One OU student is five months, 120 miles and a wedding away from his future wife, and the couple’s wedding plans must endure the distance, which has separated them for four years and counting.

Petroleum engineering junior Andrew Price said he and his fiancé have sustained their relationship online and over the phone since they officially became a couple more than four years ago.

Price said he and his fiancé dealt with growing pains as the couple adjusted, but ironically, the distance has improved communication and trust between himself and his girlfriend, who attends Northwestern University in Enid.

“Being in a long-distance relationship allows you to know the other person on a different level because the physical aspect of a relationship is pretty much non-existent, so you have to have better communication skills,” he said. “Sometimes it can also make hard times in a relationship even harder and more difficult to overcome.”

Price said he is anxious to see how living together will affect their relationship after they get married.

“It will be something completely new for us because we have been in a long distance relationship, and I think that marriage should be completely new in a way,” Price said. “It also puts more pressure on us, not really knowing whether we can or can’t live with each other for a long period of time.”

Price said that above all, the most important aspect of a long distance relationship is to let the other person know that you’re thinking of them.

“We always end our day talking on the phone,” Price said. “We just try to let each other know what’s going on every day, it’s important to our relationship.”

Price isn’t alone in dealing with the stress of a long-distance relationship. Many OU students are going the distance to sustain their relationships as miles, and sometimes continents, separate couples.

Petroleum engineering alumna Lindsey McCarty spent six months away from her partner while studying abroad in Chile in 2007.

McCarty said she and her husband got together two years before her trip to Chile, and their time being physically apart allowed their emotions to grow and mature. Within four months of returning to OU, her boyfriend proposed to her.

“My stay in Chile was kind of like my last time to be alone,” McCarty said. “I could go explore and meet people, and all my time was my own. I got to have my own adventure before we started our life together.”

McCarty said though the distance added stress, her time away from her husband reaffirmed her feelings.

“I think we got to explore different ways of having a relationship that we wouldn’t have known otherwise,” McCarty said. “We probably talked more because that was all we had, and we gained even more trust by being apart. It became very clear that he was the one, and if we could be together from that far apart, we could be together always.”

Jason Bailey, accounting junior, has been dating his girlfriend for about six months, and will not see her until she returns from studying abroad in August.

Bailey said his girlfriend has been in England since January, and will move on to Spain for summer school.

“I talk to her about three or four times a week,” Bailey said. “The time difference is weird, and it’s hard to catch each other at a good time. She’ll be coming in when I’m waking up and the other way around.”

He said other than studying more and saving money, nothing has changed between the couple.

“We decided to stay together, and I guess we’ll see if our relationship has changed or grown when she gets back,” he said.