Navigating a Long-Distance Move: The Secrets to Our Successful Sugar Relationship

Wondering whether your sugar relationship could stand up to the challenge of long-distance dating? Take a look at one couple who made it work, even in the toughest moments.

As a sugar baby in my late 30s, I never felt comfortable with the fully online form of sugaring that’s become so popular in the last 5 years. Sure, I’m not totally incompetent when it comes to technology: I did grow up with computers, after all! But I just find it to be a lot easier to get to know someone in person. And, I also don’t like the idea of setting up a ring light, a backdrop, and a tripod, and all that kind of stuff that you need to be a virtual sugar baby. Like, what am I going to do, make “get ready with me videos” for my sugar daddies? I’ll leave that to the Gen Zers who are doing it, and doing it well.

Well, at least that’s all I thought before I met Will. Will is my whale, although I don’t call him that. I call him Big Willy, a nickname that makes both of us laugh every time I say it.

The first few months of dating Will was such a whirlwind. I knew that he was something special, not just because he treated me like a queen but also because he was so kind-hearted and gentle and, I don’t know, just stable. Emotionally grounded. It was one of those situations where you know you have something that everyone wants, which motivates you to go all out and make sure your guy is happy.

Woof, my diary entries from that time were stressful, let me tell you. Will was never one to make me question his intentions or anything, but I was a ball of anxiety, second-guessing how I could convince this man to stick around with little old me. Presumably, whatever I did during that time worked, because we had a consistent, exclusive relationship for a year. We were super happy, and I even accidentally called Will my boyfriend on multiple occasions (younger sugar babies, don’t fall into this habit! It can bite ya!) There was just something about my time with Will that felt secure.

Then, he told me he was moving across the country for the next 18 months to 2 years, depending on what his work needed. I was devastated, but I hate crying in front of people, so I told Will I had to go home early. As soon as I got home, I bawled my eyes out. I thought I was losing the best thing I had. And, it wasn’t like I could go with him, I was in the middle of a grad program, and my family needed me close by since my parents were getting up in age.

Now, as you already know because of the title of this piece, we did end up getting through it. Will is back home now, and as soon as I’m finished with this, I’ll give him a call and we’ll go out to eat. But, it was tough, sometimes it felt nearly impossible, and I wanted to share some of the things that we did wrong and right through our time apart so that other couples can learn from our experience. Here are some of the highlights:

Exclusivity

One of the biggest mistakes that we made (okay, that I made) was deciding to open the sugar relationship when Will moved. Listen, my intentions were smart. I thought that opening up the relationship would prevent Will from being so frustrated by the lack of physical contact that he would simply break up with me. And, because I was convinced that the long-distance thing was probably going to fail, I wanted a backup on my end. In other words, I thought I was being a smart sugar baby.

Anyways, we tried it for like three months, and I went off the rails. On the one hand, I was jealous as all get out any time that Will mentioned he had a date. Or even that he was busy, because I assumed that he had a date, even when he didn’t. I had never been a jealous sugar baby, and then suddenly, there we were, with me calling and checking in on him more than ever before.

And then, on the other hand, my attempts to find a “replacement” sugar daddy were disappointing, at best. Even though I had a couple of dates with some decent men, none of them stacked up to Will, which just made me miss him more.

After three months, I basically begged Will to go exclusive again. He was cool about it and made sure to remind me that he hadn’t wanted to open up the relationship in the first place. Once we became exclusive again, there was much less stress.

Communication

Another thing that we had to fix, especially once we decided to close the relationship again, was our communication. Remember when I said I was the last one who would want to star in a “get ready with me” video? Well, I had to change that pretty quickly. I realized that this wasn’t going to work unless I got out of my comfort zone with the virtual conversations, whether that meant sending him selfies and videos or hopping on a quick FaceTime between his afternoon meetings. And yes, I did ask for a ring light set-up for my birthday so that I could level up my video quality for Will.

But it wasn’t just keeping up the communication that was tricky. It was making sure that we also had enough to say. I had a list of conversation topics and games, and there was even one month that we did a raunchy book club. Basically, I had to get more creative than I ever had.

Visits

As good as I was getting at video calling, some face-to-face time was absolutely essential if we were going to get through these 2 years apart. So, one thing that I told Will early on was that we were going to have to get on some kind of flight miles plan or something to be able to see each other at least once a month. He did me one better by saying that he would come back to see me once a month, and I could go see him once a month, so that we were never more than 2 weeks away from spending time together. I even felt comfortable adjusting our terms in order to account for him paying for my flight tickets out there because honestly, going to see him was always like a little vacation, it was wonderful.

Tactics for getting through it

Okay, so some things definitely made the distance easier, like recommitting to being exclusive and learning how to communicate better. But at the end of the day, I had to just learn tactics to get myself through it, and some of the best ones that helped me were:

• Finding hobbies that would get me away from my phone. I took up pottery of all things, because guess what you can’t do when your hands are covered in clay: scroll social media and wonder why your sugar daddy isn’t texting you. Bonus tip: I made sure to schedule my pottery classes in the morning when I knew my sugar daddy would be sleeping because of the time difference.
• Spending more time with friends. Good friends really do get you through the tough moments. And I’m lucky enough to have a few good friends who are also sugar babies, and they were cool with me texting them any time that I felt like bothering my sugar daddy, even when I knew he would be working or sleeping.
• Making sure that I was taking care of my physical health. You’ll never catch me jogging, but I got back on my bike and even started rollerblading again with some friends. Getting outside and moving was what I needed to keep my head during the challenging moments.
• Remembering that there was an end date. Listen, my hot take is this: you can do anything for 2 years. You can get yourself through a grad program. You can stick it out at a bad job. You can live in an apartment you hate. But the key is that there has to be a hard end date. If my sugar daddy didn’t have a plan to come back, I’m not sure that I would have been able to keep up the long-distance for ever. To be sure, there are some people who can! But I was sure glad to be able to count down the days until it was over.

When Big Willy came back, we had a huge homecoming party, which was the first time that I was introduced to his family and friends. Now that the long distance is over, I can see the good that it had on our relationship. We became better communicators—to the point of being pretty much mind-readers—and it made us more patient and appreciative of our time together.

Would I go back and do it again? Yes. Am I glad that I don’t have to? Absolutely!