A relationship dispute is never nice. But if you live in the same place, at least you have the opportunity to talk things out and reconcile in a timely manner. Unfortunately, that’s not so easy in long-distance relationships – and that’s exactly what makes it pretty hard sometimes.
Actually, everything is good. You talk to your boyfriend or girlfriend on the phone; you talk about this and that. At some point, a stupid word is said, a thoughtless sentence. You first start to discuss it and finally argue about it. Things build up until either you or the other person hangs up in a rage, starts shouting or crying.
What is already really unpleasant in relationships in which both partners live in the same place, is in Long distance relationships the purest hell. Because: You don’t have the opportunity to get it out of the way right away. And usually not the next day or the day after. Maybe you have to wait until the next weekend. Or maybe you have to wait a month until the next time you see each other – depending on how great the distance is, how expensive the buses, trains or flights are, and how many work commitments the respective people have. People who have a job usually can’t just drive to another city during the week or even fly to another country.
To cut a long story short, you can’t get rid of disputes in long-distance relationships so quickly. Sure, you can write about it afterwards or call and talk about it again. But it’s just not the same. You can’t touch each other, you can’t hug each other, you don’t really have the feeling that everything is fine again when you can only speak words but your body is forced to remain mute.
Both of the relationships I’ve been in so far have been long-distance relationships, at least at certain stages, and I’ve had in those Remote reference times both times the impression that a dispute feels significantly longer “unresolved” if you are not in the same place.
What’s really stupid is when the person you love is hanging around on another continent – and you feel like you can’t do anything. You don’t just feel paralyzed; you actually are.
However, I not only had and still have the feeling that it is more difficult to resolve a dispute if you don’t have the opportunity to see each other in person – I also believe that there is a higher potential for disputes if you only write or talk on the phone. Because: words alone are sometimes quite misleading.
Hearing someone’s voice without seeing their face can sometimes be irritating. Things often come across differently on the phone than they would if you were facing someone in person. But you often don’t realize this yourself at the critical moment, and instead get carried away with the whole affair.
It’s even worse when writing – after all, here you can’t even hear the other person’s voice. You don’t hear the way something is said, and if at the end of the message another smiley or Emoji stands than anyone had hoped, it is the greatest drama in the world.
All of this may seem amusing and childish when you read it in this article – but I’m sure that anyone who has ever been in a long-distance relationship knows that there is unfortunately more to it than any of us would like, and that such situations are not so funny in reality, but can sometimes put quite a strain on the relationship.
At this point, there should actually be a clever tip on how to solve the problem. But there is no such tip today. Perhaps it is a question of time; a question of how well you already know each other; a question of how well you can classify the statements of the other person accordingly.
Knowing how something is likely to be meant is sometimes worth its weight in gold – because it keeps the arguments from happening in the first place, and you don’t get into that situation in the first place where it’s so difficult to reconcile.
Follow ZEITjUNG on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!
Image source: Pexels (Alex Green); CC0 license