Married but have seperate homes?

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Hey Y'all;

On account of my Bipolar and what we now know as Asperger's I've gotten to the point where simply living with another person is too stressful and overwhelming.
Meltdowns and blowups were becoming pretty bad.
Had to do something so got my own place to live in November.

There are no kids at home involved, they are now parents themselves.

Sucks that we can't live together, but grand that when we can, we do the "My place or yours?" thing

On days when AS and/or some of the physical stuff I have makes staying home the thing to do, we do get a lot of electrons jumping in the phone and internet wires

We love each other, our marriage will continue.
Just, different, in the way that works for us to still have one.

And, admittedly, it is very nice to have a place for me to get away from noise and commotion.
Just me, the Cat, my books, my train and boat hobbies, some quiet music.
Or, none of that.
Probably wouldn't be here to post without it.

Has anybody else run into this kind of thing?

It's crossed my mind.
Right now, I'm so disgusted that all I want to do is get out of here.
Can't, for financial reasons.
But if it ever happens, and I can get away for a year or two,
who knows...
Maybe we can figure out some kind of a relationship.

I'm of the 'don't live together' school of thought. I'm not a couple and probably never will be but if I was, that's what I'd do. I just can't be around people and language 24/7, it's exhausting.

Hi southwestforests and welcome to the forum!

Interesting topic of yours. I almost got the feeling "I thought we was the only ones"

Me and my husband (no children) lived separated in a period of six years before we got the solution we have today
Now we have two appartments in houses next to each other. One is his and one is mine
But we consider both places as ours together. Its just that he have more of his stuff in one and I have more of mine in the other
One appartment is the master one and the other is more an extension for diffrent needs, from both sides but mostly mine

It's my private fantasy dream....I'm envious.

I love my husband and my kids and am very happy with them / us. But all the togetherness is killing me. I would dearly love to have my own little apartment and come visit my family every day for a few hours, then go back home where it's quiet and orderly and I'm completely alone.

This is the thing that most makes me wish I'd found out I was autistic at a much younger age. Having no idea, I didn't realize how hard living together would be on me. And parenthood...it's literally nearly killed me a few times over the years, as depression slammed me in the face of 24/7 taking care of little people.

But here I am, and my husband definitely does not think living apart would in any way constitute a successful marriage.

The wikipedia article for Helena Bonham Carter says that she and her (Aspie) husband Tim Burton have such an arrangement: "They live in Belsize Park, London, in neighbouring houses with a connecting doorway because they felt they could not live together in the same residence."

I'm NT'ish, recent discovered hub has AS. For years i've suggested buying a house and make it into two flats. I would love that, and think it would help our relatioship enormously. Hub is not having it and says he would rather end our relationship than live in same house with seperate zones.
benefit's (For me)
1) I hate the loneliness when he is absorbed in his special interest.
2) I would get to use the computer
3) I love my own space. I have strong aspie trait regards to sensations and enviroment (not one of his traits). I hate all day TV, sound of grand prix, jeremy claksons voice. The lighting has to be exactly right for me to relax, I need room to be balanced. I prefer to hear birds singing. We have opposite taste in music. Cant stand listening to song with loads of background instruments, or aggresive songs.
4) I could be untidy, yehaaa!! ! and not feel this is a cause for his irratation.
5) I could leave cupboard doors open, top off the toothpaste.
6) I would find me again after years of adapting and treading on eggshells.
7) We could enjoy sexy dates.
He could enjoy his special interest without my irratation
9) I'm sure we would appreciate each other more.
10) It would save our marriage
11) I suspect we would actually live in same flat, but it would be so good to have an escape hatch
12) i'm convinced it would have many benifits for Hub.

I hope I have not offended anyone

Vee

Vee's posts brought to mind, that while totally separate houses, apartments, etc isn't common, it's not unusual for each spouse to have a space that's there own, at least when the house is large enough.

I can imagine having a shared bedroom for sleeping (not that separate bedrooms isn't a possibility), a shared room that's a space for entertaining guests, and, and then each person having their own room, like a study or such, with their computer, TV, stereo system, where they do their own thing.

If I were married, I would have a third room (fourth room if she and I decide to have kids) so she could have a place to pursue her interests (although I prefer that she have the same interests I do, that way, we could share them together).

For some reason, I assumed that setup was normal. Don't most married people have seperate studies, dens, home offices, home workshops/craft rooms? That's always been the case with my husband and me.

That seems like an ideal living situation to me. I could have my stuff in one apartment while my wife has hers in another, not economically viable right now though. Maybe next door to each other so close enough if we want time together but can still have our own personal space. My wife works long hours at the moment and we both like a lot of personal alone time really so this works out quite well for us. If we spend too much time with each other we end up driving each other crazy.

Yes and no. Having a house large enough to allow for that isn't at all normal. My guess is it's pretty normal when space allows. And sometimes, for some people, they may need to make the conscious choice to live where space allows that, because of a higher than normal need for that. (Normal here meaning typical.)

My husband and I share our bedroom and each have our own office. (Each of the kids has his or her own room.) I find this is not enough.

I want less time around other people, and total environmental control. I can keep my office neat and orderly, and no one else comes in to change it around; but the rest of the house .... holy chaos. I can keep that neat, too, but it takes all my time, and there are four other people who constantly come in and move stuff, use stuff, dirty stuff, and so on.

Yes, these people also help clean up, but they don't put the glasses in the cabinet the way I would like them there; don't load the dishwasher the way I consider most efficient; don't put the CDs back in alphabetical order by artist's first name; and so on. Is it unreasonable of me to want these things? Yes, it appears to be.

So I want my very own place. Unfortunately, that is not compatible with my family life.

It appears from this thread its the AS partner who wants seperate living arrangements. In our relationship it's the opposite. I'm the NT'ish wife who wants my own zone where I can be me, invite friends round, and not me moaned at when I have worded a sentence wrong, and desparatly trying to explain the same thing in a different context. I love my own space but my AS husband see's it as it would be the end of our relationship.

I would see it as an exciting start start to a new relationship.

Being generally untidy drives him mad, whereas if he had his own space he could have it nicely organised and know where to find things. I am totally disorganised, cant plan ahead, spontanious etc. This causes him stress, which then makes me stressed.

Why cant he see it's the perfect solution.

interesting thread
Vee

Vee, I think it could be great for both partners, too. One of my stressors is that it really sucks to come downstairs where the rest of your family is enjoying music or a TV program and know that, now you've entered the room, they all feel compelled to turn down the volume, and they no longer feel free to enjoy themselves.

I think I would be much, much less stressed over household chaos if it weren't *my* house. If this house where my husband and kids live was a place I visited every day, but not one I had to live in. Of course I'd do dishes and laundry and all here, but I wouldn't feel that compelling, breath-taking need to get everything orderly, nor the hopeless helplessness in not being able to keep it orderly for more than an hour. At best . This would, in turn, be nice for my family, who could be the way they are without having to answer to the Household Police. Without feeling like I'm constantly annoyed at them for leaving something on the floor.

Really sounds nice.

I have this vague childhood memory of visiting someone who lived in one of this area's few surviving Mormon polygamist houses -- two front doors side by side, two separate interiors (mirror-identical to one another) with a single door on the second floor connecting the two inside. The family found this layout irritating, but I wish it was my house.