Despite your best efforts, you may find yourself in a situation that does not leave enough room for communication in your relationship.
Whether it is temporary or not and whether it concerns you both or not, it is essential that you find solutions and alternatives to your problems, in order to be able to breathe life into your long-distance relationship through your exchanges.
And for good reason, the worst thing would be to accept with resignation the lack of time and therefore the lack of communication.
In this excerpt from Part 1 of Communication Sans Frontières , you will learn how to manage your long-distance relationship on a daily basis despite the lack of time and obstacles.
What if one or both are too busy?
Usually one of the two partners (or both) will use this excuse to justify the lack of communication and take responsibility away from them.
“It’s not my fault, but I really don’t have time. ”
If we assume that this is the real reason behind the lack of communication and not a lie that hides another (lack of interest, at random …), it is all the same very far from excusing everything .
Indeed, the alternatives are numerous and silence is only very rarely justified.
Let’s start with the tools to use: if your other half is overbooked, texting, Skype and phone calls are certainly not the best means, due to the lack of immediacy in your exchanges.
The solution therefore consists in communicating less via these tools and favoring slower, but daily communication, for example by making more use of emails, voice and video messages or even postal letters.
But of course, you will also have to adapt the message to the format .
We do not talk about the same thing via these media as with SMS. We do not expect more depth and less superficiality. A good way to get to know each other better!
As long as your exchanges are frequent and sincere, you will forget the lack of availability.
A second way to overcome this lack of time is to make the best use of your free time :
- Are you taking the bus to work? Text him.
- Do you have some time in the morning and in the evening? Give him a quick call.
- Do you have time for yourself this weekend? Give your couple an extended Skype session.
- Do you have some time left during your lunch break? Send her a selfie or video message.
Between us, no one is ever 100% busy . Sending a text takes 30 seconds. Calling the person you love may take as little as 5 minutes.
No need to go long.
If the other person knows time is limited, then they will appreciate the effort.
The whole point is that you make communication a daily priority (as we saw above) and that you perceive every free minute that you have as an opportunity to communicate with your partner and to nourish your couple.
You have the right to have a busy schedule. But you don’t have the right to forget about your partner. Your relationship must remain a priority.
If it is more your partner who acts in this way then ask him to multiply this kind of little attentions in order to maintain the bond in your couple (SMS and short calls during the week, Skype and telephone on weekends).
In addition, if you want to talk to her, but you are afraid of disturbing, you can either leave her a short, simple and precise message to which your other half will respond when she is available, or ask her directly by text if she is busy or not. .
What to do in case of jet lag or different rhythms of life?
If you live several thousand kilometers from each other or have very different rhythms of life (one works at night, the other during the day, for example), you are in a difficult situation to overcome .
We have much less time available in common and especially we have even more the impression that what we are going through is totally different from what our partner is going through.
Naturally, one solution that presents itself to you would be to sacrifice your schedule and your sleep, in order to hope to exchange a few words on the phone or by Skype when the other is available.
But this is not what I recommend since it could in the long term greatly harm your health, your professional situation and your personal balance.
Only accepting this situation and adapting will help you to take this step .
I would rather advise you to exchange regular messages (texts and emails) and if possible call the other when you are both awake and free.
If every now and then you want to share something while your better half is still asleep, then send them an email, audio recording or video that will be a really nice surprise when they wake up.
Finally, if you have to, you can sacrifice a weekend night or morning to share an extended video call, knowing you can recover smoothly.
