Distance means so little when someone means so much. This is what I like to believe, or what I actually know from experience. However mines not so much distance as it is time. There is not enough time in the day for everything and everyone and sometimes maintaining a relationship can be hard. You forget along the way what defined your relationship because you don't really have time to focus on it anymore. This can cause a lot of problems, specially if you really do love this person and don't want to see them leave - because what really do you have to persuade them to stay if you can't give them the time of day? "We're the perfect couple, we're just not in the perfect situation" Do you really want to give everything up you've built together to wait for a better date? Because I know for sure that the time I spend trying to get over this relationship will equal the amount of time it will take for us to be in the perfect situation which means a pointless broken heart.
Firstly, in a relationship where time is limited or there is distance, you both need to establish the fact that it is going to be hard. There is no point in getting yourself into a situation you know you won't be able to handle because that really isn't fair on the other person. Establish it's hard, repetitively remind yourself it's going to be hard...so when you hit the time when it's really hard it doesn't hurt as much because you knew that was how life was going to be. This was my mistake, I never really allowed myself to realize that time was going to be limited, so every time he walked out the door and left me for another week I couldn't quite understand why I wasn't getting used to it. I'd wind myself up. He'd leave on the Sunday and then I spent the rest of the week trying to get used to the fact that he wasn't there and then by the time I was used to it and had stopped being so upset I would see him again. Not long before he would leave and the whole cycle would start again, it's not healthy. This is why you need to establish the struggle first, to allow yourself to understand everything before throwing yourself into a whirlpool of emotions you can't control.
Secondly, a vital ingredient for making a long-distance or lack-of-time relationship work you need contact. A quick text, phone call or message just to let them know you're thinking of them. Okay, maybe not obsessively all the time because that's going to lead to the pain of not seeing them worse. But it's good to keep in contact throughout the weeks, let them know how you're doing so that way they aren't worrying about you and you're not worrying about them. If you're not worrying about them then you're not panicking that you aren't with them. This is a major flaw of mine, sometimes I can be annoyingly paranoid, I will text constantly or call just to make sure he is okay when it isn't needed.
Thirdly, when you're together - make the most of your time. You both know it's limited so why waste it on your phones messaging people you see all the time? Do something you both enjoy, whether that be just laying in bed and talking, catching up. Or going for long walks considering the weather is nice. Or perhaps go on a date, catch a movie. Anything as long as you are making the most of your time. Every second is precious - you also need to remember that to somebody else, you're lucky. Even though I only see my boyfriend once a week I know that I am extremely lucky to have that compared to other peoples relationships. So, make every second count, always.
Lastly, when things get rough, you need to stick together. There will be days where you will wake up and think "is it really worth it anymore?" Those are the days where you guys need to just take a step back and breathe because these are the days where it just gets too hard, the kind of restrictions you couldn't warn yourself about because you just couldn't imagine they'd be so bad. Remember everything you've been through and just how far you've come, there's a reason you have made it this far and that is a reason within itself to keep going. Things may not change for a while and it may get even harder but one day time and distance will clear and you're going to be so grateful for all those days you made it through to finally reach the end of that period in your life.
Where I am standing now is that we both realize things are going to get harder for us as we get older and it's going to be a long time before we have a large open calender of time for ourselves -
but we're going to prevail because distance/time means so little when someone means so much.