Do Long Distance Relationships Fail More Often Than Other Relationships?
When considering an LDR, most people want to know why long distance relationships fail. After all, we’ve all known people who have tried them and things haven’t worked out for one reason or another. If you know what doesn’t work, then perhaps you can find what does. Of course, celebrities haven’t helped inspire would-be LDR couples much with the all-too-public failures of relationships like those of Jesse James and Kat Von D and more recently, Duffy and Mike Phillips.
But celebrities are different than regular people, so should we really use them as a standard of what’s possible for us normal folks? I mean how would you like it if the paparazzi was following your every move, photographing each tiny flirtation with anyone halfway notable? The pressures of being a celebrity in today’s “instant news” society must make it much more difficult to go the distance in any relationship, same-city or not.
Enough dish on celebrities. Let’s get back to you.
If you choose to brave an LDR, then, are you taking a big risk with your heart? Is it better to just not go there? Would it be smarter to listen to your parents and friends?
Currently, there are about 14 million people involved in long distance relationships so despite the naysayers, many people are willing to give it a try. Still there are predictors of doom who grey-out our rainbow-colored visions of what’s possible for our LDR somewhere down the road. Take this excerpt from an article posted on corruptcamel.com about the top reasons that long distance relationships fail:
#1. Couples in long distance relationships always think they’ll visit each other every weekend.
TRUTH: They won’t. Maybe at first, but eventually, other things will start coming up: exams, work, birthdays, banging some random you met after last call at the bar (and boy was she ugly, what were you thinking?).
#2. With no significant other to occupy their time, each member of the couple will end up going out more and will inadvertently meet the next person they will be with next.
TRUTH: People require a minimum of social contact with the opposite sex. Without that required contact, people will go out and seek contact with the opposite sex, either on a conscious or subconscious level. It’s human nature. With feelings fading for your current partner and growing for the new chick you met on Myspace (you still use Myspace?), moving on is going to seem a lot easier than staying where you are.
#4. Absence makes the heart grow fonder…of someone who’s nearby and is readily available to float their genital boat.
TRUTH: Absence only makes the heart grow fonder for a certain amount of time, and then, absence makes the heart grow fickle.
Do long distance relationships fail more than other relationships? The answer is yes, but this does not have to be true of yours.
Although these may be harsh words for those who dream of living together in the same city one day, there is some truth to them, especially if you’re a Neanderthal driven only by your lust for sex, have lost faith in your relationship or never had it in the first place, lack self-restraint in various areas, are insecure (read: you need constant validation of your physical appeal), or are a perpetual adolescent who uses his/her LDR as a clever way to avoid intimacy.
Truth be told, some couples lose the desire to continue an LDR after they “get” the realities of how challenging it can be, how infrequently their physical needs are met and how much inner work you have to do to really trust someone when you’re never completely certain what they’re doing when you’re apart, especially for extended periods of time. Of course, this could be true of any same-city relationship as well.
Of course, youth is likely another big factor that tips the balance toward failed relationships. A good percentage of LDR couples are young adults (barely out of adolescence and mommy and daddy’s house) who have gone away to college for the first time and have a partner back home still in high school or also in college in another part of the world. This may be the biggest reason that long distance relationships fail: through no fault of their own, young couples artificially inflate the failure rate because they lack the development, self-knowledge and sense of what they want and need from life and relationship, as well as the ability to sacrifice immediate gratification for the fidelity and integrity that older couples often have.
Still, some young couples do make it and live to tell the tale quite happily. In fact, the distance makes them stronger, solidifying the foundation of their relationship and the values upon which it is built along with mutual love and respect for each others’ individual paths during this transitional period of life.
I am one such happy story. Although I had to learn from two other failed long distance relationships to get it right, the third time was the charm: I have been married to the last dude that I chose to go the distance with for more than twenty-one years. Although we live together now and have for the duration of our marriage (raising kids and all), in many ways, we are still making that choice to go the distance.
Feel free to leave your comments, tips and feedback below.
Copyright © 2011 by Laura Ramirez. All rights reserved.
Long Distance Relationships Are Hard
Do you think long distance relationships are hard? Impossible even? Well, apparently, that’s also the underlying message in the latest movie on the subject, Like Crazy, which is due to be released next week. The movie takes an intimate look at what happens when a British student overstays her visa because she’s met and fallen in love with an American. After returning to her country, she is prohibited from re-entering the U.S. due to her previous lapse. Of course such an extreme circumstance would test the mettle of even the most stable long distance relationship.
