8 Ideas To Spice up a Long-Distance Relationship

Although long-distance can make it more difficult to spice up a relationship, there are more ways to do it than you might think. With a little creativity and effort, you and your long-distance love will be able to keep the spark alive with ease.

We’ve got eight ideas to spice up a long-distance or long-term relationship, so read on to get inspired on how to connect with your partner beyond video calls and chat apps like Facetime, Skype, and messaging on social media.

If you aren’t familiar with what a love language is‹ and you’re currently making a long-distance relationship work, this could be transformative for you and your partner. Basically, each one of us has different ways of expressing love and getting emotional connection in daily life, and they can be categorized into five different languages:

1. Physical touch
2. Gift giving
3. Quality time
4. Words of affirmation
5. Acts of service

And guess what? Physical touch may be your primary love language, even in an LDR. We all express each language to a certain degree; think of it like each is a piece of the pie, but some are bigger than others. Because you are deprived of physical touch from your long-distance partner, it’s important to pay special attention to the others so that you and your partner are both receiving your needs.

To discover your love language, all it takes is a simple test to find out what your love language might be. Taking this test at the same time as your partner or simply comparing answers after could really change the trajectory of your relationship, because it could help you discover things that they may not have even known about themselves. For example, they might value you doing a simple yet kind favor for them over an expensive present. Knowing their love language also functions as a road map for your partner for how to make them feel special, appreciated, and cared for.

If you’re in a long-distance relationship right now, we’re sure you’re mourning the loss of a cozy night in with your special someone. What if we told you that it doesn’t have to be completely lost in your LDR?

We know it may not be the same as it would be in person for obvious reasons, but if you’re looking for the next best thing and you’re sick of watching a movie or TV show through a blurry video chat screen with your significant other, you’ve come to the right place. Teleparty is here to spice things up for all long-distance lovers.

If you haven’t heard of Teleparty, perhaps you’d recognize its former name, Netflix Party, which became a wildly popular and useful tool during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when people couldn’t get together in person. 

It is a free installment on your device that synchronizes a movie or TV show with another device and adds a group chat feature so that you can react in real-time with someone far away. It works for Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, Amazon, and HBO Max. So essentially every TV show or movie you could ever ask for.

To turn this into a cozy date night, you and your loved one can each separately set up a cozy area somewhere in your respective home and choose a movie or TV show to watch together. If quality time is you or your partner’s primary love language, this will certainly fit the bill.

Ah… love letters. It sounds cheesy, we know, but when there’s a physical distance between you and the person you love, there’s something romantic about it. You don’t have to be a pro at writing to send some snail mail to your loved one because it’s really more about the gesture than it is the quality of writing.

If you’re looking to spice up your relationship, then the vibe of the letter is really up to you. That’s all we’ll say about that. If you’re not into the idea of sending a handwritten letter, you could start with a heartfelt text message full of cute emojis, followed by your favorite selfie.

If you or your partner happens to be a foodie, then this is a fantastic way to literally spice up your relationship. Even if you both don’t consider yourselves to be cooks of any sort, this is a fun and unique project to try while you two are physically apart.

To do this, you both could pick out a number of recipes and agree that you each make them separately or keep each other on Zoom or Facetime while you cook. It will feel like a little cooking date night, and then you can both enjoy the meal you made together on a virtual date.

After that is said and done, if you both enjoyed the recipe, you can add it to a running document or notebook, and it will become your couple’s cookbook. You can add to it when you are both together or remake the recipes you made when you were physically separated. 

No matter how bad your day was, cooking and enjoying a home-cooked meal is usually enough to cheer anyone up, at least for a little. The best part? Someday, when the two of you are reunited, you will have a book that the two of you created together, which is a very special thing.

Going out of your way to surprise your partner will reinforce the strength of your relationship and make them feel extra special no matter how long it’s been since you’ve seen each other. This can be small or big — any way of showing your appreciation will do.

A simple way to do this is to put together a small care package or gift box and send it their way. It can be compiled with some small and cute items, such as a few of their favorite snacks, a new book, a candle, things you know they will open up and smile at.

Sharing a drink (or two) with your partner is a relaxing and fun way to spend time together and spice up a relationship. 

To do this, all you have to do is each head to the store and pick out the same wine of your choosing and set up a time to either dress up or get cozy and begin your tasting experience together. This is also a great way to get loose and talk about things you might not always have time for on a quick five-minute phone call. Use this time to get further connected to your long-distance love.

This can be a collection of journal entries written to your partner or something you keep to yourself, whatever you prefer. There are powerful health benefits of journaling. It’s an amazing way to let out all of the thoughts and feelings that are going on inside your head. When you’re not always comfortable sharing those thoughts and feelings with another person, the journal is right there waiting for you to vent.

Let’s be honest: long distance can feel impossible sometimes, and it’s not always easy to express to your partner or to others all of the good, bad, and ugly. That’s why a journal is just a neutral thing where you can say anything you want in and nobody has to see it if you don’t want to.

If you suggest that you and your partner each keep journals, it could have long-lasting benefits to your relationship. It’s one of the best ways to stay emotionally connected in a long-distance relationship. On days when you feel like reading to your partner about your day or how you’re feeling, you could turn this into a virtual date and read each other some funny, sweet, or even sad excerpts from your journals. Once you are back in person together, you can keep these and eventually take trips down memory lane to look back at the times you were apart.

You know what they say: absence makes the heart grow fonder. This might sound counterintuitive to spicing up a long-distance relationship, but we think that taking some time for yourselves could be the best thing every once in a while. This is because when you’re constantly communicating with your partner, it can lead to you feeling disconnected from the present moment because you’re so caught up with their world and hearing about it through the phone.

It’s not at all the same thing as a break or even a pause, and it can be as long as you both think makes the most sense. We recommend starting with a 24 hour period and seeing how you both like it, and you can use this time to turn off your phone for a little while, and not worry about constantly texting them.

Once you do this, it will feel even better to reconnect. If you both enjoyed the day-long lack of communication, try doing it for a weekend, and just see how it goes. It doesn’t need to come with any binding rules or pressure, and you can obviously check in with each other to see how you’re both doing or feeling about it. It might feel shocking at first, especially if you’re in constant communication with your partner, but we promise it will be worthwhile in the long run.

After reading through these eight ideas to spice up a long-distance relationship, we hope you see the common theme: all it takes is a little creativity and flexibility, and the willingness to try something new with your partner. 

Chances are, if you’re already searching for ways to spice up things with your long-distance love, you need to step out of your comfort zone and be willing to try new things, even if they sound silly or irrelevant to your relationship at first. If you really want to do something special, you can always try using our Lovebox for Lovers to send messages and pictures to your long-distance love.

If you commit to trying even half of these ideas from Lovebox, before you know it, you’ll be back together in person again, reminiscing on the ways you made your long-distance relationship thrive.

Sources

5 Powerful Health Benefits of Journaling | Intermountain Healthcare

The Love Language Test | 5 Love Languages

11 fun ways to spice up a long distance relationship | HelloGiggles 

20 Practical Tips to Spice Up a Long Distance Relationship | Mom Junction