My long-distance love story: How a cross-Channel romance went full time

When her relationship with her French beau took off, Hilary Freeman found that their 650-mile separation served only to fan the flames of their passion. But now that her man has hopped the Channel to join her, she is adjusting to up-close-and-personal amour…

As I write this, my partner Mickael is whistling to himself in the kitchen, where he is doing some DIY, while I sit working on my laptop in the living room. So far so normal. But while this scene of domestic mundanity would, for most couples, be unworthy of a mention, for Mickael and me

it is a highly significant – and even thrilling – development in our relationship. That’s because, until just seven months ago, and for more than three long years, we lived 650 miles apart. The idea of spending more than a few weeks, or even just days, together, let alone being able to live in domestic bliss, was – literally – a distant dream.
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Moving in with your partner is always a big deal and requires compromise and the ability to adapt. But when you move in with a long-distance partner, you face still more and greater challenges. You go from rarely seeing each other to doing so all the time, and you have to merge two independent lives into a single, shared one.

Before he moved into my flat, I’d never spent more than a few consecutive weeks with Mickael. A Frenchman whom I met while on a writing trip, Mickael lived and worked as a hotel receptionist in Nice, while I was based in London. We regularly spent up to two months apart, communicating only by phone or internet. Seeing each other required careful planning, then a two-hour plane ride, not to mention trains and taxis to and from the airport. We counted down the days until we met again and our reconciliations were always passionate and our goodbyes painful. Now, with me working from home, while he hunts for a job in London, we are often together almost 24 hours a day. Our relationship couldn’t be more different.

Thanks to the rise of internet dating, cheap travel and a global job market, more and more couples are conducting their relationships from afar, sometimes hundreds, if not thousands, of miles apart. While a minority of couples are happy to live apart from each other indefinitely, Andrew G Marshall, a marital therapist and author of Build a Life-long Love Affair, says that, for most couples, there comes a time when if a long-distance relationship is to survive, it has to become live-in. ‘Humans are social creatures who, ultimately, want to be with their nearest and dearest. It’s as simple as how wonderful it is to be able to wake up with someone and have a cuddle. You can’t stay in the courting stage for ever.’