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Couples involved in long distance relationships often face challenges unique to their situation. The questions are often asked: Can long distance relationships work? How can they work? and What stands in the way of a successful long distance relationship? There are many couples out there who are currently involved in fulfilling and functional, long distance relationships. Love can last despite the distance and here are a few things to consider:

Communication
• Effective communication – it’s vital for the success of any relationship, but even more so important for couples who do not see each other every day. Being clear about your expectations from the outset is important. Be clear about what it is that you expect from your partner and be clear about what you are willing and able to provide for your partner – consider the issues of support, intimacy, your physical and emotional availability and the roles you will both play in the relationship. Talk about these issues and if you and your partner have different expectations, so the cards are on the table allowing successful negotiation and compromise to occur.
• Utilise all forms of communication to stay feeling connected (letters, e-mails, web cams, phone calls, SMS). Think outside the box and be creative.
• Be available for your partner – talk about how often you will communicate, by what means, and who will initiate the contact.

Keeping the romance alive
• Value and make the most of the time that you do get to spend together. Enjoy spending time together, and remember to laugh and have fun together.
• If you have a weekend planned with your partner, ensure you have similar expectations as to how the time will be spent. If one of you expects a romantic weekend for just the two of you when the other has made plans for a social weekend with family and friends, conflict and/or disappointment is likely to result. By communicating and compromising, both partners can have their needs met from the time spent together.
• Be considerate and thoughtful – an email to say “Good Morning” , a small gift by post or a card / letter can send a very powerful message that “you are special to me”.

Support one and other
• Provide your partner with support even though you don’t see them everyday. The overall goal here is for your partner to know they have a special place in your heart and that you are there for them to help celebrate life’s little achievements and to support them through life’s disappointments.
• Be aware of what’s going on for your partner and share what’s going on for you. Is something happening at the moment for your partner requiring extra attention and encouragement from you ? (eg: job interview, medical issue, family issues). It’s easier to be there for your partner if you know what’s going on for them.
• Individuals may need to utilise and expand upon other support systems to access the face to face support there partner is unable to provide (family, friends, clubs and social activities)

Trust
• Trust is also very important – individuals who are faithful, act with integrity and feel safe in their relationships find it a lot easier to navigate through a long distance relationship. Discuss with your partner roles, boundaries and expectations. Be transparent, open and honest with each other.

Conflict resolution
• If there is an issue of disagreement or a problem that you and your partner need to work through, agree on a suitable time to talk things through. It might be best to avoid times when either you or partner are tired or stressed.
• Keep discussions involving conflict resolutions separate to the phone calls you utilise to have some quality couple time together.

Long distance relationships can be challenging – at times, one part of the couple can feel lonely and unsupported. It takes a special effort to make it work, but with good communication, trust and consideration for the other person’s feelings and needs, couples can survive the distance. Remember also that absence makes the heart grow fonder, resulting in the time couples do manage to spend together being exciting, fun, rewarding and emotionally fulfilling.

If you wish to speak with an experienced counsellor please call Relationships Australia on 1300 364 277 or visit www.raq.org.aufor more information.

Here we are, all set to take on the New Year, including new challenges and New Year resolutions. We all start with good intentions, but as we are all aware, good intentions do not guarantee us the outcomes we want.

How can we stay on track and break old habits?

Remember when you were learning your times tables at school? Some people picked it up straight away; others took time to learn. Some days you may have got the answers right; other days it just did not click.

The same thing happens when we are trying to break an old habit.

Habits are learned. A habit might be nail biting, a poor exercise regime, smoking, interrupting people, or gambling, to name but a few. The one thing all habits have in common is that they are learned behaviours with short-term rewards and long-term costs.

The good thing about this is that just as habits are learned, they can also be unlearned.

Motivation to unlearn (or change) goes through a cycle of different stages:
• Thinking about changing
• Making a decision to change
• Acting on that decision
• Maintaining that action
• Then, either relapsing or exiting from the cycle and breaking the habit.

The most important step in breaking a habit is deciding that YOU want to change. If we are breaking a habit to please someone else rather than ourselves, it can be difficult to maintain the motivation to break the habit.

The next step is to carry out an accurate assessment of the problem through the process of self-monitoring. When does it happen? What are the precursors before the habit? What are the consequences? This self-assessment can lead to a greater understanding, greater control, and a baseline measure of frequency and severity.

From monitoring yourself, you can work out a plan of attack. It might consist of
• Changing what occurs before the habit. Assessment often shows that habits are related to particular situations or emotional states, for example hours of boredom may lead to overeating.
• Changing consequences. At the moment your habit is being maintained be aware of certain short-term consequences or ‘pay-offs’ – these need to be altered. Introduce a system of rewards and incentives to change the pay-offs, for example if you do not like yogurt, every time you have a cigarette have a teaspoon of natural yogurt.

A difficulty that arises when we are trying to break a habit is that we can start out all energised and confident we can stop the habit in its tracks. This is fine, but if we jump into the deep end, we may soon feel like we are sinking, as we do not have helpful coping strategies in place. One way to avoid feeling swamped is to set yourself reduction/increased targets and goals. For example, if you want to start exercising, set a goal to start off small then over time move to more exercise sessions per week. People who run marathons do not just one day get up and start running 42km at a time. They progressively work themselves to that level.

Another way to help you cope when breaking a habit is developing strategies. Try establishing a range of coping strategies that can be implemented when you are feeling particularly vulnerable to resorting to the behaviour. Draw up a list of activities that are incompatible with the habit and distract you from the urge. For example, drinking a glass of water instead of biting your nails, or talking to a friend instead of having a beer.

