How much “space” is too much in a relationship? It’s entirely up to the couple. My advice to Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck: Stay together but live apart some of the time. Everyone needs their space. How much space is too much? Up to you.
Love Don’t Cost a Thing
When my husband decided that he loves spending time in LA (and joined a country club there) I told him I was thrilled for him, but have no plans to move there. As a way of compromising, I go to LA with him some of the time. But I make it clear that he is welcome to be in LA-LA Land as often as he likes, but I am not moving. As a born and raised New Yorker, I love my life, my routine and rituals of living in the city, running and walking in Central Park, and spending weekends on Long Island. No amount of beautiful weather and palm trees changes who I feel I am in the core of my being. LA is nice. New York is home.
What does that mean for the marriage? Absolutely nada. People questioned (to our faces) whether we were going to split up. Not likely, at least not in any upcoming decade I can foresee. We love each other and have no intention of changing our status. So I go to LA for winter (January and February is a challenging time to be an outdoorsy person in New York), and he spends a week out of each month there.
I tell this to my girl friends and they often act jealous. “How can I get my husband to leave a week out of every month?” I laugh. It is kind of ideal. At least for me. Everyone is different. I am feircely independent and self-reliant. When he is gone I don’t feel lonesome. I use that time to hunker down and focus on my work, to see gal pals, and get up as early as I like to go workout(run, bike or swim), to watch stupid TV shows he would never tolerate (I have a list for any one who has watched all of Love Is Blind and needs something new and junky to enjoy.)
Staying Together, Living (Part-Time) Apart
Time apart really does make the heart grow fonder, and we talk daily (often twice or thrice a day) as well as text, DM, or share funny stuff we find to read and watch. We are in touch so often that when he steps off the plane at the JetBlue terminal and we meet him myself and the dog) at the TWA Hotel, we are “all caught up,” and get to spend hours talking, walking, and sharing any little thing that we hadn’t had a chance to download on the phone in the interim.
Why does this matter? Space is a good thing. Especially for someone like me who values my “me” time, my quiet hours of reading and writing, my clearn and neat home without stuff left all over the place, and my schedule of going to bed early and waking up early. You can love someone without needing to have lunch with someone. We were used to each working away from the home, for many decades. Then COVID hit and we were confined together. That had its own charm. Now it’s fun to spend time apart as well as together. There is nothing weird about it.
There is an old expression: I promised to love you for life, not for lunch.This is especially tested when men retire and their wives are eager for them to take up golf, or decide to get better at it. Not a golfer? Buy a boat, or get a hobby or go do something productive– almost anything, as long as it is out of the house.
Think about it: You fell for each other while living apart. I like separate bathrooms, separate changing rooms, even separate beds to sleep in, espcially since I snore and wake himup.They he has trouble getting back to sleep in the middle of the night and wants to read for an hour or so at 3 a.m. I am usually fast asleep.
I get up with the sun and get out of bed early, like to make my bed first thing (hard to do when he is in it) and get moving. He sleeps in, often after that interlude of mid-night reading. For us, after 38 years together and 32 of those married, we love to be together and spend time apart and it just works. So here is my unsolicited advice to Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, or any couple that finds themselves having trouble being together at every turn:
Give each other space
Four Ways to Keep Love Alive:
1. Ignore the press. Or anyone else who has something to say about your marriage. The only two people who matter in a relationship are those who are in it. Take your issues to each other, not other people. Blame the problem, not the person.
2. Get back to what you loved about each other when dating.
How you made each other feel. (Ben didn’t want a relationship on social media but then said it would be like marrying “a boat captain and you go, ‘Well, I don’t like the water.’”)
Figure out how to make your differences into strengths. Love the differences.
3. Being married doesn’t mean spending every minute together.
You can be loving and together while spending time apart. Remember what brought you together. Make that bring you back together again and again. Marriage is the chance to keep dating each other for the rest of your life.
Bottom Line: You love each other for life, not for necessarily for lunch.
OTHER UNSOLICITED ADVICE OF THE WEEK:
For Lauren Sanchez: Girl power, not Girls Power.
The catnip worked. Now it’s time to put the girls away and give back to girls and women. We want to be your advocate, and you to be an advocate for women.
Our unsolicited advice: Take a note from Melinda Fresh Gates’ playbook. She just pledged $1BILLION to women’s rights such as the Center for Reproductive Freedom. This is a meaningful amount even for a gazillionaire. For the future Mrs Bezos, you havve to know that with great (financial) power comes great personal responsibility.
For Haily Bieber: So excited for you that you are about to have a Baby Biebs.
Our unsolicited advice: Don’t lose yourself, make time for your relationship. But know that these baby years go by so fast, you won’t believe it when in an instant, the kids are suddenly taller than you are.
For Melania Trump:
Our unsolicited advice: Don’t move back into the White House or forgive DJT for all the lying, cheating and womanizing. Go your own way and have a wonderful life. You will be the first First Lady to do so!
For more great relationship advice and content like this visit The Advice Pages Relationship articles. Have a topic you need advice on? Please post a question or DM us @advicepages.
Never miss another morsel of advice. Sign up for our weekly newsletter here.
Leave a Reply