'We're arguing and want to live apart but stay together as a couple'

Dear Coleen

My partner and I have two ­children together aged four and two, but we’re not getting on living with each other.

We’ve found that if we have some time apart we get on well, but things revert to being stressful once we’ve been living under the same roof again for a while. We love each other – that’s not in question – but co-habiting at this stage in our lives is a nightmare.

We argue a lot over the kids, as we have different parenting styles. He’s pretty old school and quite strict, which I hate, whereas I’m much more relaxed and like to give the kids more freedom.

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We both work, so the juggle is real, and we’re tired and grumpy a lot of the time, which doesn’t help.

Recently, we’ve talked about living apart but staying together as a couple. I know it’s unconventional when you have kids, but I think it could work for us.

Have you heard of any other families with this set up? My mum thinks it’s a slippery slope and that my partner will opt out of childcare and do what he likes – she’s not his biggest fan.

I think we both need our own space, which is hard to get in our tiny house with two kids under five.

Coleen says

You asked if I’d heard of other couples with kids living apart – the answer is only divorced and separated ones. In terms of different parenting styles, I think this is very common among couples and it’s often a good cop/bad cop scenario.

Parenting is hard and particularly exhausting at this stage. I remember saying to both my exes: “What did we ever argue about before we had kids?”

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It’s a huge change in lifestyle and inevitably puts pressure on your relationship. There’s nothing wrong with each of you taking breaks – you need that to recharge and reset, but living apart feels kind of permanent to me.

I think you’d need to set clear boundaries around what living separately actually means for you as a couple and then give it a go to see if it works.

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Your mum is probably worried that your partner will take this as a green light to start acting like a single man, doing what he wants and seeing the kids when he feels like it. So, you’d have to agree parenting would be shared 50/50.

You also need to think about how you’ll feel if you see him out with his mates, doing things without you. And the same goes for him. Will resentment and jealousy creep in?

And consider how it might affect your children and how they’ll see this arrangement as they grow up. I’m not sure it will look any different than separation and divorce.

The other way to look at is, you’re in it together and a way through it might be to arrange childcare and take breaks together to reconnect.

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