Long Distance Relationships Increases Intimacy Between Partners

Long-Distance Relationships, once considered to be doomed, are now showing signs of resilience. A new study has now found that for many couples, intimacy grows when they are in a long-distance relationship.

About 3 million married couples in the US currently live apart and about 25 to 50 percent of college students are in a long-distance relationship.

The present study was conducted by Crystal Jiang, City University of Hong Kong and Jeffrey Hancock, Cornell University.

To get a better look at these relationships, researchers asked romantic couples, both from long-distance relationships and geographically close ones, to report their daily interactions with their partners. Participants had to report what media they used to interact with their partners; texts, mails, face-to-face, web-chats etc. And, to what extent they felt intimate.

Taking the initiative to be in contact and managing time to talk to each other, especially using text-based asynchronous media helped strengthen the relationship, researchers found.

Not many studies are conducted on this group as popular assumption is that these relationships are not normal and are doomed to fall-apart. One study had shown that people use video-chats to communicate with their partners. However, living in different time-zones or work commitments often make it tough for people to create the intimacy needed in a relationship.

"Indeed, our culture, emphasizes being together physically and frequent face-to-face contact for close relationships, but long-distance relationships clearly stand against all these values. People don't have to be so pessimistic about long-distance romance," said Jiang, according to a press release. "The long-distance couples try harder than geographically close couples in communicating affection and intimacy, and their efforts do pay back."

The study is published in the Journal of Communication.

The key to maintaining a healthy long-distance relationship, according to University of Maryland article, is effective communication and a motivation to interact with the partner.