Closing the distance: how to get through the last months apart
By James Auble · · 4 min read
- long distance
- closing the distance
- moving in together
- relationships
For most long-distance couples there's a day when "someday" becomes a date. Maybe the visa came through, or one of you got the job and the lease ends in March. Either way, you're going to live in the same place.
It's the best news a long-distance couple can get, and the months before it are often harder than people expect. The end is close enough to see, so every week in between feels longer. Then the day comes and you have to learn how to be together without a screen in the middle.
Make the plan out loud, together
Closing the distance usually means one person gives up more, often a job and friends who live ten minutes away. Talk about that openly before it turns into a quiet resentment a year later.
Go through the hard questions while you're still planning. Who is moving, and why does that make sense? What will the person moving do for work, and for friends, in the first few months? Where will you live, and whose furniture comes with you? What happens if the new city doesn't work out for one of you?
These conversations aren't romantic, but they're easier now than after the boxes are unpacked.
Write the to-do list early
Moving to be with someone is still a move, and sometimes it means crossing a border too. There's notice to give, a lease to end, paperwork to chase, a car to sell or ship. Put all of it on one shared list with dates, so neither of you is carrying it alone in your head.
If the move depends on something outside your control, like a visa or a job offer, plan for it taking longer than you hope. A delay hurts less when you've already talked about what you'll do if it happens.
Make the countdown something you share
A countdown app helps on the bad days, when the number is the only thing that feels real. It's even better when it counts toward things you do together.
Pick small milestones along the way: 100 days, the last time you say goodbye at an airport, the last month of video-call dinners. Mark each one with something, even a silly one. Some couples start a list of the things they'll do in their first week together, and add to it every time one of them thinks of something.
Don't let the last months go flat
Near the end it's easy to stop putting effort into the long-distance part, because it's almost over. Calls get shorter. "We'll talk about it when I'm there" becomes the answer to everything.
Those months are still part of your relationship, so keep the habits that got you this far going until the day you close the distance. If you need fresh ideas, here are seven that work at any stage.
Expect a strange first few weeks
After years of visits, every day together can feel like a holiday that never ends, and then suddenly it's a normal Tuesday. You'll see each other tired and bored and bad-tempered, and you'll argue about the dishes, the way every couple who lives together does.
The person who moved may also feel lonely in a way they didn't expect, even while sitting next to their partner. They've left their routines and their people behind. Help them build a life of their own in the new place, with a class, a team or a coworking desk, so you aren't their whole world.
Keep a little of the distance
Some long-distance habits are worth keeping. If you used to write letters, write one now and then. If you had a show you watched together over a video call, keep watching it, now on the same couch.
Mark the day
The day you close the distance belongs on the same list as the day you met. Write the date down somewhere you'll both see it, and decide now how you'll celebrate it next year (some ideas).
A lock on EverLoveLocks is one way to keep that date. Put your initials and the day you stopped being long distance on it, and it hangs on the bridge, wherever the two of you end up living.