A long distance relationship isn’t like IKEA furniture, where you can just take it out of the box and read the instruction manual. Oh, how much easier they would be if we COULD do that!

Think about it! If you were fighting about money? Just visit page 10. If you needed help with Visas? Hit up page 23! It would make loving while apart so much easier.

Instead, we all do the trial by error method and make a lot of mistakes in the process.

Sometimes you may find that the mistakes you made could have been avoided if you and your partner had done just one simple thing differently. Ouch.

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of role models for us to look up to in times of trouble, who can give us some quick tips on what mistakes to avoid when we’re in a long distance relationship …or are there?

I’ve done the work for you and interviewed couples from all over the world who were more than willing to share the mistakes they made in their LDRs so you don’t have to!

Here are 5 mistakes that people made in their LDRs (in no particular order):

“[My biggest mistake] would be not living in the moment and allowing myself to enjoy myself without my SO being there. I would often stay home so that I could be around in case he called or leave events early. I still have a hard time not checking my phone every five minutes, but I really try to remember that not being together isn’t always a negative. Growing individually doesn’t equal growing apart.”

– Margaret and Ed, Northern California, USA

“One of the biggest mistakes we made in our relationship was trying to force communication into every moment of free time we had. […] partly because we missed each other, and partly because I was scared if we didn’t keep up the communication, things between us would fizzle out.

The hard lesson we had to learn is that it’s okay to go all day without talking. It’s okay to just say “I love you, goodnight” before bedtime, and “have a wonderful day, babe” in the morning. When we were texting every available second, it created so much tension that we nearly ended our relationship because we were always on the edge of an argument.

When we backed off and gave each other the space we needed to live our busy lives, those little love messages meant so much more.”

– Elle and Mike, Toronto, Canada and Portland, USA

“We spent so much time trying to only share about the big events in our days that we sometimes forgot to share the little things like how we were feeling or things that were important to us that we thought the other person wouldn’t be as excited about. Those little things, we found out later now in our marriage, are really what help solidify the foundation of our marriage.”

-Rebecca and John, Hawaii, USA (Closed the distance!!)

“I think one of the biggest mistakes we both made was putting ourselves in debt in order to visit each other as frequently as we could. Now that we are married we are still paying debt off from trips and expenses (about $2500).”

– Kammie and Cristian, New York and North Carolina, USA (Married and closing the distance!)

“I think the biggest mistake Aiden and I have made is trying so hard to plan way into the future! Believe it or not we’ve tried to plan out the next 6 or 7 years and plan moving in together and everything. At one point we had what seemed like a super good, well thought out plan and then something came up with one of my student loans for school!

Well this threw our whole plan (that we both loved and would talk about for hours) off and we tried to start planning again and we ended up getting really mad at each other because we couldn’t find a new solution or a better plan that what we had had before.”

-Alyssa and Aiden, Wisconsin and Florida, USA

—

Well, I’ve certainly learned a lot! I can definitely name a few of these my LDR is guilty of. How about you? What are some mistakes you have made in your own relationship? Comment down below!