How Expats Can Survive the Long-Distance Relationship

For most of their 14-year relationship, Jessica Powell and Luke Miner have been able to live in the same place as each other—from New York to Paris to Tokyo to London to Moscow, and back to California. But in 2010, while living in London, as Mr. Miner pursued a Ph.D in economics, Ms. Powell was offered a job transfer to Tokyo, running Google’s communications in Asia.

“I was really done with living in cold places,” she said. They agreed that she would spend no more than two years in Tokyo, and since Mr. Miner had reached the stage of writing his dissertation, he could live there part of the time while finishing it. In the end, they spent 18 months living apart, but visiting each other regularly.

The couple had to spend time apart again in 2012, when they moved to Moscow for Mr. Miner’s new professorship, but then Ms. Powell took up a job in California. “The deal was that, if he loved Russia, I would move back to Russia,” she said. After finishing the academic year, however, Mr. Miner had a fellowship offer at Stanford and joined her in California instead.

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