While this is not the first movie about living together apart relationships, it certainly is by far the most realistic, (meaning it takes on a real challenge, like those often faced in real life) at least when compared with the light, comedic, fantasy-filled fluff like the recent movie, starring Drew Barrymore. Apparently, the experience of filming this movie has left its two young stars, Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones unconvinced that long distance relationships can work.
In a revealing interview that appeared on redeyechicago.com, here is what the two actors had to say:
Most people would say long-distance relationships don’t work, yet given the opportunity to get into one many give it a shot anyway. Why do people think they can do what others can’t?
FJ: I think it’s because of having text messages and Skype. I think technology makes you think you can. I’m sure back in the day, when it was a boat ride to see someone for two weeks, it wasn’t the same … Having all these inventions makes you feel that you can still have that intimacy, but I think it’s a bit of a false notion.
AY: I think when they’re in it they don’t think it’s going to fail. I think people don’t want to lose someone just because of distance. When they really care about one another, you don’t want to say, “Oh, just because we’re going to be in different places …”
FJ: “We’re just going to give up.”
AY: You never just want to give it up.
I asked readers for what they thought I should ask today, and @bekagan wanted to know about your own experiences and lessons from long-distance relationships.
FJ: I think they’re really difficult. As actors we’re all sort of like gypsies really. We’re all in different places at different times and it’s really hard to stay in a relationship when you’re constantly moving.
AY: One of the things specifically that happens with Anna and Jacob is they tend to idealize their honeymoon period and feel like because things change so dramatically, the rest of their relationship they have to try to get back to that emotion. [Instead of] acknowledging the evolution and process of their relationship, they’re trying to relive a moment and therefore suffering because that moment just doesn’t exist anymore. It’s changed. It’s something else. And I think people tend to do that whether it’s a long-distance relationship or a regular relationship. I think that we tend to idealize that honeymoon period because it’s that most exciting period but things will end if you can’t continue to change and appreciate the changes as opposed to comparing them. …
Long distance relationships are hard, especially when you expect difficulties and struggles.
While Like Crazy could be pegged as a movie that examines what happens when a long distance relationship is doomed to fail from the start, you have to ask yourself is there a kernel of the truth in this for all LDR relationships? Like the interviewer intimates above—maybe we’re fooling ourselves that technology can bridge the miles. Isn’t this the secret fear that most LDR couples harbor—the fear that causes their friends and relatives to dissuade them from participating in such a relationship from the start?
What do you think? Are long distance relationships hard or can couples really make them work? What’s the difference between those who are successful and those who aren’t? Is it our beliefs about the problematic nature of distance relationships that ultimately causes a large percentage of them to fail? Or is it just the difficulty of sustaining relationships in general, especially in today’s instant-gratification-oriented world? Leave your thoughts, tips and comments below.
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Like Crazy, Long Distance Relationship Movie
Like Crazy, long distance relationship movie—the movie that won accolades at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year is hitting movie theaters in your local area soon. The female lead in the film, Felicity Jones, won the Best Actress Award for her role in it.
Here’s a brief summary of what the movie is about as quoted from Starpulse.com:
The Sundance hit Like Crazy finally comes to movie theaters nearly a year after its festival premiere. In the heartfelt drama, Felicity Jones stars as a British girl who overstays her travel Visa and cannot get back into the U.S. to see her boyfriend Jacob (Anton Yelchin.) The long distance tests their relationship, and Jones could relate.Here’s what Felicity Jones has to say about her role:One of the reasons the film resonated so much at Sundance is everybody brings their own personal baggage to it. People who’ve been hurt feel that Anna and Jacob are doomed. Lovebirds think they’re destined to be together.
Here’s what the award-winning actress, Felicity Jones, has to say about her role in the film:
Like Crazy, Long Distance Relationship Movie is coming to a theater near you.
“I could definitely empathize with Anna,” Jones said while promoting the film at the Toronto International Film Festival. “As an actor, you’re a gypsy. You’re constantly moving in a different places and it is hard to retain those connections with your home and your family. It definitely tests you as a person. I think in the sense of being away a lot, I can understand their position.”
If you love romance films or you’re the least bit sentimental and that pretty much comes with the territory of being in a long distance relationship, then you absolutely must go to see this film. Better yet, why not make an event out of it. Book a surprise flight, pick up your other half, take him or her out to the movie and then cap things off with a romantic meal. If you simply cannot be together, then go see the movie in your respective towns and then discuss it afterward over Skype with your favorite beverage in hand.
Afterward, come back to this page and leave your review of Like Crazy, Long Distance Relationship Movie. Tell us what you think the best moments were and why you resonated with the characters in the film (or why you didn’t).
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