Japanese & American couple’s daily life while living apart
So you’re in a long-distance relationship but don’t know how to spend time with your partner while apart? Depending on where you live and how far away you are from your partner, there’s a very wide range of time differences. Therefore, you have to organize your time and make time to spend your partner. For example, we go to college, study and work during the day, so we’re pretty busy but we’ve been happily in a long-distance relationship for more than a year.
In this post we introduce a Japanese and American international couple’s daily life while living apart, so that you can see how an international couple survives in a long distance relationship. Every partnership is different, but please feel free to follow our methods of maintaining a healthy good relationship with your partner.
“I have no time!”
First off, we’ve heard from others who’ve had long distance relationships that they failed because of a lack of time spent together in a week. Bullshit. “I don’t have time to spend with my partner” or “I’m too busy because of work” these are just excuses. Only a 10 min daily conversation on the phone will keep the relationship with your partner healthy. You can talk to your partner about positive things in 10 mins such as what you did recently at work, school, or in connection with your hobbies, etc. If the week truly is too busy, you can make plans to spend time together on the weekend and do something such as watching a tv show or cooking the same meal.
We noticed many couples who are in a long-distance relationship say they only text and even omit this when busy. Why can’t you make time for your partner and give them a quick call? It’s not that hard even if you’re busy. If you really can’t make time for some reason, then you could send a voice message. A chance to hear the voice of our loved ones is a happy occasion.
So for us, when do we talk to each other and how do we manage talking on the phone everyday? We’ll introduce our daily life starting with the US time. We hope this inspires others the take more time to be with their partners. Yuki lives in Japan and Hannah lives in the US, so there’s approximately a 14 hours time difference between us. (Japan is ahead compared to the US.) We study and work during weekdays, so we’re pretty busy but we talk on the phone everyday and haven’t missed in almost a year.
7am in the US / 9pm in Japan
Hannah:
I wake up between 6:30 and 7am on weekdays for work. I’m really not a morning person and have a bit of insomnia so sometimes it’s hard for me to wake up on time. Yuki usually gives me a call during this time to wake me up or check that I’m already awake. Occasionally he forgets so I can’t rely purely on his call, but it definitely does help. We typically chat during my commute.
Yuki:
Hannah needs to wake up at 7am to go to work everyday, but she isn’t good at waking up early. I usually call her to wake her up and make sure she’s already awake and getting ready for work. She overslept and was late to work last year countless times which is a habit we need to work on together. In Japan, being late is so rude.
We usually don’t talk much while she’s getting ready for work at home but we talk for a couple of minutes while she’s driving. Sometimes, I have to go to work at night, so we can’t talk at all. However, when I can talk, I try to do everything I need to do before going to bed by this time such as taking a shower and having dinner, so I can talk to Hannah when she wakes up.
11:30/12am in the US / 2am in Japan
Hannah:
My lunch starts between 11:30/12 so I usually shoot Yuki a text to see if he’s still awake. Sometimes he is and we’ll chat for a bit before he goes to sleep. This midday chat brightens my afternoon.
Yuki:
When Hannah has an early lunch break, we talk on the phone for a couple minutes during her lunch break. Though, around lunch time in the US is the middle of night in Japan, so she would text me to check whether i’m still up at this time. We talk on the phone for a couple minutes before I go to sleep.
5pm in the US / 7am in Japan
Hannah:
Yuki is like clockwork, the few days he unexpectedly didn’t call me at this time I thought something awful had happened because it was so uncharacteristic. We talk as I go home from work and depending on the day we keep chatting until I go to bed. But oftentimes I request some time alone. I am easily distracted and have a hard time doing tasks like reading or studying when I’m on the phone with him. He’s very understanding of this and respects my need to be alone. On the typical day I’ll stay on the phone with him while I’m cooking dinner, then say goodbye until later in the night.
Yuki:
About the time when I wake up, Hannah gets off her work. We talk on the phone while she’s driving home from her work to her house. We usually don’t talk for a long time because I need to have breakfast and Hannah wants to have an introvert time studying German, reading books, and taking a bath. I also need to go to university class after having breakfast depending on the day.
10pm in the US / 12am in Japan
Hannah:
This is when we have the most time to talk and “hang out” with one another. We usually talk about our past or coming days, work on this blog, plan for the future, and on occasion check visajourney to see if there’s any news! We try not to focus too much on this as it is out of our hands. Yuki always pushes me to work harder and put my best effort into all that I do. He’s supportive of my ideas and excited about what I accomplish. I couldn’t ask for a more supportive partner.
Yuki:
I get out of my morning class at university and I have lunch around this time. I usually talk to her before she goes to sleep and we work on writing our blog which is pretty fun to do together. Sometimes we watch tv shows on Netflix and play online games on our laptop or phone. We chat and spend the most time together at this time of day. I’m blessed that we can have fun together everyday.
Overall, we spend a lot of time speaking with one another each day but it’s not continuous. Even though there’s over 6,500 miles between us, we’re happy and motivate each other everyday to work towards an amazing life together in the future. A long-distance relationship is tough, but it’s definitely worth waiting to be together. You can make a long-distance relationship work if you keep trying. Don’t be afraid and have patience and courage. We also write an article about 7 tips for international couples to make long distance relationships work. Please read this and get inspiration on what it’s like to be in a long-distance relationship with someone from a different country and learn what an international couple thinks about long-distance relationships.
Thank you for reading. Let us know if you have any questions. We’d love to connect with you!
Have a nice day!