how to express love in a
long distance relationship:
an 11 million-selling author's solution
Long distance relationships are magical. The beginnings are unforgettable. How to express love in a long distance relationship is so easy !
It’s like being in a Disney movie, where you’re the main character!
You get to know each other, you spend your days glued to your phones, smiling stupidly.
You only want to meet for the first time this person who has everything in common with you. Or to see her again.
But the more time passes, the more difficult it becomes to show your love.
The Big Love was naturally present at the beginning of your relationship, but the routine started to settle with the days, and the distance became unbearable.
Your partner blames you for not showing your love enough. He doesn’t feel « special » to you.
He thinks you don’t care, that it doesn’t matter to you.
You are doing things that you feel are right, but they are not enough for your partner or they don’t understand them.
You are lost. You are even afraid that your long-distance relationship will end abruptly.
And little by little, your partner loses hope.
This is a situation that countless LDR couples encounter. But don’t worry! You can do something about it.
The problem is not your personality, or your will.
The problem comes from somewhere else, and the shot can be easily adjusted.
And I’ll tell you how, right now.
For an ever more fulfilling long distance relationship, you can read these articles:
how to express love : my special ldr quiz !
I have prepared a quiz for you to know your couple better, based on the languages of love. You don’t understand anything? Don’t panic:
In less than 15 minutes, you will understand how to communicate better with your partner, and how to show your love very easily in a long distance relationship without misinterpretation.
Before starting the quiz, I invite you to read in the following article what the 5 languages correspond to.
Try to guess yours and your partner’s language according to your intuition. You might be surprised by the result!
i don't know how to express love in a long distance relationship: the problem come from me ?
Have you ever wondered where the problem comes from?
- From you?
- From your partner?
- From the distance?
- From an external factor?
First of all, your partner has told you about it. That’s a very good point, because if he or she does, it’s because he or she cares about you, your relationship and your marriage.
These communication problems are caused by what makes us special: distance.
Here is why:
Nonverbal communication is limited:
- You can’t show your love by making breakfast, walking him to a stressful appointment, handing him a hot towel when he gets out of the shower. Words and availability are therefore of primary importance.
It is very difficult to guess your partner’s facial expressions and habits:
- Before we met face to face, Kyomi didn’t know that I was in a bad mood in the morning. Her morning lovemaking was doomed before she even knew it.
Like most of us, you don’t choose to start a long distance relationship.
- It happens to us without warning, and love does the rest. By the time the fly bites, it’s too late. You know what I mean.
Think back to your first relationship, or your first secret love. Think of all the mistakes you made.
You want to slap yourself, don’t you?
What I mean is that it’s normal to make mistakes when you don’t know something, an area, a relationship. Managing a relationship and showing love from a distance can be learned.
It is far from being innate!
The problem is that you don’t know your partner well enough yet.
So how do you find a solution? How to adapt to this distance that makes communication extremely difficult in a couple.
Answer can be found in a book.
the 5 love languages
in a long distance relationship
I’m going to tell you about the 5 love languages, a recognized best-seller written in 1992 by Gary Chapman. This is a book that Kyomi read at the beginning of our long distance relationship, because she wanted to improve our communication.
She devoured it with great interest, looking for advice and solutions to our problems.
Personally, I didn’t know about it until she told me about it.
Now I spend my nights reading it, page after page. Well, I read it in Spanish. It takes me a while ahah.
Gary Chapman presents us his theory of the languages of love. There are 5 of them:
words of affirmation
There are many ways to give positive reinforcement. You can give compliments, acknowledge your partner’s strengths, encourage him or her in what is important to him or her, give recognition by thanking him or her.
If your partner speaks this language, remember that words are important.
It’s the easiest language for a long distance relationship.
receiving gifts
The gift is a symbol! It’s not about money (it can be free). Gifts without a context (i.e. without an occasion, such as an anniversary, holiday or other) are even more valuable. Gifts can be material or immaterial.
