Sign up for our free newsletter:

I'm two months away from marrying a woman who lives 135 miles away. We met on eHarmony 18 months ago and have gotten together probably 90 percent of the weekends since our first in-person meeting, with extended times at holidays and vacations.

The time commitment is substantial, and I'm really looking forward to when the driving will end. Having an extra five hours a week taken up by driving (of which I've done the majority) on top of the normal time a relationship requires has made the schedule a challenge. We also have a standing two-hour phone conversation in the middle of the week (we're grateful for unlimited long-distance plans!). We live close enough that getting together every week has been practical; we'd each set our limit at 150 miles when searching because we wanted to be able to spend time together regularly, and this has worked out. I know others who lived much farther apart and made it work with far less time together in person, but personally I wouldn't have been satisfied with that.

Housing is an important issue. We feel it's important to avoid the appearance—and temptation—of evil, so we don't stay in each other's home when visiting overnight. Her parents live in the same city, so I stay with them—which has afforded me the side benefit of building a relationship with my future in-laws. She has stayed with several different friends of mine, who have been more than willing to open their homes (an indication, I think, of how eager they are to see me married!).

A major question that arises with a long-distance relationship is who's going to move? Until three weeks ago, we were all set for her to move. Then a major change in my employment situation caused us to completely flip our plans, and now I'm preparing to move to her city. Neither of us really wanted to move, but both of us were willing to move if that was best for us as a couple—and God has now shown us the direction to go. Yet it means that inevitably for one member of the couple, the joy of marriage will be mingled with the sadness of being uprooted, leaving friends and perhaps family behind.

It's definitely not an ideal dating situation. Outside of vacations, weekends are the only time we can meet. When crises arise, it's frustrating to only be able to discuss them in a phone call rather than put an arm around the shoulder and have someone to lean on physically. We haven't been able to do as much fun stuff as we would if we lived close enough to go out for dinner and a movie. Earlier this year, weekend snow storms and other complications left us with a four-week period when we couldn't get together at all. I hope that will be the longest period we're apart for the rest of our lives. But I have no regrets about opening up to a long-distance relationship; neither of us had found anyone locally who seemed to fit what we were looking for, and we're thankful that God used this means to bring us together.

One benefit for us as an older couple (we're both in our 40s) is that the distance encouraged us to be focused and intentional from the start. It's too much work for a casual, "not sure where we're going" relationship. We both felt comfortable raising and dealing with important life issues from the very beginning of the relationship; the only reason to be together was to be considering marriage, so we needed to know if marriage was in the cards. And the rhythm of our interaction also encouraged lengthy conversation time—what else are you going to do to connect in the middle of the week? How can you not have extended conversations when you're together for ten hours on a Saturday, including two meals?

So my suggestions for those considering a long-distance relationship: Make sure you can commit the time needed, restructuring your weekly schedule and perhaps pulling out of some activities. Think through housing for visits. Have reliable transportation. Get a cheap long-distance phone service. Think carefully about whether you're willing to move. And pray for God's leading.

Kelvin

I just got out of a long-distance relationship. We met on an Internet dating site that matched our personality profiles together. We even did some personality profile testing on our own to get to know each other a little better. Were we a perfect match? I don't know, but on so many levels we just clicked. I was totally drawn in by her personality. There are 200 miles separating us, and we tried to make up for it by talking on the phone—a lot. We talked about four or five times a day every day, from early morning cell-phone chit-chat on the way to work to late-night discussions while I fought to stay awake. Add to that the daily e-mails and instant messaging, and you get the idea of how intense our relationship was becoming.

But with all of our phone calls and e-mails and instant messaging, I always knew that almost everything I knew about her were things she had elected to tell me. I needed to dig deeper. So much communication in a relationship is non-verbal, from the way you look at each other to just simple hugs given just at the moment you need them. We were missing out, big time. Then there's information you collect from observation. Who is this person to their friends and family? How do they act in a group? In my mind, I was trying to fill in the big picture of who she was, but just didn't have all of the information I needed.

I'm always thinking about things long-term, so I started asking myself the big question: Could we ever really be together? I knew that I would have to be certifiably insane to propose to someone I hadn't spent significant quantities of time with in person. One of us would eventually have to move so we could date, and it didn't look like that could ever happen. Both of us are very busy as single parents, and being a single parent usually means you have a support group of family and friends you've built up over time that isn't easily replaced. And you have to think of the visitation needs of the non-custodial parent. I might have been able to make the move, but with great difficulty. Her situation was even more complex; it was obvious she couldn't move, at least not within the next few years. To make this work, I would have to be the one to move. But could I sacrifice my career? My income is more than twice hers, and I'm not sure I could find a comparable salary in the smaller town she lives in, even with cost-of-living differences factored in. And there's no guarantee that if I moved the dating relationship would work out.

