Long Distance Relationships

1
Long Distance Relationships

• Unlocking the Secrets to a Happy Healthy
  Relationship When Couples Have to Be Apart

Gregory Guldner, MD, MS
2
Goals

• Enable therapists, counselors, educators, and
  other advisors to understand, assess, and support
  couples in long distance romantic relationships.
• Expose an expert audience of professionals to the
  current state-of-the-art research-based
  understanding of long distance relationships.

3
Objectives

• Understand LDRs
• Defining LDRs
• Prevalence of LDRs
• Do LDRs work?
• Difficulties with LDRs
• Advantages of LDRs

4
Objectives

• Assess
• Demographics
• Personality
• Support System
• Relationship
• Separation Inventory

5
Objectives

• Support
• Stages of Separation
• Staying emotionally healthy
• Staying intimate
• Sexuality while separated

• Support
• Communicating
• Conflict at a distance
• Sexual Affairs
• Hellos/Goodbyes
• Gender differences
• Ending the separation

6
Background

• Clinical Psychology
• Research Focus
• Propinquity Dating Relationships, Purdue
  University, Dept of Psychology, 1992
• Time Spent Together and Relationship Quality,
  Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 12,
  1995
• Long Distance Romantic Relationships, Journal of
  College Student Development 37, 1996
• Long Distance Relationships and Emergency
  Medicine Residency, Annals of Emergency Medicine
  37, 2001
• Long Distance Relationships The Complete Guide.
  2003JFMilne
• Personal Experience

7
Long Distance Relationships

• Understand LDRs
• Assess LDRs
• Support LDRs

8
Understanding LDRs

• Understand
• Defining LDRs
• Prevalence of LDRs
• Do LDRs work?
• Difficulties with LDRs
• Advantages of LDRs

9
Defining an LDR

• Specific distance cut-off
• Specific location cut-off
• Self-defining
• My partner lives far enough away from me that it
  would be very difficult or impossible for us to
  see one another every day.

10
Understanding LDRs

• Understand
• Defining LDRs
• Prevalence of LDRs
• Do LDRs work?
• Difficulties with LDRs
• Advantages of LDRs

11
Prevalence of LDRs

• Marital LDRs
• Pre-Marital
• College Student

12
Married and Living Apart ()
Age Year Caucasian Minority
Age 18-24
1960 6 13
1970 6.5 14.5
1980 5 16.5
Age 25-34
1960 2.5 8
1970 2 6.5
1980 1.5 6.5
Age 35-44
1960 2 6
1970 2 5
1980 1 4
13
Married and Living ApartNational Longitudinal
Study of the High School Class of 1972

• 3.31 of 7191 married respondents were living in
  a different location than spouse
• Of military marriages 27 of White and 63 of
  African-American couples were living apart.
• 10 of all job relocations result in long
  distance marriages (1998) and 52 of employers
  expect transfers to increase.

14
Pre-Marital LDRs

• College Students
• Internet Dating
• Military
• Certain Industries
• Oil
• Fishing
• Logging

• College Students
• 25-40 (1993)
• 50 of First Years (1992)
• 33 (1987)
• 25 at any given time and 78 at any point (1996)

15
Understanding LDRs

• Understand
• Defining LDRs
• Prevalence of LDRs
• Do LDRs work?
• Difficulties with LDRs
• Advantages of LDRs

16
Do LDRs Work?

• Marriage or Pre-Marital?
• Military / combat or Civilian?
• What does it mean to work?
• Continuity (break-up rate over time)
• Quality (satisfaction, intimacy, etc)

17
Do LDRs Break-up More Frequently than PRs?

• Pre-marital studies have found no greater rate of
  dissolution in LDRs than PRs
• Guldner. J. College Student Dev, 199637289-295
• Van Horn, et al. Personal Relationships,
  1997425-34
• Stafford Reske. Family Relations,
  199039274-279
• Stephen. Journal of Divorce, 198481-17
• No adequate data on marital LDRs
• Rindfuss Stephen. J. Marriage and the Family,
  199052259-270.

