Living apart is not a guarantee the relationship will come to an end. Long-distance relationships have powerful emotional and intimacy dynamics.

• Research found couples living in different places have more stable and committed relationships, but when they do start living together, they're more likely to break up than couples who lived together all along.
• Long-distance couples were more likely to idealize each other.
• They tend to fight less since there was less to fight about and less time to fight.
• They were also more likely to avoid conflict and withhold their real opinions.

Communication technologies cannot reproduce the physical touch. It is also not suited for seeing how a partner treats other people.

However, studies show that the technological shift gives couples more opportunities to address potentially charged subjects and reduce idealization. Living ap...