Long Distance Love

Love is an energy that pulls things together just as hate is an energy that pushes things apart. For me love, like gravity, is the glue that holds the universe together. This attractive gravitational pull works at all levels big and small. It holds the moon around the earth and the earth around the sun. It holds the particles to the nucleus in an atom. At a social level it holds families and communities together and in intimacy it keeps couples together.

Whether we call it the law of attraction, the power of gravity or, the profundity of love, it is the infinite power that binds the whole of creation together. So, I think of love as elastic. Once we make a love bond we connect our emotional elastic to anther person. Once connected, we are pulled towards that person. If they move away we follow as the emotional elastic becomes stretched and we are pulled.

Living apart
The elastic is not dependent on distance. We may live very close to someone, in the same house and the same bed, and have little tension or pull in the elastic. We may live apart, either side of the earth and feel the exquisite feeling of the tension of love pulling us back together. The elastic of love knows no distance, but it does know vitality, health and strength.

The issues with couples is not usually the length of the elastic it is the colour or shape of the elastic, different needs create different elastic:

Physical elastic
Physical love may need a lot of physical, even sexual, contact for it to remain healthy. When people are dominated by physical need long distance relationship seldom work, unless the couple are able to anticipate the repeated honeymoon experience of coming back together after a prolonged absence as in sailors or off shore rig workers.

Sensual/Social elastic
May also require physical or sensual contact. However social media can support and maintain the social need in relationships and the idea of long distance sexual relationships, or cyber sex is no longer that uncommon. However, the sensuality of touch, from the held hand to the caressed buttock may be essential to maintain sensual elastic.

Intellectual elastic
At this point distance becomes less of an issue. Intellectual sharing of experiences, playing with ideas and concepts, the writing or reading of poetry and letters, enables the person at the other end of the elastic to become your inspiration and your muse.
I have come across many people who have maintained a loving relationship with a person they have never met and, perhaps never will meet. The extension of the pen pal, the person who writes to someone who is in prison who may never be released.

Emotional/Passionate elastic
Passion may involve physical, or emotional, contact, but the idea of ‘saying it with flowers’ or sending that expensive or seductively personalised gift can maintain and even strengthen the elastic.

Dutiful elastic
The love of rightness or to be righteous, the commitment to duty and fidelity, to being moral and correct is powerful in maintaining a strong elastic bond. This may be as true for the child sent to boarding school, the army officer, the priest, or the dutiful partner.

Intuitive/sensitive elastic
The deep intuitive emotions are about as near as we can get to unconditional love. At its best it is the clearest, purest elastic that requires nothing in return. It is the pure love of love. Its extent is limitless it power total.

Love at a distance
I guess what I am trying to say is that the ability to maintain a distant loving relationship is dependent on feeding the needs of your partner. If the elastic is well and appropriately fed it remains strong. The stronger it is the less likely it is to break.

Perhaps the question we should ask our long distance partner is, what do they need and how will they know that we love them? Once having sorted that out you should ask yourself the same questions and then see how they fit with our partners. The closer the match the better the chance of the relationship surviving.

Have a look at your love elastic and decide how it works for you.

Take care and be happy

Sean x

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