Together at last
Coping with a no-distance relationship
‘This looks like a nice house,” said Heather, my granddaughter. “Who lives there?” “Your granddad,” my daughter replied. She was pointing to a photo on an estate agents’ website of the Georgian house where she grew up, and where Heather has stayed many times – but the place has now been so ferociously decluttered that the nine-year-old did not recognise it. And soon, if the bizarre, post-Brexit housing market allows, I won’t be living there any more.
Back in 1974, I moved into what is now gratifyingly described as an “elegant townhouse in protected woodland in a Conservation Area”. Since then, I have found myself making the transition from husband to widower to what really ought to be known as a “LATer”: for, these past nine and a half years, I have been one half of a couple who are Living Apart Together.
My bit of south-east London could be called “Nearly Dulwich”, while my partner Diana lives in “Not Quite Hampstead” in NW5. My home is a short cycle ride from two of my three children; meanwhile, Diana’s house is where her clientele come for her lessons in the Alexander Technique, and which is only a few stops down the Tube line from her daughter. We live together under the same roof – except sometimes it is her roof, sometimes mine. We like each other’s houses, but are based in our own.
In this, we are not alone. “It is safe to say that more and more people are ‘living apart together’,” says Professor Sasha Roseneil of Birkbeck, University of London, who has carried out three research projects about couples who choose not to live together.
According to Prof Roseneil’s most recent research in the UK, about a fifth of all people classified as single are, in fact, in a relationship with someone not living on the premises, making up perhaps a tenth of all adults in Britain. Youth predominates, with nearly half of LATers aged between 16 and 44. Some are prevented by jobs or other commitments from sharing the nest, but about a third prefer (for the present, at least) the greater independence offered by being a LATer.
Most feel that being apart doesn’t strain the relationship; in some cases, it actually helps. Two thirds live within 10 miles of each other, and a fifth are a mile or less – walking distance – from their other half.
But only 5 per cent of LAT-terday folk are in the 65-plus age bracket, and their ranks are soon going to be reduced by two senior citizens. Many eventually decide that they’ve had enough of their long-distance, or even (as in my case) short-distance, relationship and decide to replace it with a no-distance arrangement. Diana and I will soon be permanently under the same roof in the blissful state which we call “LTT” – Living Totally Together.
Hence the estate agents’ board in my front garden. We have found that absence may make the heart grow fonder, but presence promotes even greater fondness. One of the times I particularly regretted having to commute over the 10.5 miles between us was when I pedalled all the way to her house, only to discover that she was in A&E with tubes sticking out of her arms. Her chest pain turned out to be not a heart attack, but a mysterious condition that seems to have been caused by an overdose of frozen cherries; within a few hours, she had thawed out. It would have been reassuring for both of us if I had been in the ambulance when she was whisked into hospital. Although it was a false alarm, it reminded us that she, I and the bicycle are not getting any younger.
When I am chez Diana, I am quite proprietorial about her house. At night, I am the one who locks the front door; I also carefully close the internal doors, a fire precaution she rashly omits. In the morning, I make a mean porridge. When emptying the dishwasher, I put crockery back in roughly the right place. I have got the hang of her wooden clothes-drier, which you heave up on ropes, like a sailor raising the mainsail.
When I move in properly, however, I will have to up my game. Diana runs a tight ship, while I’ve always been a domestic pirate whose idea of tidying has been opening the door of the spare room, chucking stuff in and slamming the door before everything tumbles out.
Can I stand the strain of the new life? Well, moving is always stressful – but should I need an analyst, I will have come to the right postal district; NW5 is heaving with them. Yet another good reason for finally moving in together.
‘We live together – but sometimes under her roof, sometimes under mine’