Have you ever been in a long distance relationship? Well, I have - albeit briefly. You see, my hubby and I met online but because we came from different cultural backgrounds and lived in different countries, I thought: "This is it. LDR (Long Distance Relationship) is going to kill us. We may as well end it now."

But we persevered. And for quite a while, we depended on our stubbornness to NOT succumb to the pitfalls of LDR. We are determined to beat the odds. And beat the odds we did! Today we're happily married (he relocated to where I live!) with a robust, feisty little daughter to call our own. Read on and find out how we did it.

At first, we emailed each other every single day. We added each other in MSN but I quickly realized how one sided this method can be due to the fact that he wasn't a very fast typist to begin with. I'd type a long paragraph ranting about my tiresome boss at work and he'd take ages to reply. Of course, I wasn't blaming him but I KNOW we had to find another way to stay in touch.

TIP: Emails are great if couples have access to the Internet most of the time. Gmail is your best bet and you can easily tag them with labels like "Lover" or "Boyfriend"/"Girlfriend" and add little stars next to your email conversations so that you can find them easily. No need to wade through a multitude of junk mail, especially those useless Internet marketing newsletters. Which reminds me, I need to unsubscribe to some of them soon...

Later on, I suggested we both get Skype accounts and chat with each other via VOIP. For a while it was lovely, talking on the computer till the cows come home. But then, there were some setbacks. For starters, we discovered that it can be quite tiresome to login to Skype when the Internet connection on either one of our side can prove to be less than optimal. And sometimes when we talk online, either one of us would be preoccupied with other tasks on the computer. Call me a hardcore multi-tasker, but when it comes to love, I'd hate to share my then-boyfriend with anyone or anything else, even if it's just a game of Yahoo! checkers with his friends.

TIP: Skype is definitely a viable method for couples to keep in touch. However, do ensure that you have a reliable connection as well as reasonably good earpiece and mic before you begin your Skype date. Otherwise, you may need to put up with interrupted conversations and that will do little to enhance your long distance relationship. Download Skype here.

Finally, we decided that the best way to communicate is via our good old mobile slash cell phone. However, after a day of talking to each other on the phone, the sudden increase in our phone bills scared me quite a bit. I began to have flash backs of me being shouted at as a teenager when I would rack up huge phone bills. Luckily I discovered that the best way to save and STILL talk on the phone would be to acquire a phone card. Phone cards let cell phone users talk to people locally and internationally without incurring high costs on their phone bills.

TIP: Find a good phone card provider online and you will definitely enjoy the savings so much more. There are TONS of good providers online and they are just CLAMORING to sell you the cheapest cards! I found PhoneBestCard.com to have the best rates so far. They've even got a pretty informative blog that dispenses advice on how to get the best calling cards.

It is up to you to find what works best during the course of your relationship. Good luck! :)