18
Do LDRs Have Poorer Quality Relationships Than Do
PRs?

• The majority of studies show no differences
  between LDRs and PRs on measures of
• Satisfaction
• Intimacy
• Trust
• Commitment
• Guldner Swensen, J. Social Personal Rel.
  199512313-320
• Govaerts Dixon. Int. J. Adv. Counseling.
  1988l11265-281
• Stafford Reske. Family Relations,
  199039274-279
• Woelfel Savell. Military Families. 197817-31
• Gerstel Gross. Commuter Marriage. 1984.
• Stephen. Human Com Res. 1986 13191-210
• Delmann-Jenkins, et al. College Stud J.
  199428212-219
• Timmerman. Doctoral Thesis. U. of Texas. 2001.

19
Understanding LDRs

• Understand
• Defining LDRs
• Prevalence of LDRs
• Do LDRs work?
• Difficulties with LDRs
• Advantages of LDRs

20
Difficulties Associated with LDRs

• The Individual
• Depression
• Military Separations
• Clinical Depression
• Civilian
• Guldner, GT. Long Distance Romantic
  Relationships Prevalence and Separation-related
  Symptoms. J College Student Development, 1996
  37 289-295.
• Clinical Depression no more likely in LDR than in
  PR
• Minor Depressive symptoms common
• Feeling blue, lack of interest, difficulty making
  decisions, difficulty concentrating

21
Difficulties Associated with LDRs

• The Individual
• Anxiety
• Uncertainty
• Jealousy / Sexual Affairs
• Dis-inhibition (loss of support)
• Guilt
• Violating norms
• Choice of career over relationship
• Emotional rollercoaster

22
Difficulties Associated with LDRs

• The Relationship
• Myths (Dissolution, Quality, Finances)
• Relationship momentum slowed
• Progress toward marriage more slowly
• Break-up more slowly
• Idealization and Disillusionment
• Difficulties in Communication
• Sexuality at a Distance
• Re-integration
• Assessment of the Status of the Relationship

23
Understanding LDRs

• Understand
• Defining LDRs
• Prevalence of LDRs
• Do LDRs work?
• Difficulties with LDRs
• Advantages of LDRs

24
Advantages of an LDR

• Individual Productivity
• Novelty
• Avoids the taken-for-granted aspect of PRs
• Plan exciting activities
• Compartmentalization
• Intimacy / autonomy fulfillment
• Idealization

25
Long Distance Relationships

• Understand LDRs
• Assess LDRs
• Support LDRs

26
Assessing an LDR

• Personality
• Demographics
• Support System
• Relationship Characteristics

27
Assessing LDRs

• Assess
• Demographics
• Personality
• Support System
• Relationship
• Separation Inventory

28
Assessing an LDR Demographics

• Least important of the four components
• Frequency of face-to-face visits not correlated
• Frequency of telephone calls negatively
  correlated with satisfaction
• Frequency of letters predicts satisfaction

29
Assessing an LDR Demographics

• Other demographics
• Total duration of the relationship
• Duration of Separation
• Duration as a PR prior to LDR
• Distance
• Age

30
Assessing LDRs

• Assess
• Demographics
• Personality
• Support System
• Relationship
• Separation Inventory

31
Assessing an LDR Personality

• Learning Style Inventory
• Visualizers
• Verbalizers
• Touchers
• Attachment Styles
• Secure
• Avoidant
• Ambivalent / Anxious

32
Assessing an LDR Personality

• Self-Esteem
• Low self-esteem predicts more difficulty with
  separation
• Low self-esteem predicts poor relationship
  quality among LDRs but not PRs
• Independence
• Optimism
• Trust
• Telephone and Letter Habits

33
Assessing LDRs

• Assess
• Demographics
• Personality
• Support System
• Relationship
• Separation Inventory

34
Assessing an LDR Support

• Types of Support
• Emotional
• Appraisal
• Informational
• Instrumental

• Sources of Support
• Partner
• Family
• Friends
• Context

• Those in LDRs often isolate themselves from
  support
• Distraction
• Awkwardness
• Depression
• Ambiguous status

35
Assessing LDRs

• Assess
• Demographics
• Personality
• Support System
• Relationship
• Separation Inventory

36
Assessing an LDR Relationship

• Issues specific to LDRs
• Communication issues
• Expectations
• Conflict Management
• Telephone

