Professional life can involve a more or less long distance between the two partners within a couple. In the show Without appointment on Europe 1, the sexologist and psychiatrist Catherine Blanc answers the question of a listener who wonders how to hold her couple while her companion is preparing to leave for professional reasons to more than 800 kilometers, for two years.
Marie-Anouk's question
"I have been in a relationship for three years, everything is going well. I have just learned that my boyfriend was transferred 800 kilometers from my home. At the moment I cannot follow him professionally so we will have to stay separated at least two years. Do you think we're going to last? How do we make it last? "
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Catherine Blanc's response
"The question is not whether it holds or does not hold. It is above all the question of how the relationship is made. Is it made on a sexual impulse, a sexual desire and a need to be fed sexually reciprocally? If this is the case, the distance can be complicated. Besides, is the relationship there to serve sexuality? If this is the case, it is badly crossed out, since every opportunity will return to the possibility of living light, easy things, in opposition to frustration. Or, on the contrary, it is a feeling of love which will need to prove how strong it is and which will feed on the distance , by saying that it is precisely the proof of love. We can consider that it is an opportunity to say to ourselves: 'We meet on such date, we see each other on such date' or 'I have organized such a thing. ' Which can be extremely erotic in the end.
Isn't it always a test after all?
Yes, it's still a test. Especially since in our society, we would like to make us believe that normal life is only enjoyment and satisfaction and never frustration. Life is frustration. And there in essence it is a situation of frustration. Obviously it is an ordeal, but it is also in frustration that we learn to discover our potential and personal strength and the meaning that we give to a relationship.
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What is most difficult in a long distance relationship?
Obviously sexuality, which is a real issue, but also confidence. Meanwhile, what does he do or what does she do? We are tempted to call each other, even to call each other a lot and therefore to get drunk eventually, to do too much because we do not arrive at the right time. In normal times, we know roughly what the other is doing, we know that we will find it. Suddenly there is a form of insecurity. 'In my absence what does he live? Is this good ?' Besides, saying 'It's great, I had a great day. I have met great colleagues', which should normally be gratifying, can on the contrary be experienced as something painful.
Should we avoid long distance relationships when we are jealous?
You can work on your jealousy. It is a good opportunity. it's time to learn that everything does not collapse when you do not control what the other is doing, what the other is experiencing.
Is there a period beyond which this is no longer possible?
I believe that it is impossible to give a duration. It all depends on the ability of an individual to build a life apart from the other and while waiting for the other or on the contrary to be really very hooked on the other and in which case it is a very short time. fact. Obviously, knowing how to build a life also aims to nurture the relationship and not to exclude or distance oneself from the other.
Do you have to make appointments to keep it going?
Yes, we have meetings and 'I prepared something for you' or 'I'm going to make you discover a restaurant that I discovered'. When we are young, we are more worried about the too long time between two meetings and when we are older we get used to it and we are afraid that the other will come to invade us next. "