How We Kept Our Long Distance Relationship Strong Through Better Conversations

My girlfriend Sarah and I have been doing long distance for almost 2 years now (she's in Boston, I'm in Seattle) and honestly there were times when I thought we weren't gonna make it. Not because we didn't love eachother, but because our conversations just felt... empty? Like we'd run out of things to talk about.

The Problem With Long Distance Communication

When you can't just hang out and do normal couple stuff, conversations become literally everything. And thats alot of pressure. We'd get on facetime and be like "how was your day?" and the other person would say "fine" and then we'd just sit there in silence.

It was awkward and frustrating and honestly kind of depressing.

What Changed Everything

So one night after a particularly bad call where we barely talked for 20 minutes, I was like "this can't keep happening." I started googling "how to have better conversations long distance" and found some stuff about asking deeper questions.

At first I was skeptical because it seemed cheesy but we were desperate so we tried it.

Questions That Actually Worked

Here are some of the questions that saved our relationship (seriously):

These seem simple but they open up SO much more conversation than "how was your day."

The 20-Minute Rule

We also started doing what we call our "20-minute rule." Every call, we spend the first 20 minutes doing a proper check-in where we actually talk about real stuff. No phones, no distractions, just us actually listening to each other.

Before we'd just have calls running in the background while doing other things, which is fine sometimes, but we realized we needed dedicated connection time.

What We Do Now

Our conversations now include:

The Results

I'm not gonna lie and say its perfect now. Long distance still sucks sometimes. But our conversations feel meaningful again. I feel like I actually know whats going on in her life, not just the surface level stuff.

We've gotten better at:

Tips If Your Struggling Too

If your in a long distance relationship and feeling disconnected, here's what I'd reccomend:

1. **Set up dedicated conversation time** - Not just calls running in the background

2. **Ask better questions** - Go deeper than "how was your day"

3. **Share your feelings** - Even when its uncomfortable

4. **Try new formats** - Voice messages, letters, video messages, whatever works

5. **Don't force it** - Some days you won't have much to say and that's okay

The Bottom Line

Long distance is hard. Like really hard. But having actual meaningful conversations instead of just surface level check-ins made all the diference for us.

Were still figuring it out and we still have bad conversation days. But now we have tools to make things better instead of just feeling stuck.

If anyone else is going through this, I hope this helps. You can make it work if you both put in the effort.

How do you stay connected in a long distance relationship? What works for you?