Couples who can’t live together

[Troutbag]

It seems a lot of couples are perfectly fine but tensions arise when they start to live together.

Would the solution be to just not live together long-term?

Has anyone done this and it worked? Or if you can’t live together, is that it?

I've been with my partner 11 years and don't live together. Ideal situation

I know people who are in a long term relationship and don't live together. They spend time together, stay over sometimes, holiday together but ultimately value their own space - if it works for them then why not? I'm happily married with grown up kids but if anything were to happen and we split, I don't think I'd ever want to live with someone else. I like my own space!

There is no rule that people in LTRs have to share a bed, a room or a home. Or a bank account. Whatever works for them.

We lived separately for 7 years because blending families is not something you walk into lightly. And yes it worked really well.

I know quite a few happy longterm couples who don't -- in some cases, because they don't want to blend families, in some cases because they work long distances apart in jobs they don't want to give up, but also just because it works. I know someone whose DH lives mostly in France while she lives in Ireland. DH and I spent six months a year living in two different countries for almost a decade.

Living together isn’t the end goal for everyone.

10 years together, neither of us has the blindest bit of interest in sharing our home with the other.

I have no strong feelings on it either way except when it comes to children that both of the parents (in that couple) share. How would that work?

DP and I have never lived together. We've been together for over 6 years now.
Initially logistics meant that wouldn't work, we lived a bit too far of a commute apart and had DC in schools. But actually I don't think we will ever move in together now. I mean ... if I win the Euromillions and can but a massive house maybe !

But we like our own space, we don't fight over chores, we probably make more of an effort to do stuff when we are together (which is basically 4/5 days in 14). It works for us.

Friends of mine. Married 12 years with 2DC’s divorced. They now meet weekly for coffee. They go once a month for a meal and holiday for a fortnight together annually.
Neither of them wanted anyone else.
They both agree that living together was impossible, they would be at each other’s throats.

I don’t think most of these couples are likely to have children that they share. Most of these people I know who don’t live together are either childfree or have children from previous relationships. The only two exceptions I can think of are one couple who share a mid-teenage daughter who lives with her mother during termtime and her father in the school holidays and seems to thrive on it, and one ultra-rich acquaintance of DH’s who has two young children from two relationships in two different countries. He’s still in the second relationship, I think, (it’s not entirely clear as he usually seems to be on his private jet on his way somewhere), but extra complexities are added by his tax exile status meaning he can only spend a certain number of days in the country where his partner and their child live…

The examples of this I know is that one person in the couple on benefits can’t move in without losing their benefits or single mums on paper get way more handouts without the man’s income so the man hasn’t moved in.

10 years with my partner we tried living together it was a disaster . I have a son prefer just living the two of us

Almost ten years together, no intention of living together. We spend every weekend and holidays together but I value my own space and peace.

My Mum and Step-Dad never lived together, even after they married. He had teenage kids and she was so done with that stage of life by that point (me and my brother were in our 20s and I had a kid of my own).

They both also loved their own homes, and liked having their own space that was theirs.

They'd generally spend a couple of nights at his, a couple of nights at hers, and a couple of nights alone each week. They each had keys to each others houses and would pop in and out freely, even if the other wasn't home.

They saw each other pretty much every day, but probably had more seperate lives than they would have had if they'd lived together, they'd often take holidays separate from each other for instance.

They were really happy together, they were only married for 10 years because my Mum passed away in her mid-50s, but I think had she lived a long life they'd have kept their setup going for a good long while, maybe moving in together in their 70s when they started needing to support each other a bit more.

I think it depends on stage of life and what you want out of a relationship. If you’re young and want to start a family then living in separate houses isn’t a great start. If you’re later in life and want your own space and the company of a partner for dates etc but still maintaining the boundary of going home to own places, and both can afford to do that, then great.

It’s a financial thing as well though really, it is so expensive now to live, not many people could afford to pay a set of bills each and still have money left over for fun/dates etc.

I'll never live with a man again if god forbid something happened to my husband.

As it stands, we have seperate bedrooms. Human adults, need their own space in some way.

It’s not really a proper relationship if you never live together etc.

But maybe a better relationship if not niggling about each other's living habits etc. it's largely a financial decision for many as most people find it better to share housing costs.

This but I'm ten years in. We are working on the assumption that we will be able to live together in maybe 5 more years when all kids are independent but we'll see.

Says who? I wasn't aware there was an objective definition of 'proper' relationship.

And that's fine. If the children involved aren't the biological children.of one of them, they should have no obligation to support them.

Bullshit.