37
Long Distance Relationships

• Understand LDRs
• Assess LDRs
• Support LDRs

38
Supporting LDRs

• Emotional Stages of Separation
• Staying Emotionally Healthy
• Maintaining Intimacy
• Frequency of Contact
• Hellos Goodbyes
• Conflict at a Distance
• Long Distance Sex
• Sexual Affairs
• Dating Others
• Gender Differences in Separation

39
Supporting LDRsUnderstanding Separation

• Emotional Stages of Separation
• Bowlby / Animal Studies / Evolutionary Psych
• Protest (Anger, Bargaining)
• Despair (Depression to various degrees)
• Detachment (Productive or Destructive)
• Kubler-Ross
• Denial and Isolation
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

40
Supporting LDRs

• Emotional Stages of Separation
• Staying Emotionally Healthy
• Maintaining Intimacy
• Frequency of Contact
• Hellos Goodbyes
• Conflict at a Distance
• Long Distance Sex
• Sexual Affairs
• Dating Others
• Gender Differences in Separation

41
Supporting LDRs Staying Emotionally Healthy

• Ten Step Program
• Maintain a satisfying relationship
• Socialize
• Emotional vs. Social Loneliness
• Find a Confidant
• Touching
• Take Control

42
Supporting LDRs Staying Emotionally Healthy

• Ten Step Program
• Positive Thinking / Reframing
• View the Separation as Temporary
• Acknowledge Contributions
• Transitional Objects
• Healthy Sexuality

43
Supporting LDRs

• Emotional Stages of Separation
• Staying Emotionally Healthy
• Maintaining Intimacy
• Frequency of Contact
• Hellos Goodbyes
• Conflict at a Distance
• Long Distance Sex
• Sexual Affairs
• Dating Others
• Gender Differences in Separation

44
Supporting an LDR Keys to Maintaining Intimacy

• Intimacy Components
• Emotional Sharing
• Interrelatedness
• Emotional Sharing
• LDRs may do this more easily than PRs
• Interrelatedness
• Central Issue for LDR Intimacy
• Focus on the mundane
• Serial vs. Parallel Communication

45
Supporting LDRs

• Emotional Stages of Separation
• Staying Emotionally Healthy
• Maintaining Intimacy
• Frequency of Contact
• Hellos Goodbyes
• Conflict at a Distance
• Long Distance Sex
• Sexual Affairs
• Dating Others
• Gender Differences in Separation

46
Supporting an LDR Contact

• Face-to-face visits
• Conflicting research
• Opinion suggests at least once a month
• Early studies had design issues
• Carpenter Knox. College Student J.1986
  2886-88
• Failed vs. successful contact related for men
  only
• Holt Stone. J College Student Dev. 1988
  29136-141
• Definition of LDR
• Groves Horm-Wingerd. Soc Social Res.
  199175212-216
• Outcome happier with relationship

47
Supporting an LDR Contact

• Face-to-face visits
• Larger studies longitudinal studies
• No correlation or impact of frequency of
  face-to-face visits for continuity or quality or
  relationship
• Guldner Swensen, J. Social Personal Rel.
  199512313-320
• Schwebel, et al. J. College Student Dev. 1992
  33222-230
• Guldner. Purdue Univ, Dept. of Psych. 1992
• Strategies based on increasing visits likely will
  not work any frequency okay

48
Supporting an LDR Contact

• Telephone Calls
• No evidence to suggest positive correlation or
  threshold effect
• Frequency may be negatively correlated
• More calls more conflict?
• More conflict more calls?

49
Supporting an LDR Contact

• Writing Letters.
• Cross-sectional.
• Strong correlation between frequency of letters
  and relationship quality.
• Longitudinal.
• Couples who stayed together wrote one another
  almost twice as often as those who broke-up.
• Measures of relationship quality identical at
  time-one.

