A shared universe › Blog › Missing someone who is far away · Español
There is an empty chair at Sunday lunch, a phone you glance at at the hour they usually call, a parcel you pack with things they can’t find over there. When the person you love lives far away, the distance creeps into the small details of every day.
According to Spain’s National Statistics Institute, on 1 January 2026 more than 3.2 million people with Spanish nationality were registered as living abroad. Not all of them left from here, since many were born abroad, but behind many of them are parents, grandparents, siblings and friends who stayed. And many of the people who have come to Spain from other countries have their families thousands of kilometres away.
Add to that children who study or work in another city, couples living apart because of work and friends who have moved. The researcher Loretta Baldassar, of the University of Western Australia, studied Italian migrants in Australia and their elderly parents in Italy, and in a 2008 paper argued that missing someone and longing for them are not only a sorrow: they are what drives families to make the effort to stay together. Seen that way, missing someone is a sign that the bond is still alive, and it hurts because that person matters.
Baldassar described four ways in which families feel together despite the distance:
These ways complement one another. Together they make up a way of being close that doesn’t depend only on sharing a home.
In 2013, the researchers Crystal Jiang and Jeffrey Hancock published a study comparing dating couples who lived far apart with others who lived close by. The participants kept a diary in which they noted each time they communicated with their partner, in person, by phone, by video call or by message. They gathered more than three thousand interactions.
The long-distance couples communicated less often but felt closer. They shared more personal things and tended to see what the other did in a better light. According to Jiang, they made more of an effort to show affection, and that effort paid off.
The study was done with couples, and can’t simply be transferred to parents and children or to friends. Even so, it leaves an idea that may be useful to you: what brings people closer is not the quantity of contact but what is said in it.
Seeing the other person in a better light has its risk. In 2007, Laura Stafford and Andy Merolla, of Ohio State University, studied long-distance dating couples. While they were apart they stayed stable, even more so than those living close by. But when they were back together they were more likely to break up. The longer they went without seeing each other, the more they idealised the other and the worse they fared at the reunion.
It is not a reason to worry, but a clue. Perhaps it helps to tell each other the ordinary things too, the grey days, what goes wrong. That way, when you see each other again, you will meet the real person and not a touched-up memory.
Today it is possible to know almost at any moment what the other person is doing. The researcher Mirca Madianou, of the University of London, studied Filipino families with members who had migrated to the United Kingdom and spoke of a background closeness: a constant awareness, without needing to talk, of the other’s life. In solid relationships, that closeness was reassuring. In those that already had tensions, it could bring more friction and a sense of being controlled.
That is why it is wise not to demand an immediate reply or to read every silence as a bad sign. A few hours without answering can have a thousand explanations that have nothing to do with you.
If the person who is far away is having a hard time, you can also light a star for them.
The day of the reunion is a celebration, but it can bring some awkwardness: each of you has changed a little, there are new habits and it is hard to find your place again. Giving yourselves a few days helps.
Then comes another goodbye, which sometimes hurts more because you already know what’s coming. Give yourself permission to be sad on those days. Missing someone has no cure, but it is easier to bear in company.
The distance won’t fit in 280 characters, but what you hope for will: the next trip, the next call, that things go well for them. Write it on a “For someone” star with “What I hope for”. It will shine for seven days, and whoever passes by can leave a line of hope.