Need Some Space

The oldest breakup line in the book could be the newest secret to staying together

- Jennifer Teeman

IT SOUNDED LIKE A BREAKUP. About a year into dating, Laurel turned to Joey in bed and said: “I know this is when people talk about moving in together, but I just don’t want to do it.”

Joey, 45, felt a wave of relief. Laurel, 35, was relieved he was relieved.

The couple has been together for eight happy years now, and the entire time they’ve lived apart. Not the sitcom-y she’s-in-7B-he’s-in-2C apart. We’re talking different postcodes. You could watch an episode of Ozark in the back of an Uber in the time it takes to go from his place to hers. They say they’re absolutely committed to each other. They just don’t want to live together. Not now. Not ever.

It’s not that marriage is out of the question. But if they get married, they’re not shacking up. And if they had to move in together, they would each require their own bedroom and separate workspace.

They each like to live a certain way, for starters. His place is dark and has a large workbench in the living room for projects. Hers, light and brightly decorated, has plenty of room for pet birds. That’s right: she lives with parakeets, but she won’t live with him. And he’s cool with that.

Facebook doesn’t offer a relationship status that precisely captures Joey and Laurel’s particular brand of coupledom, but sociologists call it Living Apart Together (LAT). Which, sure, sounds like a dystopian assisted-living facility, but it encapsulates a growing and agreedupon distance between an increasing number of couples.