The secret to wedded bliss..
... live in seperate homes
Allen Sheinman, 58, and his wife Collette Stallone, 56, said they know the secret to a happy and successful marriage - live in separate homes.
For the first four years of wedded bliss the quirky couple - who met online - lived apart, she in Greenwich Village and he in West 23rd street in Manhattan.
But hard times hit as it did with many New Yorkers and when Allen's boss raised his rent to $1,800 a month, the couple did the unthinkable - they moved in together.
Allen said: 'It was really a financial move to cohabit. Now we are transitioning into real-time marriage. This is it.'
Speaking about living together - or not living together - Allen said it was an arrangement they were both comfortable with.
Colette said: 'When you're young you think, "Oh, we’re in love," all that. But when you get older, you say, "You know, I love you, but I need my space".'
When Allen moved into Colette's tiny one-bedroom Greenwich Village apartment, where she has been for 31 years, even then they weren't prepared to fully live together.
Instead of embracing cohabitation, the couple drew up battle lines, put up invisible walls and lay down a set of ground rules.
According to the New York Post, there was no crossing into each other's space without permission, she had her own bedroom - where she generously said he could sleep at weekends - and he slept in a sofa bed in the living room.
They have their own newspaper and magazine subscriptions,' watch their own TV shows from their own space and even have a shower rota.
The kitchen - which also hosts the apartment's only shower - is the only place that is allowed for both couples any time of the day or night.
Colette - a retired high-school teacher who now runs her home-made jewellery business - believes that not living together was the secret to their happy marriage.
'Getting married is a state of mind, I don't see why we have to live together. I don't need to see him brush his teeth,' she told the Post. 'It's bad enough I see him brush his hair.
'I don’t know where this idea came from that you always have to be in the middle of whatever the other person is doing.'
Alarmingly, she said when she told her ex-husband they were now living together he said: 'I give it four months.'
TB..lol... I was just thinking of population explosion if we live in sin (in separte homes) and make babies...:)
Can't we just live in sin...:)
I don't see the point of these people being married
Amen to that... let's just all live in sin and make babies... :-)
Did I miss the bit where we have to close our eyes? Have they consummated or is that in the mind too?
there's no number TWO rule :)))
there's no number TWO rule :)))
don't see the point of being married.
Given that they're in their 50's I don't think kids will ever be an issue.
Personally I find it very OTT though I'm all for "me time" from marital bliss! Guess such an arragement will only be until you have kids. By the looks of it the couple simply lack the whole "marital maturity" bit which is kinda endearing until the real trials, aka kids, come along...or maybe that's what they are ducking!
people nowadays don't consider the true essence of marriage that's why again and again their facing the traditional problems. I think the fundamental rule before jumping into the married life is to love your partner as you love yourself. :)))
Seems the sound of the word "space" in relationships would soon sound as:
"S P A C E".
There is no such word as wedded bliss, it's all a figment of your imagination :-(
I can't imagine doing it with a child. How does the child know which house to sleep in? Do you make a custody arrangement even though you aren't divorced?
Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton are married and famed for the same thing! Seperate houses, albeit on the same street. And they have a child!
Must be something to it.......
enough said by Tinkerbell... its too much...brit - thanks for this, i will forward it to my fiance...
it may work for them since they are 58 and 56 years old, but for young ppl it is impossible!
for me as an example: if i don't c my wife in the lunch break i miss her!
agree with TK....