Sandra had begun to realize that intimacy involves something more than simply sharing “I love you's.�?Being emotionally honest and open with your partner is certainly an important component of any romance. Some relationship experts even suggest that those in LDRs may share their loving feelings more openly than those in geographically close relationships. Perhaps the uncertainty inherent in the separation makes us a little more in need of explicit confirmation of how our partner feels and how the relationship stands. Yet letter after letter of deep emotional revelations can still leave one feeling distant, as Sandra discovered. What Joseph and Sandra lacked was simply the feeling that they were part of one another’s lives in a day-to-day manner.

Intimacy requires at least two conditions: emotional sharing and what sociologists call interrelatedness. The first condition is what most of us think about when we use the term “intimate.�?Yet the second condition is just as important, and is often taken for granted when the relationship is geographically close. Interrelatedness simply means that you and your partner’s lives are intertwined. This comes very naturally and almost imperceptibly in geographically close relationships because you’re sharing lunch, going shopping, talking about the day-to-day trivia of your lives, or arguing over control of the TV remote. Every small interaction slowly creates the interrelatedness that forms a foundation for intimacy.

Focus on the Mundane

Probably the most effective way of creating and maintaining intimacy while apart is simply sharing with your partner what happened in your day. Couples in geographically close relationships do this all the time instinctively. In an LDR you need to make a conscious effort.

There are several ways that those in LDRs can bring their day-to-day life in contact with that of their partner. The most common method is using the telephone. The telephone has several advantages, the most important of which is the lack of any time delay. Unlike letters, you can discuss your day in real time, rather than

Survival Tip # 33
Intimacy requires being involved in the mundane, day-to-day events of one another’s lives. Develop some method to keep track of your daily events and your partner’s. Pretend that your partner is waiting for you back at your home at the end of the day. What things would you want to tell them? Write these down and share them with your partner.

Have your partner read about activities that took place last week. Using the telephone to help establish intimacy takes effort because there are barriers inherent in voice-only interactions.

First, whatever else you plan on talking about over the telephone, you must allow time to share the mundane things that happened to you during the last day, week, or month. People in LDRs often don’t want to waste time talking about the trivial details of their lives and they focus on what they perceive as more important issues. Don’t be fooled by this. The only way to be intertwined with your partner’s life is to share the mundane details of yours.

Second, keep track of the little things that come up during the day that you’d like to share with your partner. Several people with whom I spoke kept a little note card that they would use to keep a list of things to talk about. For those who spoke daily, the note card wasn’t always necessary, as they could remember the day’s events without difficulty. But most couples talked on the telephone less than once a day, and for them writing down interesting little things that occurred during the days since their last conversation helped them to share these details. After two or three days, the day-to-day issues that were once important often vanish from our memories or lose their significance. A written record can provide a roadmap of the last few days of our lives that we can share with our partners.

Similarly, some of us are less adept than others at recalling the small things that are going on in our partner’s lives from day-to-day. These memory lapses are usually overlooked in geographically close relationships, as those couples can create interrelatedness in other ways. But for LDRs, failing to follow the little issues that are a part of our partner’s lives removes one of the few means we have to maintain intimacy. Personally, my memory was often too cluttered with details from work to be a big help in this regard. So I kept a little record book by the telephone that I used to keep track of the things going on in my partner’s life. I made it a point to ask about events from the last time we talked so I could get an update. This kept both my partner and I involved in each other’s lives in a way that helped to create a feeling of intimacy.

For those with personal digital assistants (PDAs) or pocket personal computers, the memo pad function can be used to help keep track of both your partner’s events and those that occurred during your own day.

While the telephone is a great way to keep track of events from day-to-day, it can be expensive. Email is the next best method. Email allows almost instantaneous transmission that you can’t get with traditional mail. Most providers allow for real-time chats between you and your partner called instant messaging. Many people have shared with me that real-time email conversations, although lacking in the comfort of hearing one’s partner’s voice, allow a feeling of connection that isn’t present with normal mail. Email is relatively inexpensive, particularly if you have an affiliation with a business or university that has an Internet connection. Because of its speed and low cost, many people choose email to relay the mundane day-to-day issues to their partners, and reserve the more expensive telephone time for other activities.

A third way to communicate the events in your life is by traditional mail. While letters have some truly amazing advantages for LDRs, they lack the speed that helps promote the feeling of day-to-day involvement in your partner’s life. Nonetheless, for some people letters represent the only means of communication available, either due to budgetary constraints or the lack of availability of telephones (such as in the military). Fortunately, a few tricks can help make letters a useful tool in sharing your day-to-day life.

Heidi, a 28-year-old graduate student dating a Navy officer, Gary, who was serving aboard a nuclear submarine, explained the best method I came across. Gary routinely was unavailable by telephone or email for weeks to months at a time, but mail was delivered fairly routinely.

Gary and Heidi

“I wanted Gary to feel like he was part of my life. So I always carried this little memo pad with me, and throughout the day I’d start writing to him about whatever was happening. By the end of the week, I’d have a seven-page letter with each page and entry dated and timed. When I’d reread the letter before mailing it, a lot of the entries sounded silly and boring. But Gary says he enjoys reading each day as if he was with me. Some days he would only read one day’s worth of

Survival Tip # 34
Find an email system that allows instant messaging. You and your partner can hold real-time conversations with very little expense. These are great ways of sharing your day-to-day excitements. Most Internet providers will allow unlimited access for a single monthly fee. This allows a fantastic and inexpensive method of developing a strong foundation of intimacy.

My letter so he would feel in step with my life. He was always about two weeks behind in my real life, but to him he was keeping on top of things back here.�?/FONT>