Separate But Happy

Separate But Happy

Do two people in love have to always be together?

Because I’ve been known to have a one-track mind, I’m still thinking about what I wrote about last week: Should some people just stay single?

My partner and I have been talking about this a lot lately. We are two of the most compatible people I’ve ever known. We live together. We run a business together. We work in our home office together.

And we are completely and utterly sick of each other. Actually, that’s not entirely true. We’re not sick of each other, we’re sick of not being alone.

Here’s the thing: We’re both very independent people. We’re both people pleasers. We both go out of our way to make the other person desperately, completely, ragingly happy. It’s exhausting, and I don’t think we want to do it any more.

We want to eat what we want for dinner. We want to stop discussing the color of paint on the walls. We want to stop planning and talking and communicating. We both just want to be left alone.

I was reading one of my favorite columnists, Lisa Kogan from Oprah’s O Magazine. She and her — what? Husband? Fiance? Boyfriend? Non-domestic partner? — live in two different countries and have no plans to change that situation. They’re in love. They’re monogamous. They’re happy. They see each other once a month.

I wonder if that would work for us. I mean, separate continents might be a bit much. I’m not in love with the idea of schlepping the baby across the ocean on a monthly basis. But maybe separate places in the same city might work.