Not all long distance relationships are the same. Some are across the country or across the states, while others are across oceans on the other side of the world. Despite potential challenges, not all couples consider how the development and/or transition into a long distance relationship will affect their partnership. According to attachment theory, throughout each stage of life, the regular and consistent contact with attachment figures creates the essential sense of safety and security. Yet, there appears to be a growing trend of intimate couples who agree to engage in prolonged physical separations from their partners, ranging from several weeks to several years and consequently involves various challenges. The article I have selected reviews the implications for attachment-related dynamics, including relationship satisfaction and psychobiological adjustment between partners. Innovations in technology in terms of video calls and electronic messaging and their ability to somewhat substitute for direct physical contact are also discussed to determine whether a correlation appears in regards to relationship success.
Attachment theory suggests that individuals obtain an essential sense of safety and security from a small group of individuals, known as attachment figures, who are denoted as emotionally primary social partners. Throughout the childhood years, attachment figures may be considered the parents and/or caregivers, but, in adulthood this role shifts to the long-term romantic partners. The attachment system heavily revolves around physical proximity. In all stages of life, physical closeness and direct contact with attachment figure individuals alleviates distress and fosters psychological comfort.
Everyone, in theory, would thus avoid and further resist extended physical separations from their attachment figures so much so that it has been argued that proximity and contact in attachment relationships activate a range of unconscious and automatic processes by which partners reciprocally regulate one another’s psychological and physiological states. Thus in the end, partners in adult intimate relationships should then feel and function better when they are regularly together than when they are consistently apart. The fact that spouses and long term couples in all areas of the world typically create a shared dwelling even if there are no children in the home is consistent with the theory. However, physical separations between romantic relationships are inevitable.
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According to a survey conducted in 2017, over 14 million couples from the United States reported being in a long distance relationship mainly due to educational or employment obligations. Attachment theory suggests that such separations, even if brief, may be disruptive and disorienting, both at the individual and couple level. But in actuality, this may not be the case. Long distance couples do often report higher levels of stress and lower levels of support, but they show comparable and sometimes higher levels of relationship satisfaction compared to couples without such separations. In fact, the study done by Kelmer used a nationally representative sample and discovered that long distances couples showed higher levels of relationship adjustment, love for partner, fun with partner, and conversational quality. Thus, there are some beneficial effects of separation that may reflect self-selection processes, given that higher-functioning couples may be more likely to take the risk of engaging in a long distance relationship. However, not all long distance relationships are equal.
The effects of physical separation on a couple’s satisfaction depend on the type and duration of separation and the type and frequency of contact. In terms of attachment theory, the importance of intimate touch and proximity in the development and maintenance of attachment bonds is emphasized. A study done by Dainton and Aylor found that individuals in long distance relationships who had more frequent face-to-face contact had higher levels of satisfaction. Another study found that longer lasting telephone calls appeared to protect anxious individuals from declines in daily positive affect during separation. The findings are consistent with research on non-separated couples undermining the importance of regular intimate touch in maintaining the quality of adult attachment relationships.
Efforts to document both psychological and physiological synchrony between attachment figures have increased. Such studies have found consistent evidence for psychobiological linkage between romantic attachment partners across multiple physical systems including heart rate, respiration, electrodermal activity, sleep cycles and the secretion of cortisol and other hormones.
These findings support the notion that attachment relationships illustrate potent coregulatory effects that are not found in routine relationships. Additionally, numerous studies have found that physiological linkage is enhanced by physical proximity, time spent together, physical touch, and empathic behavior consistent with attachment theoretical predictions regarding the role of physical proximity in creating and maintaining physiological and emotional connectedness. But, what counts as proximity and does varying proximity affect individuals differently?
If frequent verbal and physical contact play such important roles in attachment functioning, then theoretically, the couples who face the greatest relationship vulnerability during physical distances are those whose separations are the most prolonged and whose separations provide the fewest opportunities for verbal contact such as in the cases of military couples. Studies have illustrated that up to 20% of military couples experience relationship difficulties as a result of deployments. The lack of intimate communication plays an important role in these effects. This has contributed to the increased interest in exploring the role of alternative modes of communication such as texting, use of social media, and video calls for maintaining the well being of military couples during separations.The virtually immediate verbal and visual contact with an individual has been coined the term computer-mediated communication (CMC).
The ability of CMC to stand in for physical proximity in romantic attachments might depend on its type and frequency. Methods vary in their effectiveness, for example in terms of whether they provide visual and auditory information, and synchronicity, for example whether they are in real time or whether they are delivered messages that are obtained by the other partner at a different point in time. The forms of CMC that are highest in efficiency and synchronicity are likely to be the most successful at standing in for physical proximity from an attachment perspective. Clearly a video call is not the same as physical contact. But, the immediacy of real time visual and auditory communication may provide powerful and conditioned cues of partner presence that successfully nurture the emotional connection and sense of psychological proximity that was originally established by physical proximity.
I personally have been involved in a long distance relationship in the past with my high school sweetheart. When we both went our separate ways for college, we tried to make the relationship work. At first we were successful and I can attest to the notion of video calls and phone calls in alleviating some of the distress that I faced while I was apart from my significant other.
However, what I learned was that many things may change over the course of time and people are continuously growing whether together with their partner or individually and separate from their partner. I do believe that it is possible to be in a successful long distance relationship, however, I truly believe that this is not possible for long term periods of time. I am an advocate for pure monogamous love-centered relationships. But, I do not believe individuals can grow together as a couple when they are actually apart.
