Married but Living Solo

The kettle whistled sharply as Eleanor heard the familiar knock. Her neighbour Mrs. Harrington hovered in the doorway, shopping bag dangling, shaking her head in bewilderment.
“Goodness, Eleanor, what *is* all this?” Mrs. Harrington exclaimed. “Do you have a husband or not? I saw Alistair leaving your flat yesterday, and this morning, there he was at the tube station with some blonde woman!”
Eleanor sighed, set aside her magazine, and motioned her neighbour toward the kitchen. Tea was ready.
“Come in, Mrs. Harrington. It’s not quite as straightforward as it seems. Yes, Alistair is my husband. Officially. The marriage certificate has been gathering dust for seven years. But we live separately. Each in our own flat.”
“Separate?” Mrs. Harrington sank onto a kitchen chair, clearly settling in. “What sort of marriage is that? Why on earth get wed in the first place?”
Eleanor placed a steaming mug before her guest and sat opposite. Outside, a dreary October drizzle blurred the windowpanes, rivulets tracing paths like tears. Just such weather had soaked London the day she and Alistair applied for their licence at the council building.
“I married for love, naturally. Believed we’d be like any ordinary couple. Children, a cottage, shared domestic life. Oh, how wrong I was!” Eleanor gave a bitter laugh. “Within six months, it was clear we were chalk and cheese. He thrives on crowds; I crave quiet. He’s hopelessly untidy; I need order. He might skip a shower for days; I feel grubby without one.”
“Then divorce him!” Mrs. Harrington waved a dismissive hand. “Why endure the misery?”
“Ah, that’s where it gets tricky. We *can’t* divorce. There’s the flat. We bought it together, joint names, paid fifty-fifty before the wedding. Alistair insists: divorce means selling it, splitting the equity. Then where would we go? Renting? We’re hardly youngsters, Mrs. Harrington. I’m forty-three, he’s forty-five. Where do we find that kind of rent money?”
Mrs. Harrington nodded slowly, her expression shifting to understanding. The problem landed heavily.
“Well, what did you cook up?”
“This. Alistair keeps the flat. I bought myself a tiny one-bedder on the outskirts. Cheap, but mine. I’m paying a mortgage, but it’s peace. He visits sometimes when he’s bored. We have tea, chat like old mates. Then he goes back to his place.”
“And how long’s *this* arrangement going on?” Mrs. Harrington studied Eleanor, who looked tired but composed.
“Indefinitely. It suits for now. Legally, we’re husband and wife – no fuss with documents, no awkward questions at the office. Practically, each lives their own life.”
Long after her neighbour left, Eleanor sat staring at the rain-streaked window, sipping cooled tea. The downpour intensified, and in its drumming, past voices murmured.
They’d met at the office. Alistair managed procurement; she was chief accountant. Tall, imposing, with kind eyes and a charming smile. Eleanor felt a pull immediately.
“Eleanor Barrows, might you spare a moment over lunch?” he’d asked one memorable Thursday, leaning on her desk. “Know a lovely little café nearby.”
She’d agreed. Then came a second meeting, a third. Alistair was witty, well-read, knowledgeable about art. They talked books, films, travel.
“It’s surprisingly easy with you,” he’d confessed after a month. “You understand me before I finish.”
She felt the same comfort—a rare connection five years after her first divorce had left her despairing of finding kinship.
Alistair was divorced, childless. Lived solo in a vast three-bedroom flat inherited from his parents.
“Far too big for one,” he’d complained. “Can’t quite bring myself to sell the family home.”
They dated for six months. He proposed. They married quietly, just close friends and family.
The first months were bliss. Problems seemed minor, differences trivial.
But slowly, those differences deepened into chasms.
“Alistair, *must* you leave dirty plates in the sink?” Eleanor would fume, staring at a pile of dishes.
“Oh, leave off. I’ll do them tomorrow,” he’d shrug, glued to the match.
“Tomorrow, then the next day… until the grease sets like concrete!”
“You’re too particular. Learn to relax.”
But relaxing proved impossible. Disorder suffocated her. Alistair, conversely, felt stifled by neatness.
“It’s like a ruddy hospital in here,” he’d grumble. “Sterile, nothing out of place. Home should feel lived-in.”
“Lived-in doesn’t mean squalid!”
Arguments multiplied—over dishes, scattered belongings, Alistair’s friends turning up at all hours.
“I can’t bear it,” Eleanor confessed to her sister Daphne over the phone. “We’re from different planets.”
“Just try adjusting to him,” Daphne advised. “Men are all the same. My Tony’s far from perfect.”
Adjusting failed. Eleanor couldn’t tolerate mess; Alistair couldn’t follow her rules.
The breaking point came when his old friend Neville, visiting from Manchester, stayed a week—supposedly two days.
“Alistair, be reasonable!” Eleanor choked back tears. “He’s drinking from dawn, smoking indoors, blasting music! The neighbours are furious!”
“Don’t be daft! He’s a guest! Be hospitable. Chin up a bit longer.”
“It’s been a week! Your Neville doesn’t even say thank you—acts like the lord of the manor! And you encourage him!”
“Stop exaggerating. We went to school together.”
“And I am? A passing stranger?”
That’s when Eleanor resolved. Living together was untenable. Divorce impractical, though. Too much invested in the flat, financially and emotionally.
“Listen, what if we lived apart?” she proposed after Neville finally departed. “You stay here. I’ll find somewhere small.”
Alistair was baffled.
“Apart? But we’ But we’re married!”
“Legally, yes. But each to our own roof. We see each other whenever we like, visit.”
“Barmy idea,” Alistair shook his head. “Think of the gossip!”
“Let people mind their own business.”
They debated it exhaustively. Alistair resisted, then yielded. He, too, was weary of the bickering.
“Alright, we’ll try it,” he conceded. “If it fails, you come back.”
But returning wasn’t necessary. Eleanor found a small flat in Croydon, negotiated a mortgage, and arranged everything precisely to her taste. No compromises.
It was strange at first, returning to an empty flat after work. Gradually, solitude grew comfortable, then cherished. Peaceful mornings, evenings reading or soaking unseen, weekends cleaning or cooking exactly what *she* fancied.
Alistair visited roughly weekly. They drank tea, shared news, sometimes watched a film. Tension evaporated, leaving quiet companionship.
“We’re clever blighters, you know,” he said once, seated at her kitchen table. “Saving the marriage without tormenting each other.”
“Hardly feels like a family, though,” Eleanor sighed.
“Why not? We look after each other. When you had flu, who brought meds and groceries? When work went pear-shaped, whose advice pulled me through?”
It was true. They remained close, just geographically separate.
Sometimes melancholy washed over
She watched the constellations emerge through the thinning clouds, the weight of Purr a comforting presence on her lap, knowing that tomorrow would dawn quiet and entirely her own in this flat that finally felt like home.