Why College Relationships Are Different
Dating in college may often feel or look different than a relationship you may have had in high school. In college, there are additional possibilities to find new people to connect with, along with the freedom to explore your identity in ways you were deprived of in high school. Coming into college with a relationship can be a challenge. Separating your personal lives and gaining new experiences without your partner is one of the biggest struggles. It is important not to limit yourself and spend all your time with them.
College relationships are typically more mature than the relationships you may have had in high school. In college, you have the freedom to date who you want and the ability to hang out with people without parent's opinions or rules about when, where, and how long you can see this person. You will also be less likely to permit petty arguments or miscommunications that you may have with an immature relationship. Your partner will most likely have a different schedule than you and have their own responsibilities, such as school work or if they are a part of a club. This is different from when you were in high school and may have been confined to being in the same school building for eight hours a day every day. A college campus is large, and your classes may be on different sides of the campus or at different times. This makes it unlikely you will run into your partner on your way to class if you go to the same school. If you plan to have a long-distance relationship with your high school partner everything will most likely change. In order for the relationship to work it is going to require effort from both sides and some changes will have to be made.
Anchor Therapy is a counseling center in Hoboken, NJ with mental health therapists specialized in helping children, teens, adults, couples, and families with anxiety, depression, relationship issues, trauma, life transitions, and more. Anchor Therapy is accepting new clients and is now providing in-person sessions and teletherapy sessions to residents of New Jersey, New York, and Florida.
7 Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Relationship in College:
Balance your time:
Making sure that you find a balance between relationships and academic success/responsibilities can be demanding. That is why communicating with your partner about your schedules and times you can spend with them that work for both of you is important. You should not find yourself picking one over the other or having your academics, or social life declined because you did not manage time effectively. If you are in a long-distance relationship, you will have to navigate how to balance your social life and academics with times you can catch up with your partner.
2. Respect each other's Independence:
In college, you are going through various changes, which is why it is essential to maintain your independence. It is just as important to support your partner's independence and encourage them to pursue their interests. This will help you grow not only in your individuality but also in your relationships. Ensuring that you do things that benefit you, and allowing your partner to partake in activities that benefit them, will help prevent tension within the relationship. There are many things that you or your partner could do to ensure your independence. One example is joining a club or activity without your partner, having separate nights out with friends, or getting into a hobby your partner isn't into. Or if you are doing long distance, understand that your partner's college experience may be different than yours. You should avoid judgment or trying to prevent your partner from going out and making their own experiences.
At Anchor Therapy, we offer life transition therapy to help support you during this transition into college and couples counseling to find techniques and tips on how to deal with challenges you may be experiencing in your relationship.
3. Prioritize communication:
Constructive communication is necessary in all relationships. Quality communication may prevent misunderstandings, deepen the connection between partners, and build trust. Specifically, in a college setting, stress and anxiety levels are frequently elevated. You and your partner will have less free time, which could result in fewer opportunities to talk. Because of a lack of communication, problems in the relationship may develop due to drifting away from one another. This is why being transparent and utilizing communication skills can help couples work through challenges and have confidence in the expectations they may have. It is important to tell your significant other when something is bothering you in order to work together to find a solution.
4. Be honest with yourself:
Being truthful with yourself regarding your needs, wants, and feelings is essential. If you feel that you are unhappy in the relationship you are in, it is important to know that it is okay to want to end the relationship. Your own well-being and happiness are the top priority, so it is important always to put yourself first and tend to your needs and wants before your partners. Staying true to yourself is valuable to creating a happy, healthy relationship.
5. Embrace new experiences:
College is a new territory, and with that new territory comes numerous opportunities to make new connections and experiences. Your relationship can be a part of exploring new experiences. There are many things you could do together, such as new activities, exploring new or old shared interests in a new setting, and meeting new people. It is also important to remember not to close yourself off to new experiences or people. This is a time to pursue new things. If you allow a partner to hold you back from this, it could stop you from finding what you really want.
6. Seek Support when needed:
It is important to seek support from a therapist, friend, or family member if you are struggling with your relationship. At Anchor Therapy, we provide various services that can help you during this process. These forms of support can provide advice and coping methods to help you navigate through this struggle and with any challenges you may face in the future. It is essential that you talk through your feelings or problems you may be having rather than keeping them bottled up and facing them alone.
Many people are going through similar situations. Confiding in someone else who may have a long-distance relationship or is just struggling with their relationship can provide you with some advice and tips on how to handle certain situations. In fact, you may make a new friend in college with your shared experiences with having a long-distance boyfriend or girlfriend. Feelings of anxiety, grief, and/or depression are often expected when dealing with the challenges of a long-distance relationship or after a breakup.
Luckily, we offer anxiety counseling, depression counseling, grief counseling, and more with therapists who can provide you with the support you need.
7. Make use of technology:
Technology will become one of your most significant assets in making a long-distance relationship work. If you are in a long-distance college relationship, it helps maintain communication and ensure your connection does not slowly disappear. Facetime, texting, and social media will help mend the physical distance between you and your partner while at different colleges. Creating a routine for communication and setting aside time to catch up either on Facetime or just texting will help avoid future miscommunication and problems within the relationship. It is also important to note that quality technology time is more important than how much time you spend using technology. You should avoid blowing up your girlfriend or boyfriend's phone when they are with friends or out because it may result in conflict and jealousy. This is why it is important to establish a routine and communicate what works for both of you. As a result, if your partner doesn't respond or takes a while to respond, you won't jump to conclusions about what they may be doing.
