SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER 11

Living in Separate Households

    Would it be correct to say
that the most common assumption about loving relationships
is that the people who are 'in love' want to live together?

    This chapter challenges us to re-think love and togetherness.
How would it change our loving relationships
if we conducted the routine parts of our lives in separate households
and created special times of meaningful sharing?

    As strange as it might seem when first stated,
sometimes being together for practical reasons
can actually cause a voluntary loving relationship
to degenerate into taking each other for granted.
The practical, everyday togetherness replaces active loving.

    How have the living arrangements affected our past relationships?
Most of us have never seriously considered
as a permanent structure of our relationship
living apart from the people we love.
But we might see the possible advantages
if we make explicit to ourselves the problems that can arise
when we unreflectively fall into patterns of living together.

    This chapter also makes explicit some possible benefits
from having separate households.
Choosing to be together when we both want it
can make our loving relationship better
than just assuming that we will see each other regularly.

    "Living in Separate Households" certainly challenges
one of the deepest traditions of relationships.
And most readers will probably not go to the extreme
of setting up separate households,
but at least this new way of loving might give us some ideas
that will help us to improve our patterns of being together and being apart.
Let love be as free as possible.
Choose to love, rather than just assuming it.

HOW READING
"Living in Separate Households"
MIGHT CHANGE YOUR LOVE-LIFE

    Of course, if you follow all of the advice of this chapter,
you will find yourself living in a separate apartment or house
away from the person you love.
And this will have a profound impact on how your relationship develops.
NOT living together will probably shape your relationship
almost as much as NOT having children.

    And even if you do not choose to live separately,
explicitly raising the problems created by living together
might inspire you to invent other creative solutions
to the problems of unchosen togetherness.

    The more fully you become aware
of the problems caused by trying to live together,
the better chance you will have to head off the problems
—problems that sometimes become so severe
that they cause relationships to collapse.

    If you read it carefully, this chapter will certainly help you
to re-examine the daily dynamics of your relationship.

revised 8-4-2007; 9-28-2007; 2-13-2014; 2-24-2017;

If you would like to read the first two pages of this chapter,
"Living in Separate Households" , click that title.
The first page contains the complete table of contents for this chapter
of New Ways of Loving: How Authenticity Transforms Relationships .

Go to the beginning of this website:
James Leonard Park—Free Library .