I'm a strong believer in providence—that when something's right, God makes a way for us or shows us the way through the difficult circumstances. I prayed about our relationship and turned it over to God, knowing he could work out the details if it was meant to happen.

In the midst of dealing with all of the issues unique to long-distance romance, it became apparent we still had a lot of relationship issues to work through, as any couple does, long before we could ever consider marriage. We ran into some conflicting ideas about relationships that weren't going to be resolved over the phone. The relationship faltered, and we tried to continue on as friends, but I hadn't sorted through all of the romantic feelings I had for her. My heart was still holding desperately to the hope that we could make it work somehow, and maybe she was doing the same. We were never going to be given the chance to live in the same town to work through our problems, and despite the fact I was falling in love with her, I knew I had to break it off.

It's been over a month since we last talked, and I still think about her daily and the impact she had on me. Every time I start working through our problems in my mind, I want to call her and talk to her about it, but I still keep crashing into this fact like a granite wall: She's 200 miles away, and that's not going to change.

A long-distance relationship is a difficult proposition from the start. It takes a serious commitment from both parties, and ultimately someone has to move. Add that layer of complexity to the already-difficult prospect of building a serious, long-term relationship with another autonomous person, and it's basically an uphill battle from day one. Anyone who is going to enter into one had better have the willingness and the freedom to relocate.

Dan

My husband and I had a long-distance dating relationship. We originally "met" on a Christian website. We lived more than 300 miles apart, a five-hour drive on a good traffic day. Once the relationship got rolling, we took turns going back and forth. He would head to my city for a weekend, then a couple of weeks later I'd make the trek to his. We talked on the phone and e-mailed a lot in between.

Was it easy? No. But in some ways it was really good for us. We both were in our late 30s and had been independent for a long time, so the distance gave us the space we both needed to make the adjustment to couplehood. It also allowed us a good amount of time to devote to our family, friends, and church commitments even during our dating relationship.

My mom refered to our "together weekends" as "intense dating." Other than the overnight hours, we were together—meals, afternoon naps while watching football, Sunday morning church, and everything in between! When I traveled to his hometown for one of our weekends, I stayed with one of his sisters who lived nearby. It gave me a chance to get to know his family. Unfortunately, that option wasn't available when he came to see me.

We invested a lot into phone calls and car expenses, but ultimately the long-distance-relationship thing really worked for us!

Becky

Long-distance relationships can be fun and romantic. They make you feel very special. Every time you talk on the phone or visit each other, he acts like he's thrilled to be able to talk to you or see you. And you do the same.

But that's the problem. Any contact you have is special. So you step out of real life into your own little world of romance. Any time he calls, you jump at the chance to talk—you never put him on hold or tell him you're too busy with something else right now. Everything else in your life gets put on hold to give him all of your attention, whether by phone or on your weekend visits.

When you visit, you have a limited amount of time during which all your attention is focused on each other. It's like going away for a week of summer camp—terrific, but not real life. You never see each other in normal day-to-day life.

I was in a long-distance relationship I thought was going great. We lived in Chicago and Detroit, a five-hour drive or one-hour flight. Both of our families approved of the relationship. After dating for ten months, he moved to be with me. The plan was that he'd stay in my guest room until he found a job in my city. Then, he would get his own apartment while we planned and saved for the wedding.

But it ended up being harder to find work than he'd expected, and he missed his friends and family more than he'd anticipated. The stress ended up having more influence than the "special-ness" of our relationship. I was at work one day and had the funny feeling something was wrong and that I needed to leave at noon. I pulled into my driveway to see his dresser tied on top of his car. If I'd stayed at work until the end of the day, I would have come home to find his bedroom empty. I'll never know if he would have had the guts to even leave a goodbye note.

Karyn

I'm currently in a long-distance dating relationship. I was introduced to Kent a little over six months ago. He lives in Oregon and I live in Missouri. I go to church with his brother and sister-in-law. We started off sending e-mails and instant messaging each other, and now we talk on the phone at least a little bit each night. After the first month of talking, we started flying back and forth to see each other. He's been to Missouri four times and I've been to Oregon once. We usually stay about five to eight days at a time.

We're very fortunate that he owns his own business and is therefore able to get his partner to take over while he's out of town. He doesn't have to pay for a hotel since he stays at his brother's house when he's here. Also, I've been at my job for more than ten years, so I get seven weeks of vacation a year.

