Increasingly with easier and cheaper travel, cheaper and easier telephone contact and the extraordinary spread of the Internet and access to Skype or similar, long distance relationships become more possible and have started to become far more common. Sometimes daily conversations via Skype or phone become the overwhelming main form of contact between couples. Using distant face to face communication can be a great way of talking but not if it’s nearly all you do!

The potential problems are several. You are creating an artificial relationship. You are idealising the other and not experiencing normal stuff. What is wrong feels much worse. You set yourself up for considerable disappointment when expectations are not met and build up such excitement and expectation for when you do meet. Sometimes you may meet for very short periods of time. These meeting can have the feel of an intense ‘holiday romance’ heightened passion and even a sense of being even more in love. It becomes addictive and a normal relationship can never live up to the fantasy.

The worst thing of all is that there is no easy solution. It becomes unsustainable. You need to talk to your partner about time scales and be very careful about leaving it open ended. Be in touch with us to explore the possibilities and how best to move forward. It will be different in all cases. Just carrying on will lead to issues, more serious problems and resentments and something will eventually happen to undermine any possibility of a long term sustainable relationship.

Ironically it is possible to set up Skype sessions to discuss this and the inevitable issues and problems that have or will develop. As I have said Skype etc. is a very useful way of communicating if distance prevents being in the same room but with counselling it would only be very occasional. Some people like it a lot but it can, in closer relationships, feel like a barrier.