'I love my husband and plan to stay married, but one day I want to live on my own.'

Recently I was listening to a Mamamia Outloud episode where Holly, Mia and Jessie were discussing musician and model Amber Rose, and an interview she did where she stated, without apology, that she never wants another romantic relationship and that she doesn’t want to share her house, her bed, or her life ever again.

The three hosts went on to discuss other women they know who’ve previously been married or in long-term relationships but are now single and have expressed the intention to never enter another full-time relationship again. They enjoy being on their own, prioritising themselves and not having to accommodate anyone else, and so they often date and have boyfriends, but they will never do live-in, full-time relationships again.

I’m happily married, but I want this too.

Watch: The difference between with and without relationships. Story continues after video.

I started ‘going out’ with my now husband when I was 22 years old, we married when I was 27 and had our first child when I was 33 and our second when I was 38. We have been together almost 19 years, married almost 14 years and I love him deeply, and I like him a lot too.

We are great friends, we talk about things I can’t talk to anyone else about, we are equal partners and co-parents, and we still find each other interesting and appealing in a million ways. Life can be tough, (we have two young kids, and my husband has a chronic illness, so there are some big challenges) but we like doing life together.

I realised many years ago, after some rough moments in our marriage, that I needed to stop looking out into the world to tell me what my marriage should be like, and instead we needed to look inwards and do marriage in a way that worked for us. It took time, but I stopped caring what other people think of the way we do life together, and instead, we developed a way of being that is right for the two of us as individuals, as parents and as a couple.

For us this means we sleep separately (I’ve written about this here), but it also means we call each other out on bad behaviour and when we take each other for granted. It means we willingly accept that we have different interests and lots of different friends, and we give each other the freedom to pursue those interests and cultivate those friendships without the other person always having to be around. We are also both aware that this is our one life, and we want to chase big, fascinating, captivating lives for ourselves, and we also want wondrous lives for each other, even if that means doing parts of life separately. 

For me, one thing I want for my life is to live on my own one day.

I have never lived on my own. I lived with my parents until I was 19, then shared a house with a girlfriend for a couple of years, then I moved home to save, then moved out to live in a larger share house, then moved home to help my parents when they split up, and then I moved in with my boyfriend, who is now my husband. 

My husband and I have talked about this at length, and he is very supportive. Living separately one day doesn’t mean I don’t want to stay married – I do, I want to stay in a relationship with my husband for as long as we both want this. But once we’ve raised our kids, co-parented for 20+ years, and have less day-to-day responsibility for them and we’re (hopefully) a bit more financially free, then I would like to make myself the number one priority in my life for a while and have a home of my own. 

I want to decorate it as I wish, keep the hours that suit me, and cook food only I enjoy. I want to sleep all day if I feel like it and write all night long when I want to. It’s not that I can’t do these things within my marriage, I can, but I do need to consider the needs of and impact on another person. And for some period of my life, I don’t want to do that, I just want to consider myself. 

This doesn’t mean I wouldn’t joyfully spend days and nights with my beloved, that we wouldn’t go out to movies together, eat meals, spend nights snuggled beside each other on the couch, go on fabulous holidays and have hot weekends away. It actually sounds utterly amazing to spend my older years dating a man I know so well and adore so deeply, a person that I trust and know better than anyone – so much so that I can ask for what I want. And for me this means asking for my own space, being able to say “ok, I’m going to hang at mine for a couple of days and watch reruns of Call the Midwife continuously” and he says, “good for you my love, see you in a few days”.

I acknowledge that my feelings about this may change. We are in ‘the trenches’ right now with young children, and once they get bigger and need us a bit less, I might not feel the need for space so much. But I also might.  

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I also understand that this article might upset some people. I won’t be reading the comments. There will likely be questions about whether I really love my husband, whether I am truly ‘happily married’, whether I am really committed. I can’t do anything to alter the thinking of people who have those questions, I understand that their definition of marriage is different to ours.

In fact, I did actually Google the definition of marriage while writing this piece and found that there are many different ways it is defined and classified. One said marriage was a legally recognised relationship in which people live together (Cambridge dictionary), another defined it was spouses in consensual or contractual relationship (Merriam Webster), and another said it was a culturally, and often legally, recognised union between two people (Wikipedia).

Fundamentally though I think we must all define our marriages for ourselves.

For me, a loving committed relationship with my husband can only come from a loving, committed relationship with myself. 

If I don’t honour myself, love myself, say what I want and need, then I will come to resent my partner and that’s the end of our marriage right there – resentment is corrosive. Our definition of marriage is around loving each other, supporting each other, and wanting the best for each other, and doing life together and apart in ways that work for us.

Feature Image: Supplied.