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**Littlewhiteflower** · February 2, 2018, 09:36 PM

Communication changes from one relationship to another, and you have to keep in mind that some of us are dealing with time difference, etc. So, it can make communication easier or harder depending of the situation.

In my case, we rarely video calls. My SO doesn't like that and I try to respect that as much as I can. We phone call around 3 times a week and it lasts an average of 20 minutes. We Skype around once a month for an average of an hour conversation. Otherwise, we send pictures to each other and text a lot. We usually send a good morning text in the morning, chat 5-10 minutes and exchange one or two texts during the day. We talk more in the evening. We text on and off when we are not busy during 15 minutes to 2h. It is rarely 2h.

During the day, we usually ask each other if we are free to call at night. If yes, when we are free, we send a text to say "call me" and we exchange a couple of text messages after the call but not before otherwise we won't have anything to talk about.

Not calling for 1 to 3 days is fine with me. At the beginning of our relationship, we never called. It took us 5 months to actually Skype together for the first time. Then, we talked on the phone once every week. It slowly increased and now that it is more serious, the pattern of communication is almost always the same.

The thing is not how many hours I spend talking to my boyfriend though. It is more about finding a pattern of communication that suits both of you. It actually helps to spend time together in real life to discuss about this communication or to establish it but only with time will you find something that fit well for you. I think that both partners have to compromise when it's time to talk but you should also both get a life and not want to be all the time in communication.

Hope this can help !

**differentcountries** · February 3, 2018, 07:43 AM

So you have dated this man almost a year.

Let me tell you, I have dated a Muslim man (He is Turkish-Arabic, from a border town to Syria) for more than 4 years. I am from Norway, a very straigt forward country in many ways, so his Arabic indirect ways sometimes annoy me to no end.

He does not live with his family, but when he visits them like he does now, they influence what he does a lot. He may go off the grid for a few days, although I have told him I dont like it, so he tries to meet me half way. When he is not with his family, he works a lot, and hardly ever have days off. This takes a toll on our relationship, as we can't have weekend relax time together - when we have long Skyping sessions, it will be in the middle of the night and it will leave us both exhausted and hangover for days, so we don't do it often. However he has started to work out, so I hope he will have more energy.

My man is not the oldest son, but he is the only one with a regular job. He has a few older siblings who are still in compulsury school (although they are in boarding schools away from home). And his other siblings are finishing their teacher education so they dont have a lot of money. The only person in the household when he is not that that has a regular job, is his aunt who works as a hairdresser. His mum and grandmum live off benifits and income/natural products from the land. They are very thrifty with money (and are actually paying to make their house bigger, and they recently redid the kitchen), but they are waiting for all the siblings to start making more money to the household.

SO and I have discussed that we want to visit there 1-2 times a year (after we marry and he comes to live and work here) but that we also want to buy a summer home in his work city (that his family could also use free of charge). We are both introverts and free spirits and living close to his family for a long time would drive us both insane (even if they are very sweet). He owns the land so a part of his income (after he payed off his personal debt) will go to pay for upkeep of it, and I have told him I expect this.

We dont video call much at all, anymore. What we do is we send a lot of pictures and of course text. Even when we video call, we dont really talk that much, it is more that we watch each other and watch whatever happens on the other end. We used to video call every day for 2 hours in the beginning, when we very really curious about each other. Also, in the beginning we did not have smart phones so it was not easy to send pictures etc. Before 3 months had passed, we both got smart phones so that changed our communication a bit. And he did not have to pay for computer time or borrow from his friends. On his end, the internet is not alway stable. It is stable at his job, and at his house. But it is not like here where there is free wifi a lot of places. So he has to use his own net a lot to stay in touch, and it becomes expensive for him to for instance Skype from the beach like I would like us to.

When we video call, we mostly use Skype. We have tried many of the others, but that is the one we use the most. Also sometimes through Facebook. Otherwise, we prefer Viber. We have tried others as well, and there are many good ones, but we prefer to keep it simple to use just one. It has many emojis and emotional pics to end, even long distance ones - they are very aware that long distance couples use their app! Viber has a recording feature that I have sometimes used to send him songs. It also works very fast to send pictures. We sometimes have small phone calls, or calls through Viber.

His worklife is pretty unstable and I am also often busy with studies etc. We have a rule to TRY to contact each other 3 times a day (morning, lunch/dinner and night), but we understand that if the other person does not contact us, they are probably busy. I know his weekends are usually especially busy, and he often lets me know as well, but telling me he thinks about me but are going to sleep. In the past, we tried to talk when we were tired, but we are getting older and need our sleep!

Recently, I did not hear from him in 5 days, then I contacted his brother to let him know that I wanted him to contact me. It was in connection to his phone being damaged. Then he contacted me very quickly after that and since (after he fixed his phone) he has been very often in touch.

I think it is important to talk about communication and tell the other person what you prefer and what you think is possible. Ideally, I would like us to Skype more, but I understand that it drains his phone a lot (when there is no wifi) and that he does not have the energy for it. I want to talk to him about maybe we could start to Skype once a week at least, because I really like to see him when we are apart. We used to talk during the day about when to Skype in the night, or to have a set time. That made it easier but at the same time restricted what especially I could do in my free time, and if his job wanted him to work longer hours, I often sat with nothing to do. It is better for me to arrange meeting my friends and rather go home a bit earlier (or Skype from where I am!).

We all have responsabilities in our lives, but you need to talk about them and find ways that could work for the both of you.

**Nova** · February 4, 2018, 04:15 AM

Thanks so much for reply it�s helping a little bit to hear how it is ures way and hope to hear from few more too see.
Also I am from Norway my bf/fianc��s lube jn Algeria. Atm we have no time difference but when we do the clock in March it will be only 1 hour.

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