Yes. Met online, started as friends, finally met in person with a group of other friends and started dating a few weeks later. It was long-distance, about 250 miles apart. Most of our contact was through phone or online - as time went on we'd see each other on weekends more often. Stayed long distance for 3 years until we got married and I moved out to be with him. Been over 20 years now.
You have to be committed - honesty is really important. If both people aren't on the same page it's a complete no-go. Too easy to lie and hide things. You could conceivably live a completely separate life and your partner would have no idea. Trust is essential for the same reasons. It's the perfect set up for someone to be either too controlling and possessive, or to just not commit the same way they would for a regular relationship. If you don't have good relationship and communication skills going into it, you damn well better develop them because everything will get amplified.
I don't think it's for everyone. Some people need to have that physical contact/reassurance on a more regular basis. We actually found that we'd tend to get into minor arguments every Thursday after seeing each other the previous weekend. It sort of became a joke, but we could definitely feel the strain of distance and seeing each other then going home could amplify that strain a lot.
My relationship started in the 90s - way before cell phones/video-chat and the like were a thing. I think it might be easier now. Our long distance landline phone bills were absurd.
You do get to know each other VERY well, since most of your time is spent talking and not doing things. We took a premarital counseling test before we got married - answered identically on all but one question, which meant we'd talked about pretty much every life/marriage circumstance we could think of prior to getting married. If you can manage it, I think it actually sets you up to be far more prepared for a life together - I've known lots of people who spent tons of time together before getting married and ended up confronting issues in their marriage that my husband and I had discussed and worked out long before the ring was on my finger, but these couples were more busy going out to movies, parties, etc. and never really sat down and talked about serious future stuff.
You have to be committed - honesty is really important. If both people aren't on the same page it's a complete no-go. Too easy to lie and hide things. You could conceivably live a completely separate life and your partner would have no idea. Trust is essential for the same reasons. It's the perfect set up for someone to be either too controlling and possessive, or to just not commit the same way they would for a regular relationship. If you don't have good relationship and communication skills going into it, you damn well better develop them because everything will get amplified.
I don't think it's for everyone. Some people need to have that physical contact/reassurance on a more regular basis. We actually found that we'd tend to get into minor arguments every Thursday after seeing each other the previous weekend. It sort of became a joke, but we could definitely feel the strain of distance and seeing each other then going home could amplify that strain a lot.
My relationship started in the 90s - way before cell phones/video-chat and the like were a thing. I think it might be easier now. Our long distance landline phone bills were absurd.
You do get to know each other VERY well, since most of your time is spent talking and not doing things. We took a premarital counseling test before we got married - answered identically on all but one question, which meant we'd talked about pretty much every life/marriage circumstance we could think of prior to getting married. If you can manage it, I think it actually sets you up to be far more prepared for a life together - I've known lots of people who spent tons of time together before getting married and ended up confronting issues in their marriage that my husband and I had discussed and worked out long before the ring was on my finger, but these couples were more busy going out to movies, parties, etc. and never really sat down and talked about serious future stuff.
