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Should you put your heart on the line for someone you can't see or touch every day? Does absence really make the heart grow fonder?
A lot of people say no, and it's hard to blame them. The nagging uncertainties about fidelity and trust that plague any relationship are magnified when there's a significant amount of physical space between partners. It seems unfair for one person to sacrifice a job, family and friends to be geographically close to the other. And the possibility remains that even after two people finally wind up in the same place, things can still fall apart.
So high school and college sweethearts decide that graduation is the end of the line. Professionals part ways with their significant others if they leave town for new jobs or opportunities. Holiday flings are forgotten once the plane's taken off or the boat's left the dock.
"He's too far," she thinks. "She won't move here," he assumes.
"It'll never work," they both decide.
Does it always have to end this way?
Some research suggests as much. One study conducted by Laura Stafford, a professor in the department of communications at Ohio State University who specializes in relational communication, found that among the roughly half of long-distance relationships that became geographically close, about a third ended because the partners couldn't adjust to their new proximity to one another. The other half didn't even make it that far.
Kristin Froemling, interim chairwoman of Radford University's department of communications, has drawn similar conclusions from her own research.
"They have to renegotiate how they behave in their relationship," explained Froemling, who began studying long-distance relationships while navigating one of her own as a graduate student at Ohio's Bowling Green State University in 1995. "Some become hyper-conscious of the relationship and the time that they spend together. Couples think it has to be perfect, and sometimes misinterpret cues or signs as a result."
Additionally, Froemling's subjects shared one definitive trait: They felt a need to justify why they were involved in these relationships in the first place.
"It was true to everyone's story. You can't just say you're in a relationship; you have to explain why you're separated," Froemling said, pointing to the negative assumptions about long-distance relationships as prompting a need to clarify. "The popular response seems to be 'that'll never work' or 'they must be cheating on you,'" which can make an already strained relationship even more vulnerable.
To sum up: The numbers say that it's tough, frustrating and maybe a tad impossible to turn long distance into long term and eventually, a happy ending.
But do numbers matter when it comes to matters of the heart?
For the more than 20 people who responded to Extra's call for readers to share their personal experiences with long-distance relationships, the answer is a loud "heck no!"
From the pair who turned a chance meeting in San Francisco into a 17-year marriage, despite the fact that she lived in England and he was working in Philadelphia, to the couple tying the knot this summer after being apart for more than two years, it seems that it takes more than a few measly miles to keep some people apart.
Cynics might be greater in number than those who believe that love conquers all, but that small, hopeful group shows that patience and sacrifice can pay off. Besides, isn't it nice to know that happy endings still exist?
Read on for seven stories our readers were kind enough to share.
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