Can Long-Distance Love Really Work? Relationship Experts Weigh In!

David and Paige Lea are trauma-informed relationship coaches, speakers, and experts in masculine and feminine polarity. As co-owners of Daring Deeply, they guide individuals and couples in breaking free from unhealthy relationship patterns and creating deep, lasting connections through self-awareness and healing.

 In this insightful episode of The Humanity of Fame, host Kali welcomes back David and Paige Lea to explore the dynamics of long-distance relationships, how masculine and feminine energies shape relationship success, and why trust issues and jealousy stem from internal wounds, not external circumstances. Inspired by US Weekly’s feature on actress Sheryl Lee Ralph and her husband, Pennsylvania Senator Vincent Hughes, the discussion focuses on how couples can build trust despite physical distance and how relationship wounds influence our views on love and commitment.

Key Topics:

• The Reality of Long-Distance Relationships: How successful couples navigate trust and emotional security despite physical separation.
• Masculine & Feminine Energy in Relationships: Understanding how polarity and balance impact attraction, leadership, and emotional connection.
• Healing Jealousy & Trust Issues: Why jealousy and infidelity fears stem from unresolved childhood wounds, not external factors.
• Overcoming Codependency: The difference between healthy independence and emotional detachment in relationships.
• Commitment & Self-Responsibility: Why true relationship success starts with individual healing, not external control over a partner.

Potential Listener Questions:

1. Can long-distance relationships really work, or do they naturally lead to infidelity?
2. How do masculine and feminine energies influence attraction and trust in relationships?
3. Why do people automatically assume cheating in long-distance relationships?
4. What steps can someone take to heal past relationship trauma and build emotional security?

References and Links:

• Connect with David & Paige Lea: Daring Deeply Website
• Explore their relationship coaching programs: Daring Deeply Coaching
• Follow them on Instagram for relationship insights: @DaringDeeply

Final Thoughts:

David & Paige emphasize that relationship success is a choice, not a coincidence. Whether long-distance or living together, trust, communication, and understanding masculine/feminine dynamics are key to building a thriving partnership.

