Maintaining a long distance relationship as an expat in Japan

Japan is a best place to be and could be very lonely
Very Very lonely if I may say hence ... take along your spouse or apply for him or her to join you as soon as you get settled

I agree with the above comments. But mainly because I cannot imagine leaving behind a girlfriend or wife back home, who would do that? I would probably only accept a job that would allow my family to live overseas with me, and if it was a girlfriend then I would encourage her to come out and join me as soon as possible.

If I were single and moving to Japan I would probably find a partner here since I do have lots of friends here and I make friends easily.

I was in a long-distance relationship in Japan for 7 years.  It's difficult, but it can be done.  The key is communication.  When we first met on holiday, my partner was living in the U.K. and I was in Tokyo.  We started out as friends and communicated by email for the first year.  The emails became longer and more frequent, and we realized that we felt something more than friendship.  We met up again one year later, and that was when we started a proper relationship.  After that, we started communicating by Skype as well as email.  We would send each other messages several times a day, and then talk on Skype face-to-face every evening.  The difficulty was the time difference, because it was always very late for me and I would lose a lot of sleep for the sake of the relationship.

After about a year, my partner moved to Asia to be closer to me.  This was also vitally important, because a long-distance relationship is very hard to sustain if you cannot actually meet in person from time to time.  The difference in travelling time was shortened from 12 hours to 7.  At that point, we were able to see each other every 2 months or so, as flights were cheaper on low-cost airlines.  We would alternate; he would come to Tokyo for 5 or 6 days, and next time I would go to see him for longer periods of 10-14 days when I had school holidays (I was a teacher).  In total, we spent about 2 months out of every year together, and the rest of the time we were just communicating by Skype and email.  The hard part of a long-distance relationship is the lack of physical contact.   Also, there were times when our email messages were misinterpreted, which sometimes led to hard feelings, so it's important to have verbal communication daily at least, and with Skype, to be able to see each other.  We called Friday nights our “date night”.  Sometimes the signal was bad, though, which was very frustrating.  We also used to send cards to each other on occasion.  Everyone loves to get a handwritten card or letter in the mail, but it takes time and effort.

Another hardship is the expense of constantly flying back and forth to meet up, and then the feeling of time slipping away.  Whenever we were together, I wanted time to stand still, and when we were apart, time seemed to drag so slowly until the day we could meet again.  I was constantly counting down the days until our next “honeymoon”.  Keeping busy with work helped me a lot, but he was retired, and was often bored and lonely.  Due to my family circumstances, we could not live together in Tokyo.  The good thing is that every reunion really was like a honeymoon.  Those were days of romance and pure bliss!

One risk is that your partner may find the time and distance too long, and eventually give up on the relationship.  Luckily, in my case, my partner was a man of his word.  He went the distance, waited 7 years until I was finally free.  I eventually retired and joined him, and we got married last December in the very same place that we originally met.  Our motto throughout those long 7 years was, “The Universe will deliver,” and it finally did!  True love can conquer all odds, but you have to be patient and work hard at communicating all the time.  Good luck!

Great story and a very happy ending to it all. As you say, they sound like days of romance and pure bliss.

Thanks for your comments.  Yes, they were happy times, and I still thank my lucky stars daily for bringing this wonderful man into my life!