We expect married couples to live together, once they have vowed to love one another “till death do us part”. Yet long-distance relationships are on the rise. In the US, the 2017 census found there had been a 44% increase in married couples living apart since 2000, bringing the total to almost 4 million people. So how do these marriages work, especially given that many involve months spent in different time zones?

“I don’t have a choice of who I fall in love with. She’s the perfect person; it just happens that she lives thousands of miles away,” says theatre director Jordan Murphy, 27, about his New York-based wife, dancer Mariel Latourneau. The pair met in 2015 while working on a production of the musical Honk! in upstate New York and, despite both being in other relationships, kept in touch when Murphy returned to the UK. “I fell in love with her very quickly,” says Murphy. Within three months of returning to London, he had broken up with his partner, flown out to spend Christmas with Latourneau, and they had decided to be together.

There then began the expensive back-and-forth of weeks spent in New York or London and then a proposal and marriage in December 2017. The couple are currently applying for a visa that will enable Latourneau to move to London, as their four years apart have taken their toll. “We end up texting while the other person is asleep,” Murphy says, “so it feels weird always having that lag of response times. And if we’re both in rehearsals, we pretty much don’t speak at all, which is really hard – we’ve had disagreements just because the other person isn’t around to vent to.” Yet the couple have found ways to be creative with the time that they do have together, flying out for surprise visits, like Murphy’s trip to New York on their first wedding anniversary, or sending care packages. “When we first started going out, I sent Mariel a package of classic British sweets, which of course had all melted by the time they got to her,” Murphy says.

The visa process is a long one, requiring WhatsApp logs and photo evidence to prove their relationship, as well as financial records and proof of their proposed marital residence, but Murphy is hopeful that within the next year they will be successful. “The hardest thing is saying goodbye and not knowing when we’ll see each other next,” he says. “I hope we can finally be together soon – Mariel is the most supportive person I’ve ever met and, without her, this wouldn’t survive.”

“You have to ask the question of who is benefiting most from the long-distance relationship,” couples therapist Elle Sidel says. “There are people who are more comfortable without having too much contact and they might end up putting their needs before others. Since communication time is limited when you’re not living together, you might avoid having difficult conversations about what’s been troubling you.”

Roo Yeshpaul Johnson with her husband Tyler Johnson. Photograph: Adri Page Photography

Roo Yeshpaul Johnson, 32, was clear from the outset of her five-year marriage to military engineer Tyler that her needs were as important as his. “Ty gets deployed for two to three months all the time and last year he was gone for seven, which was the longest we’ve ever spent apart,” she says, “but he only has nine years left before retirement and he knows that when that time comes, I’m putting my career first – I’ll be in the driving seat.”

For now, though, it is transitioning from time apart to time together that can be the most challenging, especially since Johnson is eight months pregnant. “When he’s been gone a long time, you can start to get ambivalent about talking to each other,” she says, “and it can feel like you have to get used to being with that person all over again when they’re back. I’m not sure I agree with the idea that absence makes the heart grow fonder. But when the baby comes that will all change, there will be more structure.”

Loneliness is another issue. Johnson says that other friendships can get stronger when Tyler is away, since, “when I’m alone, I might throw myself into seeing people every night, not wanting to come back to an empty house”. But she also often isolates herself, because “the only person you want to be around isn’t there”.

Samarpita Sharma, 38, an editor, similarly finds isolation the most difficult part of her marriage, even though her husband, Sankalp, lives only a two-hour drive from her home in Bhopal, India. “He’s not that far away, but keeps very long hours working on his family’s farm,” she says. “So he’ll be gone for seven to 10 days at a time and then come back for two. In the evenings, when all of our neighbours are eating together, it can get really lonely. Our marriage suffers because of it.” The couple exchange short messages throughout the day – “We tell each other: ‘I love you,’ and that helps us feel connected” – but it will be “at least five years” before Sankalp can spend more time away from the farm and up to 20 before they retire and live there together.

Samarpita and Sankalp Sharma.

Not all marriages survive separation. Katie (not her real name), 45, was in a long-distance marriage for eight years, but found that her relationship with her wife grew increasingly distant. “It felt like she was always putting her work in Los Angeles before me here in New York,” she says. “At first we were speaking all the time but after a few years the more time we’d spend together, the more we’d argue.” For Katie, long-distance marriages only work if there is an end in sight. “We kept talking about both moving to a single coast but I can see now that wasn’t her priority. You have to make sure you’re on the same page when you get into these relationships, or they’ll crumble.”

“A lack of tactile closeness in the relationship can make people feel unloved, especially if they value contact highly,” says psychologist, Becky Spelman. “If people can see an end to the long distance that creates a lot of reassurance.” Lisa McKay, 43, an LA-based psychologist, and Michael Wolfe, 43, an aid worker in Papua New Guinea, have kept up their long-distance marriage for more than a decade and now have two children. The couple, who were introduced by a mutual friend online, began their relationship by writing letters to each other – 90,000 words worth of them, McKay estimates – and got engaged after spending only 20 days in the same country.

Lisa McKay and Michael Wolfe with their children.

“Those letters allowed us to explore childhood experiences, adult passions, really deep stuff that you don’t discuss when you’re face-to-face dating,” says McKay. “It built our relationship on a really strong foundation, and one that’s been able to last through our work commitments abroad since. Looking back, I’m really grateful for what we learned.” Having just spent six months with Wolfe in Vanuatu, finishing an aid project, however, she finds the time apart tougher. “We could keep up the long distance for longer without kids, but with them it’s hard to stay connected and find the time and energy to talk,” McKay says. Having children does at least put the lack of intimacy in a long-distance marriage into perspective. “Parenting young kids is so exhausting that nothing’s suffered due to the long distance in the intimacy department. I imagine we’re as active as any parents. We just adapt; we don’t like it, and it really sucks at times, but we have to cope with it.”

Ultimately, Spelman believes that long-distance relationships can flourish, provided both parties communicate regularly. “People are managing them better than ever before because of social media and new technologies,” she says. Johnson agrees: “If you can meet each other’s communication needs, you can feel like your partner actually isn’t thousands of miles away.” And, she jokes: “Without FaceTime my relationship wouldn’t exist.”

For these couples, spending so much time apart is not ideal – but it is a sacrifice worth making. “It’s a cliche,” Johnson says, “but if you can get through long distance, you can pretty much get through anything else your relationship throws at you.”