Find out more about Kali and the show HERE: https://humanityoffame.com/

Transcript

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) So it's not someone makes you jealous. That's impossible. We can't make anyone feel anything. We feel we're triggered, but no one is triggering us. Hi, you guys, it's Kali. Welcome to Humanity of Fame. Thank you for joining me. I hope you guys are having a good day. And today we're just going to jump right into it. All right. So today we're going to take a look at the unique and inspiring dynamics of long distance love. But let me start first by welcoming back my guest, co-owners of Dearing Deeply, David and Paige Lee. Together they serve as trauma-informed coaches, speakers, and teachers of masculine and feminine polarity. Welcome back you guys. Hi, Kali. It's good to be back. Good to be back. Thank you. Thank you. Great to have you. Okay. So I'm going to ask because we're talking about opposites. So in cases where couples such as yourself and others who have long distance relationships for whatever reasons, if they are successful or what is deemed as successful, would you consider that instead of opposite, a more balanced type of, like what is the, what's opposite of opposite? A match. A match, right? Aligned. Aligned. Aligned. There you go. Yeah. So an aligned relationship looks like a man is more in his healing, masculine energy. That's what I was alluding to before where he's leading the relationship, not controlling the relationship, but he's leading the relationship and she is the receiver. She is in her healthy feminine energy where she is softened and surrendering and radiant and beautiful and arousing and creative and ideative. She is more in that feminine energy and that will always attract a man in his more of his power, his strength, his leadership, his devotion. That is a healthy polarized marriage relationship. That's what we're teaching and coaching and that's what Paige and I strive to be in every single day. It really does come down to alignment within yourself. So as David mentioned, yeah, as David mentioned, I spent many, many years in my masculine energy and I knew for a long, long time that that was incredibly defeating, deflating, exhausting, like demanding. It was requiring a lot from me that I just felt like I didn't have to give any more long term. And so I was tired, I was exhausted, and it was attracting feminine energy out of everyone else around me in my circles. And I was getting mad at them for, of course, the way I was choosing to show up. So my work has been to come back to my core energy, which is what David was referring to, so that I feel aligned within myself. Because when I feel aligned in my feminine energy, life feels expansive. It feels big and abundant and super safe and fun and joy filled. And I get to play and create and it feels like warm and fuzzy and fluffy and wonderfully secure in every possible way. That feels like home base to me. That feels really, really wonderful as my core energy. David, it doesn't have a core energy like that. He doesn't want to feel fluffy and warm and creative. His core energy is his masculine energy. That's what feels most aligned and life-giving for him. And so when we want to be in an aligned relationship or aligned partnership, it really starts with coming back to that home base within you, that core energy, the inner alignment within your own self, so that you can attract and be in a relationship with the most aligned partner too. And when the two of you are in alignment, not only within yourselves, but now harmonizing together, that's when it's one plus one equals 10, not one plus one equals two. So hopefully that helps to expand on finding that alignment here first within yourself so that you have harmony within your relationship. Gotcha. Gotcha. And you're not attracting the opposites, unknowingly. Exactly. Gotcha. Gotcha. What steps can partners take to address attachment-related fears when they're living apart? So for example, if a person has a fear of mistrust, of jealousy, or something like that, and that shows up, right? What type of steps can a person take when that shows up? Just to add a level of security or what can they do? So I want to address, and I even took some notes here to share with your audience, Callie, because it's really, really important to understand first that we do not subscribe, first of all, we don't subscribe to any labeling system. So we don't leverage attachment style. We believe that it's actually a way in which to keep us from our healing because now we're focused on labeling someone as anxiously attached or avoidantly attached. They're not anxiously attached or you're not avoidantly attached. You have avoidance, which is a wounded feminine energy, and that's all related back to your childhood wounding. Okay? So it's really important to understand if there's attachment, and from our perspective, for the large part, attachment in and of itself is unhealthy. We're never to attach ourselves to anything or anyone. Now, obviously there's necessary attachment with child and parent that needs to happen that's healthy. That's not what I'm referring to, but attaching to someone is codependence in a relationship. And jealousy and envy, by the way, jealousy only exists intrinsically. In fact, I wrote this quote down. I want to share this with your audience. Jealousy, Callie, is not circumstantial. It's internally systemic. Oh, break that down. It's not circumstantial. In other words, it has nothing to do with anyone else or any other external experience. You're jealous of your partner because you're jealous inside. You are carrying a jealous wound, an envious wound, and that all emanates from an original wound back in childhood. So we are carrying those wounds into the relationship. So it's not someone makes you jealous. That's impossible. We can't make anyone feel anything. We feel we're triggered, but no one is triggering us. So someone not returning a phone call and then suddenly we go into a jealous state has nothing to do with them, has everything to do with us not feeling secure and attached to our own ability to know who we are. I am never concerned about Paige stepping out on me, ever, and here's why. Because I'm secure in myself. If she chooses to make that decision, Callie, that's on her, has nothing to do with me. If she chooses to go a different direction, well, that's her choice. Now, I may have some questions, but the reality is she is making those decisions and the same with us. If I choose to step outside of our marriage, that's my choice. It's not a choice I certainly want to make here in this state, but it has nothing to do with your partner. Cheating has nothing to do with the opposite partner, has everything to do with deep levels of insecurity that is a result of root causes back into childhood, which says, I need to attach myself. I need to be dissociated. I need to be distracted. I need the attention of many different people in order to ensure that I feel worthy. That's what cheating is. That's what jealousy is. That's what infidelity is. It has nothing to do with your partner, has everything to do with once upon a time you were cheated on as a child. In other words, betrayal is a huge, deep wound somewhere within your childhood. That's what we help our clients begin to identify because if they're carrying jealous wounds and they've been betrayed in the past, it's real. It's true. I understand it. I get it. It's got to be healed and it has nothing to do with our partner. I don't want to say intense, but it's so deep what you just said. And I wanted to find another word to use to describe because I didn't want to use deep, but it is what it is. Paige, you have anything to add to that? Because what I was thinking when David was speaking and he was saying what it has to do with and what it doesn't have to do with, I was thinking of what you just said earlier as far as being aligned with yourself. So understanding why am I introducing this into the relationship? What exactly is this? What is this in my feeling and where is it coming from? We often hear so many times that, oh, okay, I'm going to stick to the long distance topic. Oh, okay. Well, if we saw each other more, or if you did this more, if you did that more than I wouldn't do, I wouldn't have done. So it's always the other person's fault. So it was very interesting to hear you, David, say that it's intrinsic, right? It's intrinsic. It's not necessarily, and you use the word choose, choice. Basically, you have a choice in the matter, right? Absolutely. Yeah. I'm choosing to step out. I'm choosing to have an affair. Nothing that Paige is doing compels me or forces me to do anything ever. She is not responsible for me and I'm not responsible for her. I'm not committed to her, Callie. Hold on tight. I'm not committed to her. I'm not committed to our marriage. Tighten my hat. Yeah, exactly. I am committed to me first, which means I am committing to my healing growth and transformation. So I know who I am. I'm secure in who I am. For me to step out of myself and invite a different energy, that is a betrayal of me. Has nothing to do with her. So I don't hover over her and make sure that she does her work and her inner this and that and growth and transformation. No, she's responsible for hers. I'm responsible for mine. The beauty and the power that comes out of that is that we are committed and on the same trajectory. In fact, how we define a relationship, and I might've said this last time, Callie, is that I am committed to my daily healing growth and transformation so that then I can support my wife who is committed to do the same. That's all the relationship is. It's not till death do us part. It's not ensuring that we don't cheat on each other. It's not building a 401k or having 2.5 dogs. Okay. It is, I am committed to my own healing and growth and transformation because if I'm taking care of myself, Callie, imagine the kind of husband I can be for Paige. Imagine the type of father I can be for our children. Imagine, right? If I'm taking care of me, then I'm far less concerned about what she's doing or not doing because it has nothing to do with me. Very, very interesting take. Very interesting. Okay.