In between visits, we send each other stuff in the mail and text message each other, so it's fun to have the element of surprise and romance in our relationship. With his business and with all my church involvement, we keep ourselves busy so we aren't missing each other all the time.

He's been talking about marriage, and it wouldn't surprise me if he asked me to marry him in the next two or three months. This may seem crazy, but when he's here we're on the go so much that we hardly have time just to talk and share some of our intimate feelings, thoughts, and dreams. When he goes back home, though, we finally get the chance to share those thoughts and feelings over the phone. I hope we're able to keep that good mix when we get married.

Lavonna

I've been in multiple long-distance relationships. The fact that I'm still single leads you to the obvious conclusion that they didn't work. The relationships had varied beginnings—a couple were Internet relationships that went to the next level, and in a couple instances my boyfriend moved during our dating relationship. I don't believe in moving for the sake of a relationship, unless it's in God's plan for me, which none of these where.

The biggest problem I found with long-distance relationships is the lack of time in the "real world," and because of that, a lack of true knowledge of the other person. You learn a lot about a person when you observe him when he's stuck in traffic, dealing with a difficult boss at work, paying bills, buying groceries, and the like. While you may spend hours on the phone each day in a long-distance situation, there's still an element missing. When you're finally able to spend time with the person, many of the realities of life are pushed aside for that brief visit. You're in vacation mode.

With the distance, it's often even more difficult to merge two lives as both people have developed their own life, hobbies, and friendships outside the relationship. I've decided that long-distance relationships aren't for me. I want to be with someone I can see frequently, who's close enough to meet me for a walk on the beach after a bad day. A phone call is a poor substitute for a hug. I'm not saying it can never work, but it certainly doesn't work for me!

Tricia

Thanks to eHarmony, I embarked on a long-distance relationship earlier this year with a woman named Miriam. She's a teacher who lives in Albany, a country town 250 miles south of Perth, where I live. There are positives and negatives to our long-distance relationship.

On the plus side, this is an early test of our relationship's strength and commitment. We can't act impulsively, as we could if we lived nearby. And we have to be creative and intentional about getting together. Since Miriam is a teacher, she has two-week holidays every ten weeks, so she visits Perth often. I've visited Albany twice (a four-hour drive). We've visited each other's churches and met a selection of our friends. Yes, our phone bills are high, but that's still not as expensive as regular dating would be if we lived in the same area. And it's wonderful when we finally do get together.

The biggest negative, of course, is that we're often separated for weeks on end. It can be tempting to seek someone closer, but frankly I've never met anyone as sweet, loving, and open as Miriam. I know relocation is an issue in many long-distance relationships, but we haven't discussed that yet because it's too early.

Overall the distance is a damper on a full-speed-ahead, impulsive relationship, and that's very healthy. We're committed to taking it slowly and both enjoy the daily phone calls, frequent emails, and infrequent but highly romantic dates when we visit each other.

Adrian

Long-distance relationships don't work. Without the face-to-face interaction that same-city relationships benefit from, long-distance relationships are never as close or real. Being able to see the person's reactions to daily events and spend time together doing the types of activities that allow you to learn about your partner are vital to the health and longevity of dating relationships. The same togetherness is needed for marriages to thrive. Why should pre-marrieds be any different?

Matt

About a year ago, I got out of a long-distance relationship. I met this man on an online Christian dating service. He lived on the east side of Wisconsin and I lived in southeastern Minnesota. We e-mailed every day, talked on the phone almost daily, and got together once or twice a month. I dated him for more than a year and really liked him, but due to the distance, I still felt as though I never really knew who he was.

Based on my experience, I don't think long-distance relationships work. You need to be able to see the person in order to make the relationship successful. You can't really bond with a person over the phone or on the computer—at least that was the case in my relationship. You need that closeness (not physical intimacy) to bring two people together.

I found the distance incredibly difficult. E-mails were misinterpreted and our tone of voice over the phone was misunderstood, all because we couldn't see each other regularly like a normal dating relationship. We didn't know how each other would react to certain things. In the end, somebody always gets hurt and the relationship ends.

In my opinion, long distance relationships are stressful, disconnected, and just don't work.

Brooke

We welcome your feedback and brainstorms at: SinglesNewsletter@ChristianityToday.com

Sign up for the Singles Newsletter and receive a new article plus community updates in your inbox every week!

Copyright © 2005 ChristianityToday.com

Read more from 'Single Minded'

Table For One: The Savvy Girl's Guide to Singleness by Camerin Courtney You'll love this book by the Singles Channel's own Camerin Courtney! It's an honest and upbeat look at the emotions, expectations, joys, frustrations, and privileges of the single life, that will delight and inspire you! Buy it today!