One can consider that giving one’s time is a gift.
acts of service
It’s our language to both of us! It’s about helping your partner with the obligatory tasks of everyday life, not necessarily fun but you have to do them. The service has an even greater value when it is done by your own initiative, before it is asked of you.
This is a difficult language to apply in a long distance relationship, but not impossible.
We are the proof!
quality time
How to express love in a long distance relationship with quality time? It is about being together or sharing common activities. An activity includes anything that interests at least one of you.
The goal is not what you do, but why you do it: to share a moment together and feel that you are important to each other
physical touch
Hugs, kisses, holding hands in the street… this language encompasses all the physical contact you can have with your partner.
I won’t hide it from you. This love language is the most difficult to apply in a long distance relationship.
Simply because it’s impossible to have regular physical contact. For me, it is impossible for these people to even start a long distance relationship. The pain would be too great without physical touch, for them.
Some languages are easier to use than others in a long distance relationship. One of them is even contradictory for me with this kind of relationship. I think it is impossible for someone with this language to start a long distance relationship. It’s lost in advance.
how to express love in a ldr:
know your love language
Gary Chapman explains that each person « speaks » a different language. Each person’s sensitivity changes according to each language.
And that’s why when we express our love in one language, our partner doesn’t necessarily understand it (and vice versa!).
In his bestseller, translated into more than 50 languages, he teaches us firstly to know our language (if you instinctively hesitate between several), and secondly to speak the language of your partner.
This book is for us an unparalleled reference because everything is very well explained.
- The sentences are simple and straight to the point
- There are many real and concrete situations
- You can immediately put into place the advice that you learn
I strongly recommend it, it is an essential book to have in your library. It really is! You can buy it here on Amazon.
I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t 100% convinced of its content.
discover your love language with
my special ldr quiz !
To help you and save you time, I created a wonderful quiz for you to find out what your love language is.
And the good news is that I’ve adapted it to long distance relationships!
Here’s how I did it:
- I created the quiz thanks to the Opinion Stage site (which I recommend!).
- I based it on the questions in the book, and adapted them for a long distance relationship.
- Each answer corresponds to one of the 5 languages.
- The quiz consists of 20 questions, with 3 different choices each time.
- Only one answer is possible
- I’ve created 5 summary cards (corresponding to each language) with a bunch of ideas to apply immediately to show your love in your long distance relationship. You can download them by entering your email address at the end of the article.
how to express love in a long distance relationship:
my personal tips
- Ask your partner to take the test too. You can even do it together
- Download my summary sheets to get lots of ideas of what to do after you have found your language.
- Ask your partner to write down 3 things they would like you to do that would be a proof of love for them. We did this with Kyomi, here are our answers:
Léo Being more patient with her Spend more time with her family Be grateful when she makes an effort | Kyomi When she does small favors to keep me focused on my work Be in quiet places when we call each other Be less distracted during our calls |
We juggle between « Acts of Service » and « Quality Time ».
These two languages are basically quite close, and even more so in a remote relationship. And they correspond to our quiz results. No wonder!
5 good reasons to do this quiz
- It is the only one that focuses on long distance relationships
- You will know your partner better, and how to show him your love
- The communication in your relationship will be better
- Your partner will be grateful to see you involved in your long distance relationship
- By downloading the summary sheets, you’ll never run out of ideas for showing your love.
Crucial!
Did you like this article and this quiz?
Don’t hesitate to share it around you!
And tell me in comments what your language is. I’m very curious to know the dominant language among long distance couples! #TeamActsOfService
Download my 26 LDR Challenges and Activities
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= 6 months of activities
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Hello !
We are Léo & Kyomi, a French-Peruvian couple in a long distance relationship since 2019. Welcome to this blog entirely dedicated to this way of life.
We decided to create
My Sweet LDR
to help people who want to live their relationship serenely and who don’t know how to do it.
To read our entire story
you can click just here !
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