Friday Feature: Your Place or Mine?

When I stumbled across this article in Quartz a few weeks ago, I had to read the title twice to make sure I'd read it right. "Should You Live With Your Spouse?"

Huh?

As it turns out, this thing that so many of us take for granted might not be a universal choice. Apparently, it's a thing now -- or maybe it has been for a while for those who have the means to maintain separate residences -- for married couples to live apart, yet not classify themselves as separated.

I'm old enough to remember when it was taboo for couples who weren't married to live together. Have we really come full circle, or full...whatever this is?

Not judging. Just confused.

I like my independence and personal space as much as -- perhaps more than -- the next person. I like my stuff the way I like it and, truth be told, I get a little pang of she-shed envy whenever I see Cheryl and her State Farm commercial. But, at the end of the day, I can't imagine saying goodnight to my husband and retiring to separate residences.

To each his (or her) own, I suppose. While this arrangement would certainly minimize squabbles about decorating differences, cover stealing and snoring, it also seems to run counter to nurturing a relationship built on vows like "in sickness and in health, till death do us part."

Then again, on a day like today, where the whole neighborhood is on vacation and the chain saws and mowers are competing with my daughter's music for audio supremacy, perhaps having somewhere else to go might not be such a bad idea.