50
Supporting an LDR Contact

• Writing Letters
• Peculiarities of Letters
• Transitional objects
• Tangible
• Re-readable
• Scent
• Generally conveys mostly positive messages
• Pre-stamp and address envelopes to facilitate
  letter writing
• Discuss the mundane if writing is only contact

51
Supporting LDRs

• Emotional Stages of Separation
• Staying Emotionally Healthy
• Maintaining Intimacy
• Frequency of Contact
• Hellos Goodbyes
• Conflict at a Distance
• Long Distance Sex
• Sexual Affairs
• Dating Others
• Gender Differences in Separation

52
Supporting an LDR Hellos Goodbyes

• Key Strategies for Making Reunions Even Better
• Its okay to schedule time by oneself
• Schedule time with mutual friends
• Schedule time out in public as a couple
• Expect to be disappointed periodically
• Dont over schedule
• Keep the timing of reunions predictable

53
Supporting an LDR Hellos Goodbyes

• Key Strategies for Facilitating Goodbyes
• Recognize multiple ways of saying goodbye
• Develop goodbye rituals
• Avoid anticipatory distancing if possible
• Expect periodic disappointing reunions
• Call one another early to discuss process
• Accept some excitement about leaving

54
Supporting LDRs

• Emotional Stages of Separation
• Staying Emotionally Healthy
• Maintaining Intimacy
• Frequency of Contact
• Hellos Goodbyes
• Conflict at a Distance
• Long Distance Sex
• Sexual Affairs
• Dating Others
• Gender Differences in Separation

55
Supporting LDRsConflict at a Distance

• Issues Unique to LDRs
• Problems with distance, travel, limited time
  together
• Problems inherent with telephones
• Conflict avoidance
• Separation-related anger
• Attributing all difficulties to the distance

56
Supporting LDRsConflict at a Distance

• Problems with distance, travel, time
• How should we use our time together?
• Ground rules about other potential partners.
• How often should we contact / visit one another?
• Who pays for travel?
• Who does the traveling?
• How long will we be separated?
• How soon after reunion should we have sex?
• How do we split the telephone bill?
• How often do we write one another?
• Who does the chores when together?

57
Supporting LDRsConflict at a Distance

• Problems Inherent with Telephones
• Less likely to result in conflict resolutions
• Less likely to accurately guess partners opinion
• Less confident in opinion about partners
  personality traits
• More likely to feel misunderstood
• More likely to think partner is insincere

58
Supporting LDRsConflict at a Distance

• Conflict Avoidance
• LDRs report less conflict than PRs
• Guldner Swensen, J. Social Personal
  Rel.199512313-320
• Delmann-Jenkins, et al. College Stud J.
  199428212-219
• Limited time together, avoid spoiling it
• Ability to exit
• Tolerancce

59
Supporting LDRsConflict at a Distance

• Separation-Related Anger
• Reflex
• Cause is difficult to determine
• Persists despite experience
• this anger is displaced in all directions and
  projected onto the environment at times almost at
  random. - Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

60
Supporting LDRsConflict at a Distance

• Attributional Error
• Everything would be okay but for the distance.
• Men more likely than women
• Leads to fewer arguments
• Leads to delay in progress
• Lead to unnecessary break-up
• Lead to resistance to therapeutic attempts

61
Supporting LDRs

• Emotional Stages of Separation
• Staying Emotionally Healthy
• Maintaining Intimacy
• Frequency of Contact
• Hellos Goodbyes
• Conflict at a Distance
• Long Distance Sex
• Sexual Affairs
• Dating Others
• Gender Differences in Separation

62
Long Distance Sex

• LDRs report sexual intimacy equal to PRs.
• Guldner Swensen, J. Social Personal
  Rel.199512313-320
• Honeymoon sex / novelty
• Timing of sex after reunion
• Intimacy then sex
• Sex then intimacy

63
Long Distance Sex

• Telephone Sex
• Learning what to say and how to say it
• Comfort with erotic vocabulary
• Books of erotic fantasy
• Learning how to say it
• Bonnie Gabriel, The Fine Art of Erotic Talk How
  to Entice, Excite, and Enchant Your Lover with
  Words
• Fantasy talk
• Sexual guidance
• Parallel self-pleasuring

64
Long Distance Sex

• Self-Pleasuring
• Learning to be comfortable with touching
• Hands-free telephones
• Privacy issues

65
Long Distance Sex

• Erotic Letters
• Erotic Videos
• Erotic Audiotapes
• Erotic Pictures
• Timing of visits with menstrual cycle

66
Supporting LDRs

• Emotional Stages of Separation
• Staying Emotionally Healthy
• Maintaining Intimacy
• Frequency of Contact
• Hellos Goodbyes
• Conflict at a Distance
• Long Distance Sex
• Sexual Affairs
• Dating Others
• Gender Differences in Separation

