[ready4achange]

So my husband & I have been married 17 years. We have separated before, gone through WOW addiction and struggled through financial difficulties. I have exhausted every thing I have to try to make it work. Do you think two people can live together but live separate lives?

[CHANDLERS WISH]

It would be difficult to live under the same roof, as "friends" instead of Husband and Wife, firstly because you've been together so long so, habit, comes into it, in all respects, expectations of things you "used" to do, such as dinner etc and secondly, jealousy will come into play on either side, as one watches the other go out, dressed up, coming home late, not coming home at all...

UNLESS, both of you have no love for each other anymore, and are honest with that and see it as a financial reason to do this..

CW

[Guest]

No, I don't think it will work, on any level, for any reason.

[JadedQueen]

I think it all depends on the relationship. I had a friend that I went to school with and she and her ex-husband lived together and got along amazingly well. I asked her a few times why she and the ex weren't still together since they got along so good but she said they made better friends than husband/wife. So I know it can work, BUT.... it all depends on the type of relationship you have currently and only you and he can figure it out. If you do decide to try going the roomate route my suggestion is to set some ground rules from the start and put it in writing (things like who pays what bills, etc...) just in case things don't work out and going seperate ways is a better situation with things in writing it'll save some hassel if things go sour and the other person is vindictive.

[caterpillar79]

So my husband & I have been married 17 years. We have separated before, gone through WOW addiction and struggled through financial difficulties. I have exhausted every thing I have to try to make it work. Do you think two people can live together but live separate lives?

How did you both cope with your previous issues - WOW addiction, financial difficulties and all? Give us more details since we do not want to tell you the things you've already tried that didn't work.

Did you seek the help of a counselor? What worked, what didn't? As with living together, it might or might not work, depending on various factors. Do you think there are some control issues/power struggle between the two of you?

[WildChild]

Do you think two people can live together but live separate lives?

Lots of people do. But do you really want to?

[pretzel]

It's not easy but with clearly defined rules it could. It did for my ex and myself. When we decided to move on with our lives she knew she was going to move back with her mom and have that house renovated. It was actually something we had worked on together and at the time thought it was going to be all of us. I had been totally involved in all the planning and contract work but that didn't end up as I thought.

The biggest thing we knew we had to do and felt it best for us and our kids was to continue to keep the house as stressfree as possible. We explained it clearly to the kids and altough it was tough for them to understand we didn't take our differences out on each other to where it affected the kids. We also made clear that even though we were both going our separate ways and wanted each other to move on as quickly as possible we never brought what we did when we weren't at the house back. When we were there it was for the continuity of the family no ifs ands or buts.