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?

But people have their homes BEFORE meeting their partners surely? Or are they living on the streets? Please explain

Likely to be for bringing up children together alot of the time.
And there are some happy families

That's it, it works for them. Brilliant!

I don't know whats worse, getting together, getting married, having a family, 20+ years together, then divorce and then hanging out with you ex, effectively being a couple but are divorced.

Or never taking the step to marry in the first place

12 years in we live about 70 miles apart. See each other every weekend and all school holidays. He’ll move in eventually, and we’re going to have separate rooms. Seems a fantastic solution to us.

How are your finances managed?
Just out of interest.
Childcare costs /rent or mortgage etc

Point taken. If couples have children, there will be periods of mat leave, child care costs etc. Extremely difficult to navigate this unless a high earner.

It's probably fairly unusual for couples in this situation to have shared children.

I can't imagine anyone living separately with dependant children.

Grown up children no issues. The divorced back together couples I know both have children and grandchildren.

Well this is second relationships where you both presumably have homes to start with (especially as each have DC) so there's no extra "affording". We are each living as we did before we met

Nonsense. All relationships are as valid as each other. Being committed to another person doesn't mean less if they don't live together.

The fact that you don't live together defeats the point surely? Wouldn't you want to be with eachother all the time? IMHO it's weird if you don't 🫣

Why does it make the relationship less because society says so?

Ok so I assume you spend 24/7 with your husband? That sounds very co dependent and unhealthy to me.

Most people who live together don't spend 24/7 together

I think some people just need their own space.
You might well get two people who love one another, enjoy each other's company.

But when it comes to living together one being tidier than the other. Or one likes music the other TV.

Having their own space just helps rather than grinding each other down.

My requirement for our next house is somewhere we have space for a proper second bed (our current house is one bedroom, then one office each - no space for a 'spare' bed). DH and I just have really different sleep patterns and likes/dislikes - if we had our way we'd probably only share a couple of nights a week. I know a surpising number of couples who do this, I think it's more common than most of us realise.

My MiL met her partner 40+ years ago. At the time my husband would have been in his early teens and she didn’t want to disrupt his life by moving in a partner. Apparently they had discussed the possibility once he went to uni. My husband never moved back home once at uni he stayed in the city after.

They just never moved in together, they go on holidays and spend weekends together and events etc. As time as gone on he had moved out of town to a small village, she prefers the town living.

They both happy and it works for them.

I think its quite common too.

If you ever watched The Crown, the Queen & P Philip had adjoining bedrooms.

Charles and Camilla still have their separate houses.

Tell us, what is the point of any relationship?

Wouldn't you want to be with eachother all the time?

Absolutely not. There isn't a single person on the planet I'd want to spend all of my time with. Cohabitation and an inability to have any time to myself was probably the biggest factor in my leaving a very long-term relationship.

IMHO it's weird if you don't

Well that's just the weird thing about human beings - we're all fundamentally different, and I can't imagine how anyone could possibly spend their entire life in the company of one other person without eventually wanting to stave their head in.

Are they your children together or from previous relationships?

Do you think they go to.the bog together? That's where my brain went.

Me and DH were "together" for 10 years before we married and started living together. We'd holiday together 3/4 times per year, stay over, etc., but didn't "need" to live together and we both had our own careers, families, friends, hobbies etc.

We really only married and bought a house because we wanted to have children and didn't want to do that unmarried or living apart. Otherwise I think we'd have happily continued to be a "separate" couple.

We both say that we wouldn't marry/live with another person if anything happens to either of us. We'd both hope to have another relationship(s) but not involving living together, nor marrying, nor integrating ourselves/families.

Neither of us regret what we've done, i.e. marriage and a child, and we've been happy, but neither of us consider it essential to live together and be fully integrated for "love/companionship".

My DM delayed retiring to get out the house and away from my DF. He was at home all day (was unable to work for years before he hit pension age) so when she got home from work, she was pretty much expected to entertain him and have no time to herself. She quite often also wanted to stave his head in 😂
He would just watch shit like GBNews when she was out, and want to discuss it all when she got in.

I have lived with partners twice. I will never do it again.

Sad to have such a narrow view of life and relationships.

Hadn't even crossed my mind lol