What I Learned Developing a Long-Distance Relationship with a Woman from the Other Side of the World

I wanted to reflect on the lessons I learned from dating a woman living on the other side of the world. My ex-girlfriend is a Thai woman who was living in Cambodia, and we met when I took a trip there. 

One major mistake we made is that we did not give enough time being together in the same place. For context, we went on a few dates while I was in Cambodia. Then after chatting for a month and a half by text, we met together for two weeks in Vietnam, before I went back to New York where I lived at the time, and she went back to her home in Cambodia. Then three months later, she came to New York for what turned out to be a month and a half trip visiting New York and also Washington state. 

After this, we decided to travel the world together, which in effect involved living together on the road.  That was too soon for such a step. To be clear, I don’t think touring Vietnam, New York, and Washington state were bad trips. They were very impactful experiences that deepened our relationship. Our problem was that we did not know enough about each other to decide to live together while traveling the world. 

That was too big of a jump for where we were at, and it turned out to be the wrong call. Once we traveled together, we realized all sorts of incompatibilities and tensions that eventually destroyed our relationship. 

Traveling with a significant other in itself can be difficult. One of my friends quibbed that traveling together is a relationship “on hard mode” as you constantly have to make complex decisions together while also being potentially tired and removed from a stable rhythm or sense of place. But I don’t think that primarily explains why we had the tension. We did not do enough work evaluating whether we were compatible in the first place. 

Compatibility is difficult to evaluate when a relationship is long-distance. That’s one of the long-distance relationship’s biggest difficulties. Living in the same city (even if they live on the other side of town) allows you to see the person in your daily routine. You can feel out how you feel with them everyday, how your lifestyles’ overlap or conflict, and what to do about the latter. 

Some in my generation insist that couples should move in together before getting married to evaluate whether they are compatible. I would go that far per se, but living in the same town is important. Seeing them as you go about your day and week and doing the many little things together that make up regular life helps you understand whether you fit. 

Our long-distance relationship was stuck on the honeymoon phase, where we were head over heels with each other, perhaps naively so. Psychologists who have studied this phase of relationships report that people usually notice our partner’s flaws but do not consider them a big deal. Instead, we tend to minimize potential problems in favor of the positive aspects. It’s in later stages of the relationships that we truly process these flaws and any other tensions in the relationship and actively work through them. It’s necessary to do this to evaluate whether you two really are a good fit. 

When a relationship is long-distance, you often communicate on your own terms. Whether it is texting or calling, you interact with the person according to your schedules. You may speak with your partner frequently – for example, at this time, I generally spoke with her twice a day – but there’s something about only texting, chatting, and video-calling that does not help move the relationship out of the honeymoon phase. 

I believe the reason is that these virtual, long-distance communications are not a major disruptions to our day-to-day lives. It’s by incorporating the other person into our day-to-day lives that tends to move the relationship out of the infatuation stage and start to show the frictions inherent in the relationship. It both allows us to experience them enough to get under our skin, but it also requires more of a shift into our lives that causes friction. 

I remember a priest in my home church growing up once reflecting in a sermon about his experience counseling new couples planning to get married. One of the first questions he asks the couples is, “During your fights, how do you two fight? What do you tend to do?” Some newly dating couples will respond that they have never had a fight before, and he’ll tell them to wait until they get through a major fight and then come back to get married. For him, having had a fight is a sign that they are close and not having had a major fight demonstrates that they are not intimate enough for marriage. Genuine intimacy requires getting under each other’s skin, which necessarily produces friction and tension. 

I don’t think it is a coincidence that we never fought while our relationship was long-distance. It was not intimate enough to do so. Unsurprisingly, during our trips together traveling (both in Vietnam, New York, and Washington), we did fight. The longer we were together, the more significant our fights became, precisely because we were sharing more of our regular lives together, leading to greater opportunity for connection and friction. The long-distance phases, though, felt similar to freezing fruit to prevent it from ripening: typical reactions were suppressed, preventing the relationship from moving to the next stage. 

What is the alternative for someone in a long-distance relationship? I don’t know. Ideally one should close the gap and move to the same place, but in many circumstances, that is not realistic. This is still what I have noticed at least, even if it can be a hard truth for two people considering dating who do not live in the same place.