Working out a list of positive thoughts that you can say to yourself when feeling vulnerable can also help you cope. For example, “I don’t need a drink but I’d like one, if I can resist for the next hour, the urge will reduce”.

One final point is accepting setbacks. Do not be discouraged if you relapse. Relapses are a natural part of progress. Learn from them.

At Relationships Australia, we can assist you in planning for a smoother journey. Call 1300 364 277 or visit www.raq.org.au to find your nearest Relationships Australia branch.

Life is full of ups and downs and we all make decisions on a daily basis that can impact on ourselves and others. Change is a common part of life for most of us. Sometimes change is welcomed, it is positive and leads to greater life satisfaction, other times, change can be difficult and can present a major challenge.

Change generally occurs for three reasons: choice, crisis or chance. For example:

• You might CHOOSE to not work on weekends and spend more time with the family,
• A CRISIS might force you to sacrifice a overseas holiday you had been planning for, or you might need to look at cutting the costs to a holiday closer to home,
• With CHANCE the opportunity of a lifetime might present itself, however scary you might jump on board.

How we manage this change depends on the person we are, the options we have, which type of change it is and how many other changes have happened in our lives. The reality is that some people adapt to change easily, some people get stuck and others can act like they are dragging both feet.

How we manage change can also depend on how the family we grew up in dealt with change, our personality, our previous experiences with change, and the resources we can access. Often it can be interesting to just stop and think about how our parents dealt with change and see if we do the same thing.

 

What happens when we make change?

According to research (Prochaska, 1994), change happens over five stages, but people rarely go from the first stage to the last stage without going back:

1st stage, precontemplation – no intention of changing, often deny change would be beneficial. Basically, your often not aware there is a problem and that you need to change anything.
2nd stage, contemplation – acknowledges problem and begins to think about doing something. Real action is in the future – sometimes get stuck here. Sometimes the problem can seem too difficult and therefore change may seem impossible.
3rd stage, preparation – plan of action, specific commitment to change. May still have mixed feelings – relapse may happen. You may need to divide the change into steps, so that you have mini-goals which support the overall goal to change.
4th stage, action – change happens in behaviour and environment. In this stage you need support to keep the change in place.
5th stage, maintenance – consolidation, without a strong commitment to maintenance relapse to 1st or 2nd stage is likely. Unless you understand the problems and why it is important to make the change it is difficult to change any behaviour.

Example:

Pam 36yrs came to us because she had difficult communicating with her mother without getting into an argument. Pam felt her mother always tried to tell her how to care for her new born baby and would get angry if Pam would not follow her instructions. This often spilled over into her relationships with friends and her partner who were upset that her relationship with her mother caused her so much distress. Pam knew things had to change as she wanted a good relationship with her mother and was now avoiding speaking to her to avoid any arguments. The prospect of change seemed like an impossibility to Pam as she had been in the same pattern with her mother since childhood and knew she could not change her mother.
Pam with the help of her counsellor started to look at this problem differently, she looked at how she could take little steps to change how she communicated with her mother. Over time she gradually changed how she was communicating with her mother and this helped to change how her mother communicated with her. It was a difficult process and sometimes when she was not quite herself things slipped back into the old style. Overall she was able to manage this change in a way that benefited herself, her mother and her relationships with family and friends.

Tips for Managing Change

When attempting to make changes there are some key strategies which can make it easier. These include:

Being Aware – what am I thinking, feeling, hearing and what am I saying to myself when things are good and not so good.
Getting Support – everyone need supports, friends and family are great, but sometimes you need to link in with other supports such as a counsellor who can be objective about the issue.
Self Care – like they say on aeroplanes, make sure you fix your mask before you help others. It is critical to any change to make sure you are caring for yourself, emotionally and physically. Simply things like: getting enough sleep, a healthy diet, some time out for relaxation or pleasure, connecting with people you care about, can make all the difference.
Good communication – Leaning how to effectively communicate how you feel and how you would like to be treated in any relationship is important to feeling valued and respected.
Being Objective – there are many things that we cannot control or change, instead we can focus on ourselves in our own world, avoid blaming, but instead identity our part of the problem and what we can change.

Things to watch out for

When change occurs because of a crisis which is out of our control there are certain things we may need to avoid or be aware of so we can ask for extra help if necessary. Sometimes the stress associated with this kind of change can become chronic, and affect our physical and mental health. Feelings of depression and despair are common and not a sign of failure. Other behaviours to be wary of include:

• An increase in the amount of alcohol or other abusive substances.
• Not getting enough sleep, or sleeping too much.
• Feeling irritable, agitated, mood swings or on edge.
• Suicidal thoughts.
• Poor concentration maybe resulting in accidents.
• Poor eating habits.
• Becoming more aggressive, restless.

Making a Change

Finally it is important to acknowledge everyone changes at different paces, and so we do not set ourselves up for failure we need to also consider:

Safety: to feel secure before starting something new
Goals : to start small and be specific
Age: although it is more difficult to make changes and adapt as you get older, it is also often difficult to commit to change for people who are younger.
Time: Sometimes it takes longer to break old habits, persistence is the key to any change.
Attitude: What your thinking and your belief in yourself and your ability to change is very important to the change process

If you experiencing problems in your relationships and think that you may need to make some changes, please call Relationships Australia on 1300 364 277 or visit www.raq.org.au and we can arrange for you to talk to an experienced counsellor.