Dual Dwelling Duos: Couples Who Live Apart...

By Judye Hess

Several years ago, in 2001, I wrote an article for the Journal of Couples Therapy with my colleague from the California Institute of Integral Studies, Padma Catell. The article was entitled "Dual Dwelling Duos, An Alternative for Long-term Relationships." In this article we proposed an alternative form of relationship in which each member of a couple chooses to retain their own separate domicile while still being in a committed, monogamous and loving relationship. We termed this life style the "Dual Dwelling Duos" or DDD's.

In the last three years, the concept of the "Dual Dwelling Duos" has been quoted in a number of places including the recent book by Bay Area writer Sasha Cagen, QuirkyAlone: A Manifesto For Uncompromising Romantics (published by Harper San Francisco in 2004), in the Long Island newspaper, Newsday (2/12/05), and in the Philadelphia Enquirer (7/30/05).

On June 29, 2005, the idea of living separately though married or in a long-term relationship, i.e., DDD's made it to the San Francisco Chronicle in an article by Adair Lara. In her article, Lara liberally quotes from our article in the Journal of Couples Therapy, interspersed with interviews from several married couples who express satisfaction living this life style, and mentions some famous literary figures and movie stars who are known for living in this fashion.
Lara begins by writing, "Virginia Woolf dreamed of a room of one's own, but there are larger dreams: a house of one's own." She continues, "It's almost a trend. A 2003 census report found that 3 million married couples lived in separate residences. Some live in different units in the same apartment building; some in different cities; some just divide up the house they have into two addresses with one electric bill."

Examples of the rich and famous who favor this lifestyle are "British novelist Margaret Drabble and her husband, writer Michael Holyrod, who put a flat between them; Mia Farrow and Woody Allen who, when they were married, put a large urban park between them; Simone de Beauvoir and Jean- Paul Sartre who had a part of Paris between them." So how does this pertain to the ordinary couples with more limited incomes?

From Lara's interviews with a number of such folks, including yours truly, as well as from the Letters to the Editor which appeared in the Chronicle the following week, it seems that there are quite a number of "ordinary people" who are choosing to live the DDD lifestyle and making it work for them, despite any increased costs. These couples mention as some reasons why this kind of lifestyle works well for them, such things as their "different tastes in décor," their "liking of their own space," their separate friends, and their "spiritual independence." They mention how living apart "captures the feelings of dating," of excitement and freshness in coming together from their own spaces. One couple who reports living happily in their respective inexpensive rentals expressed, "Getting together on weekends is like having a continual honeymoon." The folks who seem to favor living in this fashion seem to be very independent, and in the words of the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke, are willing "to give to one another the great gift of standing guard over one another's solitude."

One of the hardest things about living apart from your beloved may be explaining it to others. The husband in one of Lara's couples reported, "When others first hear of our arrangement, they look at me and my wife "the way King Kong looked at Fay Wray when she was first in his palm, with that "What is this?" look.

And perhaps this is what we, as educators and therapists, or even as concerned human beings, need to take from this article. Because the notion of married people living together is so much a part of our culture, many folks for whom this DDD lifestyle could actually work, are afraid to go against the mainstream values to really live it. They are afraid of what others may think of them, their relationship and their life choices. If we in the helping professions or as loyal friends or family members, have similar judgments around such arrangements being "an avoidance of intimacy," or some other form of psychopathology, this will come across to our clients or friends.

No one is saying that the DDD lifestyle is appropriate or desirable for all couples. However, it is clear that more and more couples are starting to consider alternative spatial/emotional arrangements for their relationships, whether it takes the form of having their own bedrooms, own bathrooms, own houses or just taking more space for themselves in their lives without feeling guilty about it. When a couple comes in for therapy or over to talk to a trusted friend or relative about their relationship problems, and complains about having difficulty with their current living arrangement, alternative ones may need to be considered. Believing that there is only one healthy way to have long-term relationships, and repeatedly failing at it, leads to a lot of pain and to repeated feelings of failure for one or both partners. As health care providers or as interested human beings, we need to question society's prejudice that people who love each other and want to be life partners must live under one roof.

Judging from the letters to the editor in the Chronicle the week following Lara's article, many people are needing support and reassurance for their alternative choices. One woman wrote in, "The article greatly reassured me that this new twist in our relationship will be of great value to us, and reading it gave me a feeling that someone was there holding my hand as I embark upon the adventure of living alone, something which I have not done my entire adult life." Another one said, "I am going to print out multiple copies of the article to pass out every time someone asks me why we don't live together. I agree, it definitely keeps our twelve-year relationship, fresh." "One woman sent me an email saying, "I'm so glad to hear that my boyfriend of ten years and I aren't crazy!"

We need to realize that if there were more options available for long-term relationships and these options were considered healthy and desirable, some of us could be spared the trauma of divorce or break-up of our relationships. The time has come to experiment with coupling in alternative ways rather than hold fast to the narrowly defined dictates of mainstream society.

This fall, the Dual Dwelling Duos made it to national television. The CBS News staff interviewed me at my home about my experience as a couple's therapist and as a DDD myself. The segment aired on The Early Show on November 21, 2005. The broadcaster introduced the Dual Dwelling Duos by saying, "This could be the marriage of the future." Will it be? I guess we will all find out soon enough.