A year ago, a miracle happened: I was accepted into graduate school in New York and, fulfilling a dream I’d harbored since the womb, I took out a painfully large student loan and moved to Manhattan.

There was just one catch: my significant other was based in San Francisco. Though I will always appreciate his encouraging me to study and live in the Big Apple, neither of us had any idea what it meant to have a relationship with a three-thousand-mile barrier.

When I arrived in New York, my fears were temporarily eased; it seemed everyone in school had someone back at home. Long-distance was the new “no distance” for the highly evolved couple. I scratched my head, but without much choice, I went along with it. It didn’t take long, however, to notice that as the year progressed, the percentage of singletons climbed as quickly as our collective loan debt. By May, I was the only “evolved” person left. While relationship standards are different for every couple, I must confess there are still days when I wonder just how many people are equipped to pull off such a feat.

Then, walking past Lincoln Center last week, I had an epiphany. Beneath the bright lights of the bus stop was a poster for Drew Barrymore’s latest rom-com, Going the Distance. And I wondered: if Warner Brothers is willing to fund a film about the trials of a long-distance relationship, there must be a universal thread. How many of us are living miles away from our mates and making it work? And how? Or, as was the case with the majority of my classmates, how does one know when it’s no longer worth going the distance?

Although I’ll be the first to admit that my graduate work is not in the area of relationship therapy, below is a list of challenges couples are often faced with and suggestions to soothe the inevitable frustration. If, in the end, you still don’t feel any better, well, you can always see what Drew Barrymore does.

Who Are You and Where Are You? Getting Down the Day-to-Day
One of the biggest adjustments when first beginning a long-distance rapport is that you’re no longer as familiar with what your partner is experiencing on a daily basis—arguments with roommates or problems at work, for example, or issues that you would be more attuned to if you lived together.

Suggestion: Get down to the nitty-gritty.
Painful as it may be at times to dredge up the details, try to keep each other included in small happenings as well as big ones. While it’s easier to relay big events that come our way—such as promotions, moves, the first day of school—our lives are inevitably composed of all the smaller, minute-to-minute events that befall us. Try to fill each other in as best as you can about the little stuff over email or the phone. It makes you feel like you’re still involved in each other’s lives and are connected, despite the mileage between you.

Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman: Reviving the Lost Art of Writing Letters
Before my grandparents were married, they were separated for a year during World War II. My grandmother worked at Pan American Airways in New York City, and my grandfather was stationed in Africa. I never got the chance to meet my grandfather and see firsthand his relationship with my grandmother, but what I do know about them comes from that one year’s worth of letters—stacks of them—that they wrote to one another. Some were grand proclamations of love, others simple hellos, but I can only imagine what it must have meant to find them in the mail week to week, month to month, without being able to see each other.

Suggestion: Try scribing some of those feelings once in a while.
Granted, today’s advances in technology—video chats, picture texts, and even the simple ability to make a long-distance phone call—can make the miles between couples feel less extreme than they once did. But I still can’t shake the romanticism of those letters. Even if you don’t have the courage (or gag reflex) for grand proclamations of adoration and heartsickness, it’s always nice to receive a letter in the mail, old-school style. Try writing your beau or sending a simple “I miss you” card. Mail that isn’t from a major credit-card company always makes a person feel loved.

Seeing How the Other Half Lives
On a good day, a ticket from New York to San Francisco is around $350, before taxes. So far be it from me—a student buried neck-high in loan debt—to suggest rotating weekends in which one of you whisks off to the other’s state or country of residence. However, it is important at one point, if you can manage it financially, to see where your partner is and get a feel for his or her day-to-day life.

Suggestion: Plan at least one trip to the other side.
Knowing simple things, like where your girlfriend gets her coffee on the way to work in the morning, or even just what the new room your boyfriend sleeps in looks like, really helps. In a strange way, it gives back something you miss while apart and fills in all the details that suddenly feel painfully important when separated. Although visits can’t always be arranged on a regular basis, it is comforting to at least be able to picture the environment where your other half is living her life while you’re living yours.

One Step (Away) Too Many: What to Do When It’s Not Working
Attention all hopeless romantics: this is where you have the choice to cover your eyes or keep reading. For you truth-seekers out there, here it is: long-distance relationships are not for the weak of heart, mind, or body. This is not to say that anyone who cannot maintain them is feeble; it is only to stress that they’re difficult and rare for a reason. If you truly feel like it’s not working for you, it probably isn’t. And then you’ll know what you need to do.

Suggestion: Use some of that alone time to evaluate your happiness factor. 
In all honesty, there will always be days when a phone call or a few minutes on Skype won’t feel like enough in the relationship department. And there will most likely be days when you’ll have to pinch out the details of your day with tiny tweezers, and your sharing will be mingled with frustration that the other person wasn’t there to see it for himself. But, at the end of the day, you’ll do it anyway, because you genuinely want him to know. This is the test, I think: when, somewhere deep down, it still feels satisfying enough to know that wherever he is, he’s still with you, that he still answers as one half of your couple, and that things feel like they haven’t really happened until you’ve told him about them.

One last thing: if the distance is making you miserable, listen to that. Missing people is tough, but utter despair is another thing. A friend of mine who ended a long-distance relationship after three years said she knew it was over when she felt like she was the only one doing the work anymore. Another fellow classmate said the physical need was too great for him to be sustained. Everybody’s needs, expectations, and standards are different, and it’s up to you and your partner to decide what those are. If they’re not being met, it’s the same as in any relationship, and the decision about what you can tolerate is yours.

Relationship Gurus: A Whole Lotta Hooey
In the end, who’s to really say if a relationship—near or far—is working for you? No one but you can, of course. Suggestions feel good sometimes; empathy feels great.

But let’s face it: if long-distance was fun, everyone would do it. On the one hand, there’s something to be said about the importance of spending those small, day-to-day, minutia-filled moments with the person you love. And for many, understandably so, not to have them is a deal breaker. But fear not, romantics. The good news is that in most cases, distances are never as permanent as they seem: army services suspend, visas are issued, and students graduate from school. And, if it’s right for you, you’ll look back later at the stacks of letters and phone bills and emails and think, How did we ever do that? Maybe by then you won’t remember exactly how; maybe you won’t ever know, but the proof will be there—somewhere—buried in the stacks of I love yous and simple hellos.