'My ex is my housemate. There's one question I always get asked.'

When Sabrina* tells someone she meets about her living situation, she pauses for their inevitable reaction.

"It's been quite funny just how judgemental everyone was straight away," she told Mamamia.

That tends to be the case when you tell people you and your husband have split up, but you're choosing to still live together.

Sabrina and Sean* were together for 12 years when things fell apart. This wasn't their first rough patch — they had previously separated years before reconciling with counselling.

It left them with the question: where do we go from here?

"The cost of living is crazy. So when we looked at the costs, and we looked at this huge house and the fact we have a kid together, we worked out that if we stayed in the same house, we could almost have different wings," Sabrina said.

Their home's layout makes this unusually workable. Sean occupies what was once an extension with "an ensuite, walk-in robe, and study," while Sabrina has her own space at the other end. The kitchen, laundry and garden are shared territory.

"He's living his best bachelor life," she joked. Meanwhile, they share the mortgage fifty-fifty, split household expenses equally, and co-parent their eight-year-old son from the same address.

From husband to housemate.

The shift wasn't as drastic as you might think. Sabrina had felt them drifting apart for months.

"People talk about marriages where you just sort of drift apart and become more in the house rather than love and all the rest," she said.

For the final months of their marriage, Sean would spend each night alone, watching TV in his office.

"I was keeping a little diary… 'Is he going to spend any time with me tonight? No.' … And that went on for four months straight," Sabrina recalled.

When transitioning to housemates, Sabrina established clear boundaries. She moved bedrooms and reclaimed her space.

"I've been putting a lot of work into boundaries as a woman," she said.

"Establishing boundaries was really important because of the change. He's not really welcomed down in my end of the house."

Their communication changed, too. Gone were the detailed check-ins of marriage, replaced by casual housemate-style updates.

"We communicate like you would a friend or an old housemate," she said.

And dating? They've worked that out.

"I don't mind if he's out dating people, but the purpose of having the house together was to provide a safe, consistent environment for our son … it means that other people can't be in that space at the moment," she said.

The benefits (and occasional drama).

With clear communication in place, Sabrina reaps plenty of benefits.

"There's the convenience of if I want to go out with my girlfriends, I can say, "Hey, can we swap these days? Can you put (our son) to bed?' On a certain night when he wouldn't usually, and he's just right there," she said.

It also means they both get to see their cats and their son enjoys stability in his familiar home and school.

Of course, there have been bumps. One memorable argument revolved around a $5 secondhand crockpot that didn't fit in the cupboard.

"He was like, 'Is it your cupboard?' But I said, 'There just isn't room'," Sabrina said.

What made the incident revealing was that it wasn't about the crockpot at all. "It was more feelings of 'what space do I have in the house?' whereas I was really just talking about the crockpot," she reflected.

The irony? "He has not, in the entire time I've known him, cooked with a crockpot," Sabrina laughed.

When staying together makes legal sense.

It's a more common situation than you might think.

Annelis Bos, partner at Coote Family Lawyers told Mamamia, an increasing number of separated couples are continuing to live under the same roof, largely due to the cost of living.

While this arrangement can work well in cases like Sabrina's, there are legal implications to consider.

"Exes who remain living together during the required 12-month separation period before filing for divorce need to prove to the court they were actually separated during that time," Annelis said.

"For this reason, it's important for couples to set up clear boundaries from the start and take deliberate steps to live independently, even while sharing the same physical space."

That means sleeping in separate rooms, maintaining separate lives, and making it clear to friends and family that you've well and truly split up.

"Getting legal advice early on from a lawyer specialising in family law is one of the best things you can do to protect both your finances and your peace of mind in the long run," Annelis advised.

A mature solution.

Sabrina knows it's not for everyone. Trust her, they've all told her.

"I had people saying, 'You've got to be kidding', 'You've got to get out there', 'You can't do that. That's not sustainable', 'The finances don't matter. You need to move on', 'It's never going to work' — really quite strong reactions," she said.

What she found interesting was who reacted most strongly.

"A lot of the people that had the most emotional reaction were people that didn't even have children or weren't married," Sabrina noted. "Their reactions were about them, not being able to see the maturity of it."

She wants other women considering the same arrangement to know that, in the right circumstances, it can work.

"It's actually a very mature solution," she said. "It only works if the emotions are under control, and it's an equal solution where it suits both parties equally."

She believes having children fundamentally changes your perspective.

"When you have a child, that's your priority… You mature in a way and learn to deal with situations differently, so you do what's best for your family and everything else is just chaff," she said.

Eight months in, she knows it's not a forever solution. But for right now, it's good enough.

*Name has been changed for privacy.

Feature Image: Getty.