“I had a dream last night, I was eating a ten pound marshmallow. I woke up this morning and the pillow was gone” — Tommy Cooper
How to be Smarter: One of the scariest things in a long distance relationship is uncertainty about staying connected. Before embarking on a distance separation, mitigate the fear of the unknown future with a communication plan. It doesn’t need to be written down, but it needs to be talked about. If you are actually serious about staying together, you need to be serious about thinking of ways to stay involved with each other’s lives. Discuss: How often will you talk? At a set time each day? Before dinner? Before bed? Will you text throughout the day, or will you talk about everything you need to say in a daily phone conversation? Is email an option? What about old-fashioned love letters and care packages? Can you visit? How often will you visit? Be aware that as the relationship goes on, your routines will need to change, and some days you might talk five times and some days you might talk none. But some sense of what to expect—some semblance of a plan—can and will help.
How to be Prettier: The big trend for late summer-going into fall footwear is going to be peep-toe short boots. Some examples here, here and here.
How to be (less) Awkward: An awkward silence on the phone always, always, always ends. Someone will always, always, always say something. Remind yourself of that during an awkward silence — to my knowledge, an awkward silence has yet to prove fatal.
Tags: Long Distance Relationships, Peep Toe Short Boots, Silence
8 People have left comments on this post
Thank you for this -I was needing a Molly Ford post today.
I love your long distance relationship advice. I’ve never been in one, but you seem to have really good ideas! I also love your shoe choices. I write for a beauty blog, and we’ve had some fabulous shoe features.
Thanks for the long distance advice! Definitely helps to have advice from a complete outsider. <3
ahhhhh, old fashioned love letters… i miss those. but i’ll say they didn’t work for keeping my long distance relationship together…
For the first time, I have to seriously disagree on a post. I think a huge formal sit-down talk about the long-distance relationship is a dangerous excuse for the girl to become excessively obsessive and the guy to become defensive and disinterested. Making plans is impractical and leads to future conflict if those plans are broken. For example, saying that you’ll call each other every night before bed takes the fun and flexibility out of the relationship (two things that are especially needed in long-distance).
The only part that I absolutely agreed with is the fact that some days, you’ll talk constantly while other days, you won’t have any idea where the person is or what he or she is doing. That’s something that a lot of couples don’t anticipate, and that’s also where trust plays the biggest role.
Dear Molly,
thank you for the advice on the long distance relationship
The reason why my relationship is working despite the fact that we’re on two different continents is exactly because we seriously talked about the ways of staying in each other’s lives. That doesn’t mean making daily schedule for times we talk, but it means planning on making serious effort to visit each other, and making decisions together. It is very important to have serious conversation about it, and if one is disinterested or defensive about such plans, then how will one make it through stressful/frustrating times of long distance relationship?
Ok, I am fashion challenged… do you wear tights with peep-toe boots?
Hi Kate! I like wearing colored tights, but I would steer clear of wearing nylons with peep-toes–it’s a little cheesy