Married and Living Apart (evolve, Articles)

[angellous_evangellous]

Interesting article on msn: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13476989/site/newsweek/

It sounds like a good idea to me, but I like living with my wife. We have seperate rooms in our house for privacy: we have seperate offices that dual as rooms that facilitate our hobbies. We have a large three bedroom house and no kids, and the two office setup has worked out great, but she wants a bedroom as a guest-room and she's movin' in on my turf.

My answer to her when she ased was: Sure you can move into my office, as long as I can sell your car to buy a Collings.

[MidnightBlue]

Originally Posted by angellous_evangellous

It sounds like a good idea to me, but I like living with my wife. We have seperate rooms in our house for privacy: we have seperate offices that dual as rooms that facilitate our hobbies. We have a large three bedroom house and no kids, and the two office setup has worked out great, but she wants a bedroom as a guest-room and she's movin' in on my turf.

We have a three-bedroom house. One room is the library/office, which we share, but which is dominated by my books. (That's where I am now.)

John's insistence on tidiness completely destroys my ability to keep up with where anything is. I like things out where I can see them; he likes everything put away. So the guest room is officially designated as the place where I'm allowed to stack books and papers on the furniture without having somebody come along and "clean up after" me. That's the theory. In practice, my stacks of books and papers find their way into the office and the den, and his compulsion to tidy up won't allow him to let the guest room go completely to seed, so we've evolved a different sort of compromise where each just tries not to drive the other completely round the bend.

We could really live in one big room except for the fact that I'm a night person and he's a morning person, and we need someplace quiet where he can get to sleep early and I can sleep in. We always eat in the den, and in our old apartment we had our computers set up on tables in front of the sofas in the den, so we could be on the computer while watching tv and we could both be in the same room whether we both wanted to watch tv or not. However, we didn't find that a sofa makes a good work station.

I don't think we'd ever even consider living apart, though, unless we broke up altogether. John has two weekends a year when he works sixteen hour days, and I consider those good opportunities to go see my granny or go off on a little research trip. Other than that, we've never even considered spending the night apart, and the only time we do anything separately on a social level is on Mother's Day, when he visits his mother and I visit mine.

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by MidnightBlue

We have a three-bedroom house. One room is the library/office, which we share, but which is dominated by my books. (That's where I am now.)

John's insistence on tidiness completely destroys my ability to keep up with where anything is. I like things out where I can see them; he likes everything put away. So the guest room is officially designated as the place where I'm allowed to stack books and papers on the furniture without having somebody come along and "clean up after" me. That's the theory. In practice, my stacks of books and papers find there way into the office and the den, and his compulsion to tidy up won't allow him to let the guest room go completely to seed, so we've evolved a different sort of compromise where each just tries not to drive the other completely round the bend.

We could really live in one big room except for the fact that I'm a night person and he's a morning person, and we need someplace quiet where he can get to sleep early and I can sleep in. We always eat in the den, and in our old apartment we had our computers set up on tables in front of the sofas in the den, so we could be on the computer while watching tv and we could both be in the same room whether we both wanted to watch tv or not. However, we didn't find that a sofa makes a good work station.

I don't think we'd ever even consider living apart, though, unless we broke up altogether. John has two weekends a year when he works sixteen hour days, and I consider those good opportunities to go see my granny or go off on a little research trip. Other than that, we've never even considered spending the night apart, and the only time we do anything separately on a social level is on Mother's Day, when he visits his mother and I visit mine.

That's justification enough for seperate offices. In the summer, my office is perfectly tidy. When I'm doing serious research, I usually have about 1000 pages of journal articles and up to 200 books laying around, most open to the pages that I need. It's absolute chaos. We're having to put bookcases in our living room and bedroom due to her move.

The good thing is I'll have a second desk (hers) on which to stack my stuff.

Once my wife's mother came over unexpectantly and my wife organized my mess. She hasn't done that again.

[SoyLeche]

I don't think I'd like it, but then again, we've got a kid so that complicates the issue.

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by SoyLeche

I don't think I'd like it, but then again, we've got a kid so that complicates the issue.

We wouldn't like living apart, either.

I like having her around.

[MidnightBlue]

Originally Posted by angellous_evangellous

That's justification enough for seperate offices. In the summer, my office is perfectly tidy. When I'm doing serious research, I usually have about 1000 pages of journal articles and up to 200 books laying around, most open to the pages that I need. It's absolute chaos.

I knew I liked you for a reason!

The workstation I want is a huge horseshoe shaped arrangement with the computer at the top of the arc and stepped sides so I can have lots of open books around me. I never need 200 open books, but I often need ten or twenty or more, and almost always need at least three or four. To be perfectly frank about it, I'd really like to have two or three networked computers to myself, too, because split-screen arrangements don't really work for me.

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by MidnightBlue

I knew I liked you for a reason!

The workstation I want is a huge horseshoe shaped arrangement with the computer at the top of the arc and stepped sides so I can have lots of open books around me. I never need 200 open books, but I often need ten or twenty or more, and almost always need at least three or four. To be perfectly frank about it, I'd really like to have two or three networked computers to myself, too, because split-screen arrangements don't really work for me.

Sweet! I've gotten a lot better at having all those open books laying around (mostly because I've started quoting myself ), but if the wife wants to see me when I'm working, I need to work fast and not worry about finding stuff when I need it.

[evearael]

With my husband in the military, we are already forced to be apart for large stretches of time... I couldn't imagine voluntarily doing that while he is home and like SoyLeche we have our daughter to consider.

[Buttercup]

I cannot fathom living apart. In fact, in the 5 years we've been married we've only spent one night apart...and that was against our will and unavoidable. I usually can't even fall asleep until he's gotten into bed. Other than that I am fiercely independent and insist on making my own money.

Rick and his ex lived apart for three years.....it doesn't work well for most couples and one of the reasons he's remarried.