The dream of having a close and personal marriage may be cut short by your partner’s long-distance work or study program, and you may begin to wonder what can make a long-distance marriage work?

There are various things you can do to make your marriage thrive, and one is to regularly update each other’s boundaries on who to interact with and the extent of the interaction with such persons.

You also have to invest in quality emotional connection through regular texting, reading books together, and watching the same movies to compensate for the lack of physical connection.

With the long-distance, it’s equally effective to partake in online sexual activities with each other to keep your marriage’s sexual spark alive and not to have your intimate urges dead when you finally get to see your partner.

Similarly, you can keep things fun by having food delivered to your partner, eating dinner over video chat, surprising them with care packages, gossiping over irrelevant things, and catching up on the playful events in your partner’s life.

You may consider these tips to make a long-distance marriage work:

Have a Personal Life

Individuality within a relationship can make a long-distance marriage work because it gives you a community of friends around you, promoting healthy habits and allowing you to get emotional aid from other people aside from your faraway partner.

Time with friends outside your marriage can be helpful for your psychological well-being because of the positive feelings you and your friends radiate, ensuring that you are in top mental health.

Possessing a personal life also helps you have new exciting things to share with your partner whenever you converse; it could be a trip with friends, shopping with colleagues, or a solo vacation retreat. 

Pursuing your interests can similarly give you more happiness because getting your personal needs fulfilled will get you excited about your life, and you’ll be able to transfer the excitement into your marriage.

If you have a personal life, you are also less likely to be unfair and expect everything from your partner; instead, you can get your different needs satisfied by other people.

Invest in Emotional Connection 

Establishing a tight emotional bond with your partner can help make a long-distance marriage work, as the emotional connection allows you to build trust, respect, continued familiarity, and strength.

You can easily create a bond by talking daily and connecting over your goals, experiences, friends, and interests, ensuring you tell them about you as much as they tell you about them.

Also, ensure that you discuss your issues as they occur without letting any issues devolve into malice and resentment since discussing them promptly will engender the resolution of the problems and the continuation of a loving relationship.

When you understand each other emotionally, there will be mutual respect in the relationship, ensuring you have a healthy, long-term marriage where your partner values you, considers your feelings and thoughts and appreciates you.

Furthermore, the true emotional bond between you will boost your mood because it causes your body to release oxytocin, which is the mood-enhancing hormone in your body that decreases cortisol, lowers stress, and reduces blood pressure.

Keep Up the Sexual Spark 

Another tip to make a long-distance marriage work is to build up your sexual chemistry and keep the spark alive to ensure the relationship is still romantic despite the lack of physical touch.

You can opt for incorporating technology into your sexual chemistry exercises by sending nude photos, flirty texts, and nude videos through messaging applications that can keep your conversations private.

During your sexting sessions, try to use dirty talk to relive your past sexual encounters with them and create fantasies about what you want in your future meetings, ensuring to explain in great detail for the maximum impact.

You can also masturbate together with remote-controlled sex toys that either of you can operate for the other person during the masturbation sessions and even role-playing over video calls.

The next time they are traveling, a fun sexual thing you can do is put a sexy note in their suitcase so they may see it when they unpack at their destination and create sexual tension for when they are back home.

Invest in Fun

With some creativity and a little application of technology, you can make a long-distance marriage work by jointly participating in fun activities that you both enjoy and would do if you were together physically.

With emerging technology, you can watch movies together by synchronizing the movie to begin at the same time on your different screens or by making a video call where one of you streams the movie while the other watches.

Walking around the neighborhood or to a favorite spot can also be done together virtually by simply talking on the phone while taking the stroll around, helping you increase the connection in your marriage.

Another fun strategy is to take a hobby together to relax at the same time or challenge yourselves, and with hobbies ranging from cooking, yoga, languages, baking, to painting, you have many options.

An ultimate fun move is to have a virtual date with gentle music, wine, and food in your respective locations where you talk on a video call and maintain the romantic atmosphere.

Be Realistic

Maintaining honesty in all situations is a great way to make a long-distance marriage work because it helps your partner trust you since you were realistic to them during the long-distance period.

You don’t have to hide the truth about how difficult their absence may have been because you want to be nice to them, you need them to hear your genuine thoughts, and you will listen to theirs also.

Sharing the difficulties in raising the kids, if you have children, is also part of the realistic stories to share so they may validate you and give you emotional support to deal with the difficulty.

Keeping the problematic emotions to yourself can help make things seem rosy and easy, but it will prevent you from building the emotional bond that comes from emotionally consoling each other.

Conclusion

A long-distance marriage can be tiring for even the mentally strongest person because of the lack of physical intimacy and shared experiences.

Despite this common fact, you can make a long-distance relationship work by maintaining your individuality, investing in an emotional connection with your partner, keeping up the sexual spark, doing fun activities together, and being honest about your feelings.

Resources 

https://www.brides.com/story/secret-to-great-marriage

https://greatist.com/live/long-distance-sex#3

https://www.marriage.com/advice/emotional-intimacy/how-important-is-an-emotional-connection-in-a-relationship

https://marriage365.com/blog/7-tips-to-surviving-and-thriving-in-a-long-distance-marriage/

https://www.healthline.com/health/long-distance-relationships#activity-ideas