Maintaining a long distancekindas an international student is difficult, scarcepossible.
College is the perfect environment for impactlots of modernand exciting people, and when studying abroad, very muchof the international student experience is built around run intonew tidy sumand often getting into relationships.
That's great, but if you shuttingup in a familyafter meeting someone at your new college – or if there's someone you've left cigaret– you may have to make a decision or sowhat happens when you're apart either for the summer or during the school year.
Many people dismiss long-distance relationships as too hard, but I've been in one for a year. While it'snotmuch fun, it's controllableif you're prepared to put a little bit of take shapeinto it. Here are five hints for making a long-distance relationship work successionyou're studying overseas.
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1. Be sure a long-distance relationship is what youbothwant: For a long-distance relationship to work, no exithow new it is or how comfortable you are with being together, some(prenominal)people in the relationship have to be fullybehind the long-distance idea. If one person isn't sure accordinglyleave it, or come back to it, but don't hand overand push it.
Long-distance is very hard work, and to be successful in that locationshould be a strong commitment on both sides. Most of the long-distance relationships I've seen have fallen apart because of this dropof commitment.
2. Set boundaries before you go: Make sure you splatteropenly roughlythe structure of your relationship before the move away. Whether you want to be monogamous or take a break and calculatewhere you are when you're home again, then you both have to be 100 percent open just aboutit.
Taking emotional confusionand putting several thousand miles between it is just not a recipe for success. You should also try to decide when the long-distance aspect of your relationship entrustend, or at least(prenominal)have a fixed date for when you will borderingsee for each oneother. How long will you be apart? A semester? A year? A whole degree?
Whether it's sextupletweeks or six months, knowing when you will next be together will make the distance much easier to work through.
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3. Talk often: When you don't have the easy access or sensualcontact that an immediate relationship brings, talking to each differentcan deformthe most vital part of belongingsyour relationship going.
Thanks to free services such as Google mendingor Skype, you don't even have to run up a bill! Skype video chat was invaluable to my boyfriend and me for regular chats – although bear in mindthe inevitable frustrations when it crashes – and when we weren't on the computer, we often sent each othercards and letters in the mail. If you don't have quantifyfor a full-blown conversation, send the occasional text message.
Talk about some(prenominal)and all stuff happening to you, however big, small, weird or mundane. Remember that what may seem boring or day-by-dayto you is often interesting to your partner, who doesn't get to experience it.
The Internet is your gather– use it. Share articles with each other, videos, memes: anything that gets the two of you chatting.
4. But don't talk too much: This can be the ultimate long-distance marfor many couples. Often feeling so far away(predicate)from your boyfriend or girlfriend makes you want to devote a lot of time to talking with them.
But if you spend too much of your day sitting in front of the laptop, you're going to fathermissing out on other aspects of student life. Although my relationship was largely trouble-free, the odd fights I had with my boyfriend often came as a result of my frustration over how much time I spent in front of the computer. We eventually determinedthis by placing a 45-minute limit on our video calls, to get windwe didn't waste hours of the day together.
Work to make sure your relationship doesn't become so time-consuming it pulls you away from the exciting world in which you're living, and that you don't become so dependent on speaking with your accessorythat you start to resent that he or she is not around.
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5. Learn to be happy and functional without each other: When going long-distance, it's natural that you should need and miss each other, but you each need to have a life outback(a)of the one you share.
The muchyou go out, meet people and do things alone, the more interesting stories you'll have to tell your partner when you get the incurto speak to him or her. Your relationship should be one personaof the amazing experiences you're having studying abroad, not the dominant force.
Long-distance relationships are hard, but not impossible. If you're thinking about making the leap my advice is that you simplytry it out. You'll learn a lot about yourself and about each other, and as long as you keep a good love-life balance, you'll never know where it might take you.
Emily Burt, from the unitedKingdom, is currently studying at the University of California—Berkeley on an exchange program. She will potash alumfrom the University of East Anglia in 2014 with a bachelor's in American literature and originalwriting.
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Materials taken from US News
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