If your partner works away...

[absentpartner]

Can I please ask whether it affected your relationship and if so, how? Also what did you do to maintain the relationship while they were away?

I am in this situation and starting to struggle and feel distant from my partner so just looking for some advice. Thank you.

I’ve been on the other side, as in I’ve worked away a lot, and it affected us massively, someways we’re good, I was always pleased to get home and see my partner and it helped keep some of the spark alive, but somehow I felt like a guest in my own home at times.

It's hard, especially with a toddler AND in a different continent to family and old friends. Do you have kids?

We often go on a 'date night' with our toddler and walk around afterwards hoping he'll fall asleep so we can go for a drink. We don't have a TV, so I guess it's not a default for evenings, we often have a date on the balcony with cocktail or something like that and chat. When he's away we don't really talk much (I'm exhausted and want some 'down time' before bed and he finishes late and needs dinner etc), but I guess just more to catch up on when we see eachother.

Oh, we actually did long distance for a year and a half pre-kid when we were footloose and fancy free, we saw eachother every 6-8 weeks and hardly spoke because of the time difference. But when we saw eachother we made sure to do loads of travel/ dates etc to make up for it.

To be honest, making yourself very busy while they're away helps, then arranging nice things when you're together.