If you are interested in learning more about getting ghosted, read our blog “Ghosting: Why It Happens & How to Heal From It.”
Do high school relationships last through college?
On average, high school relationships tend not to last for an extended period of time. Teenagers are constantly changing, and once college comes up, your girlfriend, boyfriend, or partner may be going to a school far away or vice versa. You both will transform and mature as individuals, which may make you find fewer similarities and commonalities. College changes almost everything, and you may find yourself wanting something different.
As you begin to change during this chapter of your life, you will find that your relationship standards are beginning to change as you question serious life transitions, like engagement and marriage. It is important to surround yourself with people who take responsibility for their actions and encourage growth in not only others but themselves. High school relationships are constructed mainly by wanting a stable figure, someone to explore intimacy with, or someone to show off at school events such as homecoming.
Breaking up with your high school relationship does not mean that something terrible had to happen or something was wrong with you or your partner. It often just means that you are moving on from this chapter of your life and deciding to enter this new chapter, open and ready for change. Many people who decide to stay with their high school relationship and take on the challenge of long-distance may spend their weekends bound in their dorm rooms waiting for their partner to call them. They may also spend their nights stalking their social media or location, worried about what they may be doing. No matter how much you may have trusted your relationship in high school, college will test all aspects of your relationship.
For more information on breakups, read our blog “Is Breakup Counseling Right For Me?
Remember, this is just what most college students experience coming from a high school relationship. This does not mean that your relationship is doomed or that you should break up with your partner just because you feel like you have to. If you are in a relationship in college, whether it is with your high school partner or someone new, it is important to make sure you have a healthy balance. In college, you have the opportunity to branch out and make new experiences. You should never find that your relationship gets in the way of making new connections. Everyone is different, and although other people's high school relationships did not make it through the college transition, it does not mean yours won't.
If you are interested in learning more about life transitions in college, check out our recent blog, “College Student’s Guide to Thriving Through Life Transitions with Insights From Barbie.”
What should a healthy college relationship look like?
Support:
Emotional support preserves the relationship and constructs a productive and healthy foundation for both partners. Support also provides reassurance, love, acceptance, and encouragement in the relationship.
Trust:
Having a trusting relationship allows for both partners to open up and be vulnerable to each other, unaccompanied by feeling like you have to be guarded in order to protect yourself.
Honesty:
Being honest to your significant other allows them to understand your needs and provides them with the opportunity to acknowledge and respond to them.
Mutual Respect:
In a relationship, partners should treat each other the same way they would want to be treated and be accepting of the other person's friends, interests, and opinions.
Communication:
Effective communication allows you to explain to your partner what your needs are and what you may be experiencing. For more tips on improving communication, read our blog “Communicating With Your Partner Through Covid-19”.
Physical Safety:
It is vital that both partners feel safe physically in their relationship and appreciate each other's space and wants.
3 Tips on How to Navigate long-distance relationships:
Long-distance relationships are, without a doubt, a challenge. If you and your partner decide to take on long-distance when you both part ways for college, there are ways to make it work. It takes a great deal of hard work, but it is possible. It is important to be honest with your long-distance partner and set ground rules and expectations going forward. This ensures when something unexpected happens, you have discussed boundaries going into college. It is also just as important to prioritize your school work and social life so you don't end up resenting one another for holding each other back from making connections and memories.
Setting schedules or planning visits is essential to make sure that you spend time together but also have time apart. This makes sure you look forward to seeing each other but can accept and have a separate life apart from the relationship.
Always communicate what is bothering you or something you may not appreciate that is going on within the relationship. You will face many challenges, and you most likely will feel jealous or guilty going to different colleges at the same time. There is a struggle of having to balance this new environment, new friends, and your long-distance relationship. It requires substantial communication and effort from both parties in order to work. But if you find ways that work for both of you, it can allow for personal growth and independence. Staying with your high school boyfriend or girlfriend in college also provides stability and emotional support during this significant transition into college life.
How can therapy help your relationship in college?
Every relationship is different, and your relationship may have certain aspects that are close to perfect for you, but some parts make the relationship a challenge to stay in. At Anchor Therapy, we offer couples counseling, which focuses on improving relationship satisfaction and conflict resolution between couples. For a college relationship, a relationship counselor will provide you and your partner with an impartial position, listening to both perspectives and providing unbiased advice. Getting feedback from a therapist will help the couple reveal their thoughts and emotions that they might be fearful of expressing to their partner.
In addition, receiving individual counseling focused on discussing your relationship may be very beneficial to finding solutions on how to deal with difficulties you may be facing personally or within your relationship. At Anchor Therapy, we offer adult counseling that helps you to come up with ways to cope with the stress of college, relationships, responsibilities, and more in a healthy way. Individual counseling gives you the opportunity to explore your thoughts, feelings, and concerns with the help of a therapist. You may also find that life transition therapy may be exactly what you are in search of. While working with a life transition therapist, you will learn how significant changes in your life, such as college or long-distance relationships, impact you on an emotional level while learning how to work through the hardships using practical, positive coping skills.
Addison Selzer
is an Intern at Anchor Therapy. She is an undergraduate student at the University of Delaware studying Human Development and Family Sciences with a concentration in Clinical Services. Upon graduating undergrad, she is looking to pursue a graduate and doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology with the goal of becoming a therapist.
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