There’s this unspoken belief that if a relationship is strong, you should want to be around each other all the time. That constant proximity equals closeness. That more time together somehow guarantees more love. I don’t think that’s true. In fact, my experience has been the opposite.
I live in Chicago, and my boyfriend lives in London. We see each other in person about every other month. On paper, that might sound like a challenge or even a disadvantage, but I’ve come to see it as one of the biggest strengths of our relationship.
We have our own lives. Real ones. Separate routines, separate responsibilities, separate time to think, decompress, and exist as individuals. And because of that, when we do see each other, it doesn’t feel routine. It doesn’t feel automatic. There’s still a spark because there’s still something to miss.
That feeling, missing someone, is underrated. People treat it like a problem to solve, something to eliminate with more time, more contact, more closeness. But I think missing someone serves a purpose. It sharpens your awareness of what they mean to you. It keeps their presence from becoming background noise.
What’s interesting is that research actually supports this idea more than most people realize. Studies from organizations like the American Psychological Association have shown that couples who maintain a sense of autonomy within their relationship report higher long-term satisfaction. It turns out that independence is not a threat to connection. It’s often what sustains it.
There’s also data suggesting that long-distance relationships are not the fragile, doomed setups people assume they are. Research from Queens University has found that couples in long-distance relationships often report equal or even higher levels of intimacy, communication quality, and satisfaction compared to geographically close couples. That sounds counterintuitive until you think about it. When time together is limited, people tend to communicate more intentionally. They say what they actually mean. They listen more closely. They value the time they have.
For us, that intentional connection shows up every single day. We FaceTime for thirty minutes to an hour, sharing the details of our lives, laughing, and staying close even across the ocean. We always wake up to morning voice notes from each other—warm, sleepy messages wishing the other a great start to the day. Those small, consistent rituals keep us anchored without crowding out our individual worlds. For us, it works.
When you’re with someone all the time, it’s easy to start taking them for granted without even realizing it. Small annoyances become bigger. The relationship starts to carry too much weight. It becomes your main source of emotional stability, entertainment, and identity. That’s a lot for any one connection to hold, and over time, it can wear things down.
Distance, or even just intentional space, disrupts that. It gives the relationship room to breathe.
I saw a version of this growing up too. My dad worked third shift for most of my childhood. He and my mom weren’t constantly around each other every single day in the way most couples are. And honestly, I think that’s part of why they’ve stayed married. There was built-in space. Less friction. More room for each of them to exist independently without the relationship feeling suffocating.
There’s even research from Pew Research Center showing that couples who prioritize personal time and individual interests tend to report higher levels of relationship satisfaction and lower levels of burnout over time. That makes sense. When two people maintain their own identities, they bring more into the relationship instead of slowly losing themselves inside of it.
That idea, that a relationship should allow for independence instead of consuming it, feels more real to me than the traditional version of constant togetherness.
I’m not saying distance is easy or that every relationship should look like mine. But I do think we underestimate how important personal time is. Being apart doesn’t weaken a relationship. It can actually protect it.
Because at the end of the day, I don’t want a relationship where we’re together simply because we always are. I want one where, even with distance, even with space, we keep choosing each other. And every time we do, it feels intentional.
For me, that’s what keeps it strong. And more importantly, that’s what keeps it lasting.