With today’s dual-career lives, internet-aided relationships, and dispersed extended families many couples find that they need to have a long-distance relationship for some period of time. The factors causing the need to live apart vary greatly but regardless of the reasons couples often wonder if this is going to have a long-term impact on their relationship. Everyday, face-to-face communication has long been held to help foster and maintain romantic relationships by giving people a chance to display and understand each other. But surprisingly, research has shown that long-distance dating relationships (or LDDRs) are happier and more stable than those in geographically close relationships (or GCDRs). What gives?

In the current issue of Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Laura Stafford, Andy Merolla, and Janessa Castle sought to reconcile this paradox. They suggest that LDDRs are prone to “romantic idealizations,” or the tendency for persons to describe their relationship in unrealistically positive terms. For example, LDDRs tend to reminisce about their partner in a more positive way. Retaining such positive memories about another leads the person to believe that as a couple they share many similarities and commonalities, regardless of whether or not they really do. Additionally, partners in LDDR’s get to always put their best foot forward. They see each other infrequently enough that one can always be on their best behavior. This selective self-presentation perpetuates idealizations of the relationship. In other words, LDDRs don’t really see all the daily ups and downs of their partner’s mood and behavior.

Interestingly, Stafford and Merolla followed people in LDDRs that transitioned into GCDRs by moving in closer proximity. They found that LDDRs with higher romantic idealizations were more likely to break-up once in close proximity to their partner. They concluded that distance prevents partners from learning about each other’s negative qualities, thereby creating an overly positive impression. This keeps things happy and stable while apart, but this false reality became quite disappointing once together.

One option, in our internet savvy world, is to use ways to avert this troublesome reunion. Webcams, text messaging, phone calls, and emails can all supplement face-to-face communication. Since the goal of most relationships, however, is to at some point live geographically close, the authors do suggest that LDDR’s benefit by increasing the quality as well as the frequency of interactions. For example, make sure to talk about everything, just as you would if you saw them everyday. Partners that take active and conscious steps to get know each other will have a more realistic perception of their relationship. Thus when that day does come when absence is no longer the prime way to promote fondness neither partner will be easily ‘let down’ by actually seeing the person on a frequent basis.