How to make a long-distance international marriage realistically work

international dating

As you pick up the phone and start to talk to your partner, your eyes become a little bit dreamy. Nevertheless, meanwhile, your heart is probably wondering whether your long-distance marriage will work or not in the long run. I completely understand that kind of concern. Now I would like to share the secrets to long-distance marriages that can actually work in the long term.

⦁ Three key parts of a marriage:

There are three essential components of a satisfying, sustainable and happy marriage: intimacy, emotional connection and a shared vision (i.e. mutual benefits). In a long-distance international marriage, the first key element is definitely absent because clearly, you cannot be intimate with your partner when you are in two different locations. As a matter of fact, a marriage with emotional connection but without intimacy is literally a friendship only. Of course, your partner should not be a friend only (you surely do not want to friend-zone your partner). Now what needs to happen is to build a very strong shared vision. Here are some examples below.

⦁ Examples of long-distance marriages that can work:

Lily and John are in a long-distance marriage. They are running an online business together. As their Internet business is wildly successful and lucrative, Lily and John have mutual benefits, i.e. the profit of their business. Their shared vision is to build the most successful and profitable e-commerce store in the world. What’s more, they would like to live in the same city within 1 year.

Alex and Samantha are a married couple in a long-distance international relationship. They have two kids (a 14-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter). Both of them love their children very much. Because they want their lovely children to have a very happy family life, Alex and Samantha are planning on moving to the same city soon.

In these two typical examples, it is clear that these two couples have very obvious mutual benefits (i.e. a shared vision). That is exactly why their long-distance marriages can work pretty well. However, many couples do not really have a strong shared vision. Lack of mutual benefits makes their long-distance marriages fall apart gradually.

Fortunately, there are a variety of effective ways to make a long-distance international marriage work well. In the first place, you have to make sure that you can build a strong shared vision with your partner. This can be a company that you are building together or children from this marriage. Even if you are not interested in starting a company, you can still consider doing something obvious, easy and manageable, e.g. designing an interesting, beautiful and compelling lifestyle that you and your partner can share within two years. Perhaps both of you are huge movie fans. You can tell your partner that when you move to the same location, you will go to the cinema at least once a week. Then you will start a podcast about movie reviews together. That will make your partner look forward to this fun, exciting and engaging way of life. In the second place, you need to keep strengthening the emotional connection with your partner. That means you should keep in touch with your partner every single day via Skype, Zoom, telephone or email. Constant and meaningful communication builds a genuine connection and intense attraction in your long-distance international marriage.

⦁ An unexpected example:

An incredibly powerful way to fulfill intimate needs in a long-distance international marriage is to channel your personal desire into something more productive, e.g. writing a creative novel, going to the gym and improving your own career. Truthfully, it turns out that when your intimate needs are not directly met, you are more likely to build something phenomenal for yourself. I know this sounds slightly bizarre. Nonetheless, please let me show you a real example which may sound a little bit extreme, yet I’m pretty sure that we can learn a thing or two from this true story: Darren Hayes is the most successful Australian singer of all time. When he was a teenager, he used to pray to God every single night not to make him gay, not to get AIDS and not to go to hell. At that time, he already had gay sexual thoughts; as a consequence, he even checked his HIV status when he was still a virgin in high school. That was how anxious, scared and terrified he was. Then in 1994 he married his girlfriend at university when he was only 21 years old because he did not want to be gay – he just wanted to fit in due to his homophobia. Throughout that marriage, he used pop music and rock music to fulfill his intimate needs because realistically, he is actually gay. That was exactly how he made it. His band Savage Garden won 10 awards in Australia in 1997. His love song Truly, Madly, Deeply is still the most played song on radio in American history. Darren Hayes met his very handsome and loving husband Richard Cullen on the Internet in 2003 when he was promoting his album The Tension and the Spark in London, the United Kingdom. After that, his intimate needs have been met directly. This couple lived in London and then moved to California, yet now Darren Hayes says that he is not very interested in making music anymore. Obviously, something must be a trade-off in his reality.

“Long-distance international marriages can work as long as you have the right skills in love.”

About Author

Commenting rules

Members comments are welcome and we encourage comments and discussions.

We ask that you put some thought in to your posts and that you follow these commenting rules and guidelines:

  • Refrain from personal attacks on other contributing members
  • No names or contact details of site users
  • No links to other sites
  • No unsubstantiated claims that have not been reported to us previously at [email protected]

Failure to comply with these rules may result in your comment not being published.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. All fields are required

Subscribe & Follow

Related Posts