Long distance marriage

Due to employ­ment or per­son­al oblig­a­tions, cou­ples may decide that they need to have a long-dis­tance mar­riage. For some peo­ple, this deci­sion is called “liv­ing apart togeth­er,” or LAT, is when both part­ners main­tain homes in sep­a­rate places, but are still mar­ried. In these sit­u­a­tions, cou­ples may have cho­sen to mar­ry lat­er in life, when they already have estab­lished careers or pro­fes­sion­al oblig­a­tions. Cou­ples in this sit­u­a­tion may have to be more cre­ative, as well as inten­tion­al with their shared inter­ests and activ­i­ties togeth­er, such as video din­ners or watch­ing the same movie togeth­er while on the phone or video chat, or even doing cou­ples coun­sel­ing over tele­health or online plat­forms. Some chal­lenges that may arise for these cou­ples include emo­tion­al, in addi­tion to the phys­i­cal dis­tance, feel­ing unsup­port­ed, betrayal/infidelity, or feel­ings of being unloved or aban­doned. Long dis­tance mar­ried cou­ples in this sit­u­a­tion may, how­ev­er, may expe­ri­ence ben­e­fits such as being more present when they are with one anoth­er, due to their dis­tance.

A long-dis­tance mar­riage can also refer to spous­es or part­ners where one mem­ber of the cou­ple is in the mil­i­tary and is deployed. Deploy­ment can cre­ate a wide vari­ety of thoughts and feel­ings and is depen­dent upon sev­er­al fac­tors. Some of these fac­tors include: a deploy­ment being expect­ed or not, the loca­tion, the job respon­si­bil­i­ties, the lev­el of infor­ma­tion that can be dis­closed, as well as the expe­ri­ences the deployed part­ner has dur­ing their deploy­ment.

While not com­pre­hen­sive, some chal­lenges that may arise for these cou­ples (with­out chil­dren) may include feel­ings of being aban­doned for the non-deployed part­ner, feel­ing out-of-con­trol or stuck, detached or dis­tant dur­ing the deploy­ment, com­mu­ni­ca­tion lim­i­ta­tions, post-deploy­ment transitions/transition back to civil­ian life, or post-deploy­ment trau­ma.

In com­par­i­son, ben­e­fits for these cou­ples may include oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow close as a fam­i­ly, increased appre­ci­a­tion or grat­i­tude for the deployed part­ner as well as oth­er mil­i­tary per­son­nel, increased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty or focus on respon­si­bil­i­ties, increased focus on per­son­al needs or wants for the non-deployed part­ner or snug­gling with pets in the bed.

In sit­u­a­tions where chil­dren are present, non-deployed part­ners may expe­ri­ence ben­e­fits such as reg­u­lar income, expe­ri­enc­ing dif­fer­ent cul­tures and places, and the poten­tial for increased resilience. Non-deployed part­ners with chil­dren may also expe­ri­ence chal­lenges includ­ing, but not lim­it­ed to chil­dren with act­ing out behav­iors, uncer­tain­ty, increased stress, a wide range of emo­tions, post-deploy­ment transitions/transition back to civil­ian life, or post-deploy­ment trau­ma. Reuni­fi­ca­tions between part­ners, chil­dren, and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers can also have a range of emotions—from sad­ness, grief, and loss, to sur­prise, joy, or even dis­tance or ambiva­lence.

Long distance marriage counseling

Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, mar­riage coun­sel­ing doesn’t have to have the cou­ple in the same loca­tion. Rather, long dis­tance mar­riage coun­sel­ing is pos­si­ble due to the more wide­spread avail­abil­i­ty of online coun­sel­ing. If you are at home and your part­ner is at work, no problem—provided you are work­ing with a ther­a­pist who is licensed in the state, or states, you and your part­ner are in, then mar­riage coun­sel­ing can occur.

Living separate during marriage counseling

Not every­one who attends mar­riage, or cou­ples, coun­sel­ing still live togeth­er. A part of this is due to the com­mon­ly inter­change­able phras­ing of cou­ples and mar­riage coun­sel­ing. Although they are the same, cou­ples may be in dif­fer­ent stages of their rela­tion­ship when they come to coun­sel­ing. For exam­ple, they may be engaged, but not yet liv­ing togeth­er. They may be sep­a­rat­ed, but still mar­ried, or they may be liv­ing in sep­a­rate places, but still togeth­er, as ref­er­enced in the sec­tion above. Com­mon­ly though, when this is the case, a tem­po­rary sep­a­ra­tion (less than a month) or com­plete sep­a­ra­tion has occurred, for var­i­ous rea­sons.

While liv­ing togeth­er is not required for cou­ples coun­sel­ing, it can be help­ful for cou­ples to be in the same space togeth­er. Excep­tions to this are in cas­es of abuse, vio­lence, or unsafe behav­iors or cir­cum­stances. When cou­ples are in the same space togeth­er, they have more oppor­tu­ni­ties to inter­act and work on their rela­tion­ship, com­pared to when they are apart. While cou­ples who are sep­a­rate dur­ing mar­riage coun­sel­ing can still ben­e­fit from treat­ment, pro­gres­sion may take longer, by nature of indi­vid­u­als of the cou­ple being able to retreat to their own space, rather than be in the same space and work it out.

Couples counseling Sugarland TX

Whether you are liv­ing apart, togeth­er, or long dis­tance, cou­ples coun­sel­ing can ben­e­fit your rela­tion­ship. Don’t buy into the myth that cou­ples don’t need cou­ples coun­sel­ing until they are about to get divorced. Rather, come ear­ly and often so that your rela­tion­ship can grow and thrive and not get stuck in harm­ful cycles for years. If you are in a rela­tion­ship in Sug­ar­land TX, or any oth­er part of Texas and think your rela­tion­ship could improve, sched­ule a free con­sul­ta­tion below and let’s see how we can enhance your shared rela­tion­ship.