Completely at home with myself
Please keep your distance: Our author Karina Lübke lives and loves happily in separate apartments.
(The text appeared in Brigitte Woman)
By Karina Lübke
By now, my boyfriend and I have been together for three years but live separately. Maybe that's exactly why we are still a couple. We share table and bed – sometimes at his place, sometimes at mine. Twenty minutes on foot and a lot of heartbeats lie between our addresses. We are drawn to each other again and again; we don't have to move in together because of that. Yes, he belongs to me like my name on the door, as the Marianne Rosenberg hit once said – but it is NOT HIS name on my door. In times of exploding rents, energy costs, and housing shortages, this is a luxury, and we are fully aware of that. We are worth it.
Of course, a shared household, fridge, Wi-Fi, and shared costs for heating and water are more practical and cheaper. But we both fear that the emotional costs caused by moving in together could end up costing us even more and ultimately ruin our love life – at least the sexual attraction or repulsion. Gwyneth Paltrow recently confirmed this in an interview; since her marriage to Chris Martin, she has been a convinced ambassador of the "LAT" (Living Together Apart) philosophy: She was in a relationship with series producer Brad Falchuk for four years, they married in 2018, but only recently moved in together. Now Gwynnie publicly complains: "I have no sex life anymore!" The problem did not exist before.
This negative couple dynamic is not reserved for celebrities only, as Viennese couples therapist Katja Beran knows: "Definitely, the disenchantment happens faster when you are physically on top of each other, meaning living together. Eroticism arises from a certain distance and uncertainty – how sobering it is when you experience your partner up close 24/7! And everything about him – from snoring, his bowel habits, to his messiness and the ritual of talking on the phone with his mom for hours on Sundays." Furthermore, women quickly take on caregiving more or less voluntarily and do the housework so that everyone feels comfortable. Beran: "The all-around care of the partner, women know from painful experience, is a sex killer. So why take on all the other crap for the few nice hours?"
On the other hand, naturally, there is the desire for commitment, but moving in together is especially desired by young and newly in-love people in the heated phase of marriage frenzy, desire for children, and building a house. And that is wonderful for a while: so much sense of togetherness, optimism, and so little idea of the everyday problems that arise from decades of being constantly on call and within reach of each other! After three years at the latest, the first thing you want in the morning is a strong coffee, not a hard penis pressing against you demandingly just because you're conveniently in the same bed. I know enough long-married friends who dream of having their own bedroom, which is vehemently rejected by their decades-long sexual partners out of fear of loss—even though there is enough space in the apartment. In living together, retreat options and room to maneuver automatically diminish.
I met my boyfriend at an age when each of us already has our own story, quirks, and habits, and I also have twenty years of marriage, children, and family life behind me. Now I enjoy the freedom to do—and especially not do—whatever I want in my own apartment, without having to respond to others' demands. In living together, I feel every mood and tension around me in my body like a seismograph, suffer from it, and automatically try to resolve and balance it; because that was instilled in me—as in many girls—as a duty. Like with yoga and meditation, I need a quiet protective space around me to allow myself to go completely inward, to quietly follow my thoughts, and simply be at home with myself. The air in my place is always pure. No, I no longer want to settle for compromises! I'm also no longer so young and idealistic to believe that love alone will fix everything. Even the unconventional "Girls" wonder Lena Dunham failed at this, whose relationship with Jack Antonoff ended after six happy years when they moved in together. Dunham wanted to live in "shabby glam," while he "feared dust." At night she lay awake imagining her dream home. Every time she had to "paint over a pink wall with dove gray" at his request, Dunham felt "sick to her stomach." Her bitter conclusion: "Love doesn't endure everything."
She doesn't have to! You just have to free yourself from the still prevailing general opinion that if a couple doesn't want to move in together, it's not "real." Most people idealize "true love" as something symbiotic, a melting pot of two personalities that now form an "us" forged forever in the fires of the mountain of fate. Horror! "In truth, the possibility to consciously focus on your own needs, to preserve and occupy your own space, and - importantly! - to remain honest in contact and communication with your partner at the same time, is the ticket to a stable relationship that is true because it doesn't float in the soap bubble of symbiosis," confirms Katja Beran. She sees the model as something for those advanced in age and relationship experience, because you should be internally stable and self-confident for it: "LAT is nice - but it also takes a lot of work." The high art of relationships, indeed. No, that can't go away.
Statistically, in Germany nowadays every sixth couple lives in separate apartments by choice, as a study by the German Research Society has shown. There is no change in sight for us either. My beloved and I each have keys to the other's apartment for emergencies. It took over two years before we granted each other this access and entry possibility. But now we know that the other will not sneak in secretly in their absence to rummage through drawers or computers. And that no one keeps their place just to cheat on the other undisturbed. We respect and trust each other, even at a distance. If one really needs the other's physical presence, they set off immediately. And while the sexual tension field flirts as ever, part-time living together defuses many other tension fields. Namely the annoying ones, like who left their stuff lying around again, who bought the wrong things or totally forgot, who "always" leaves the light on, the toothpaste tube open, the butter out, and the vacuum cleaner standing. And those are just small things. Especially when children come along, the shared life path quickly becomes a time travel back to the sixties. That housewife role backwards is something you definitely don't want, and certainly not again.
"As much as practical matters may be in the foreground: ultimately, it is always somewhat a protective strategy when a couple decides on spatial distance," says Hamburg couples counselor Eric Hegmann. Especially in the 50-plus generation, women who come to his counseling often express the desire to continue being on their own, while men tend to imagine a shared home. In conversation, it quickly becomes clear why: "What was experienced as disadvantageous in the past should be avoided," says Hegmann. For example, she no longer wants to care for her roommate. The man, on the other hand, does not want to be completely on his own anymore. He appreciates the service aspect in a shared household.
Actress Whoopie Goldberg, 65, has now been through three marriages. She recently said in an interview with the NY Times Magazine: "I am much happier alone. I am free to spend as much time with someone as I want, without having to live with them forever or cohabit. I don't want anyone in my house." That's what I call a way of life.
Karina Lübke first studied design at the Folkwang School and then completed the Hamburg Journalism School with Wolf Schneider. Afterwards, she became an editor and columnist ("The Real Life") at the legendary zeitgeist magazine TEMPO and has since worked freelance for, among others, SZ-Magazin, DIE ZEIT, DIE WOCHE, emotion, SALON, Myself, MOM, and BRIGITTE WOMAN. This text first appeared in the latter. In between, Karina Lübke got married, raised a daughter and a son, and got divorced. She lives in Hamburg and thinks she often writes better stories than life itself.
Your new book "Please Be Quite Hostile" is now available in bookstores. It's about guys and kids and childish guys, about politics, society, money, and good words. And about love – despite everything. This book compiles her best columns from the magazine BARBARA and includes new, previously unpublished texts.