’ve got kids it’s the ideal way to offload some of those ‘adorable’ hand paintings!
5. Drop everything – every now and then there’s nothing else for it than to jump in the car and make a road trip to spend a few hours together. Set aside common sense and lose a bit of sleep to spend precious moments with your partner. This has been a bit hard to do when Mr TB has been half way around the world, but we have been known to drive several hundred miles for a cuddle.
2. Write to each other – it’s a bit old-fashioned but receiving letters and emails makes your heart skip a beat. Really take time to share what you’ve been doing and how you are feeling. You miss out on a lot of the day-to-day stuff when you are a part and even the trivial things are nice to catch up on, making you feel closer.
3. Keep busy – whether you’re going to be a part for a few weeks or months don’t sit at home festering. Get out, see friends, go to the gym. Time passes a lot quicker when you are doing things.
4. Send care packages – this is a bit of fun, after all there’s not much that you can’t pick up from the corner shop or order on the internet these days. However it is a bit more difficult when you are on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic. Popping a few treats or personal items in a box and sending it with love is a great surprise for your other half. And if you’ve got kids it’s the ideal way to offload some of those ‘adorable’ hand paintings!
5. Drop everything – every now and then there’s nothing else for it than to jump in the car and make a road trip to spend a few hours together. Set aside common sense and lose a bit of sleep to spend precious moments with your partner. This has been a bit hard to do when Mr TB has been half way around the world, but we have been known to drive several hundred miles for a cuddle.
Have you got any tips for keeping the spark alive in a relationship across the miles?
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Thank you x
Thank you so much! That's very kind x
Great tips hunny. I had a long distance obviously with Mr P for a while before I moved to England to be with him forever. It's hard and sometimes emotional but we used to do a lot of these to make it easier. Great post. Thank you so much for linking up to Share With Me #sharewithme
These are great tips I have friends who have husbands in the forces and they often speak of how this element of the job can be a real challenge. I love the care package idea. Offloading a few drawings this way, would surely make the recipients day. Thanks for sharing, I will be sure to pass this advice and blog on. x #sharewithme
I know what you mean by cringe-worthy letters. I have plenty! 🙂 x
I love reading our old letters, even if my handwriting is terrible 🙂
What lovely ideas, it must be difficult but it is worth it if you can make it work. Me and my husband met each other in high school and when we both went to Uni we would write letters to each other, I still have them all and love looking over them – even if they do make me cringe. I usually ended up driving to see him every weekend too, sometimes it is worth it. Lovely post xx #sharewithme
These are lovely – I've done long-distance relationships (although not any more) and writing to each other and making little mementoes is great. My husband recently came across a box of letters and bits and bobs from me in the early days of our relationship and loved looking through them all again.