Figuring out communication half a world away?

[Mar4]

My SO and I have been dating for almost three months now (first LDR relationship). I'm living in London and he's in Tokyo. We desperately want our relationship to work out, and we've even talked about living in each others' respective countries some day, though that will be a long while from now.

I'm having issues figuring out how I feel about our level of communication. I don't want to be needy (texting him throughout the day with no response), seeing as we both have our own lives as well, but the last relationship I had (four years/not an LDR), I saw him several times a week so I'm just not used to the distance. My SO does freelance work, which is wonderful because it gives him control over his own schedule to travel, but at the same time his schedule is so unpredictable we can hardly schedule a call in but once every two weeks, and he's usually dead tired. I'm very mindful of the time difference and honestly don't want him exhausting himself by staying up late calling, but am still really saddened by the fact that we don't get to converse on a normal basis (aside from the calling situation, I may only get a text or two a day from him). Mind that he's very enthusiastic when we're talking together and he's absolutely ecstatic to visit in September, so there are no signs that he's not interested in the relationship. Furthermore, as a student, while I'm very busy, I'm also very flexible and can almost always take a call. I really want to figure out how to work this out with his schedule and to understand what a normal level of communication is. I'm so happy we may be able to visit each other every few months, which considering the distance between us I consider us very lucky. But in between those visits, there are many periods of near silence and I'm worried how that may affect us.

This is a conversation I want to have with him the next time we're able to schedule a call, but until then I'd appreciate any advice.

[differentcountries]

My advice is to stay open for any level of communication that might work for you.

The first 2 months that SO and I dated (long distance), we Skyped every day for about 2 hours, which was wonderful, but also made us exausted and left little time for my social life and his (at the time) studies. So we reduced it to about every other day, which we did for a while, the a couple of times a week. Then SO started working shifts (and also got older/more tired) that made staying up late to talk amost impossible. We sometimes Skyped in the mornings instead, but not on a regular basis. Now SO has a job with roghly the same hours as me, but he just started and right now he is very busy and they need to set up internet in his house. So I dont know, but I think talking about it and trying out different things is very important!

[maple]

Have you been able to work it out? We have a large time difference too, so when we're both really busy, when we do have some time we message the other, even if we know that the other is busy or sleeping. It's nice to leave messages, so like throughout the day, maybe when I'm eating, I'll message him and he can respond hours later when he's awake or free. Instant replies are nice, but sharing our day like this is kind of like sharing journals and it works too

[La Daniela]

Me and my SO do that too.