Getting ready to head off to college hundreds of miles away while your significant other stays behind? Here are a few tips on how to survive that long distance relationship you’re about to endure. Whether you’ve been together for 2 months or 2 years, change isn’t always easy. You go from seeing each other everyday, to seeing each other maybe once a month. That transition can be difficult, but communication is key in keeping the love “alive.” Luckily, we have technology like Facetime, Skype, and Snapchat to make things easier. But more importantly, trust is the key element in any long distance relationship. A statistic from Statistic Brain showed that as of 2016, 3.75 million marriages are long distance relationships. This proves that people still make it work and are able to get happily married.

While your other half is gone, don’t forget to take care of yourself. Sitting by your phone waiting all day for their call is tempting, but it’s not realistic or healthy. Getting a job or participating in a sport can help you keep busy and pass time until you can see them again. If things start getting too hard for you, talk about it! Shelby Burgess, who is in a long distance relationship says, “It’s always easy to underestimate the stress of a long distance relationship, but for me or anyone else in a relationship that they want to truly be in, it’s worth it.” Don’t keep your feelings bundled up, because it will start to affect your daily life and your relationship. Through it’s all too easy to forget that, as they say, “everything happens for a reason.”