67
Sexual Affairs in LDRs

• Common opinion
• Three studies
• Pre-marital
• Guldner, GT. Propinquity Dating Relationships,
  Purdue University, Dept of Psychology, 1992
• Marital
• Gerstel, N. Marital alternatives and the
  regulation of sex. Alternnative Lifestyles, 1979
  2145-176
• Ortner, et al. Long Distance Marriage. 1979
• No difference in the rate of affairs
• Greater concern anxiety about affairs

68
Supporting LDRs

• Emotional Stages of Separation
• Staying Emotionally Healthy
• Maintaining Intimacy
• Frequency of Contact
• Hellos Goodbyes
• Conflict at a Distance
• Long Distance Sex
• Sexual Affairs
• Dating Others
• Gender Differences in Separation

69
Dating Others During an LDR

• Two studies
• 6-month longitudinal study
• 30 of couples who dated others broke up
• 27 of couples who did not broke up
• 70 of couples who did not discuss this issue
  broke up.
• Cross sectional study
• 15 of those who dated others survived LDR
• 48 of those who didnt survived LDR

70
Supporting LDRs

• Emotional Stages of Separation
• Staying Emotionally Healthy
• Maintaining Intimacy
• Frequency of Contact
• Hellos Goodbyes
• Conflict at a Distance
• Long Distance Sex
• Sexual Affairs
• Dating Others
• Gender Differences in Separation

71
Gender Differences in LDRs

• Emphasis on sexuality
• Jealousy issues
• Interpretation of Love
• Romanticism vs Practicality
• Separation as a test vs. obstacle
• How to build intimacy
• Through sharing ideas
• By cataloging shared activities

72
Gender Differences in LDRs

• Impact of Separation Greater on Men
• Did distance contribute to the end of your LDR?
• 41 of men agree
• 28 of women agree
• Distance was the only common problem cited more
  frequently by men as leading to a break up.

73
Gender Differences in LDRs

• Distance is represented as an empirical,
  absolute obstacle that precludes continuation of
  a relationship. These accounts offer no
  recognition of possibilities for managing
  distance neither do they acknowledge any
  personal responsibility for its impact on
  relationships.
• -Wood, JT. Different
  voices in relationship crises. American
  Behavioral Scientist.1986 29273-301.

74
Therapeutic Pearls

• Normalize Encourage
• LDRs are common
• Especially among college students
• LDRs do not break-up more often than PRs
• LDRs have similar quality relationships as PRs

75
Therapeutic Pearls

• Individuals in LDRs often report mild depression
• Persistent, not improved with experience
• develop coping strategy, dont wait for it to go
  away
• Distance relationships do not cause major
  depression
• Ending an LDR will likely not help and may hurt

76
Therapeutic Pearls

• Anxiety / Guilt
• LDRs no more uncertain than PRs
• LDRs no more likely to have affairs
• LDR is often the best choice between
• Giving up ones career/education/goals
• Giving up the relationship
• Having an LDR
• Focus on anxiety/guilt producing thoughts

77
Therapeutic Pearls

• Progress slowed
• Expect and normalize slower progression
• Search for LDRs that should end and facilitate
  / support this decision
• Idealization / Disillusionment
• Allow idealization but anticipate and normalize
  unmet expectations

78
Therapeutic Pearls

• Communication
• Drawbacks to telephone communication
• Address conflict avoidance
• Ritualize relationship discussion
• Sexuality
• Address issues of verbal sexual expression
• Alternatives (pictures, audio, video, letters)
• Address issues of self-pleasuring

79
Therapeutic Pearls

• Promote Optimism and Self-Esteem
• Recognize minimal impact of contact
• Encourage letter writing
• Assess for and correct social isolation
• Encourage discussion of day-to-day acts
• Encourage parallel communication
• Hands free cordless phones

80
Therapeutic Pearls

• Discuss ground rules regarding dating others
• Acknowledge contributions to the LDR
• Especially for men
• When the relationship closes the distance
• Probably greater risk of break-up
• Disillusionment, loss of advantages, etc.

81
Questions?

• Guldner, GT. Long Distance Relationships The
  Complete Guide. 2003. LA JF Milne
• Available from
• www.atlasbooks.com
• www.amazon.com
• www.jfmilne.com
• Ingram Book Group
• Baker Taylor