How Much Closeness Can a Home Take Before One of You Secretly Moves into the Garden Shed?

By Regine Rauin | When Rooms Tell Stories

 

I think we’ve developed a rather strange idea about living together.

You fall in love.

You move in together.

You’re happy.

You furnish the place together.

And at some point, this idea takes hold:

If we love each other, naturally we’ll want to spend as much time together as possible.

Sounds logical.

But it may be complete nonsense.

Because people don’t always need the same things.

And sometimes even the same person needs something completely different on different days.

I know this rather well from my own experience.

 

There’s the Mystique who says:

“Leave me all alone.”

I want to work.

Write.

Paint.

Think.

Lose myself in some project.

Decide how I spend my own time.

If I’ve just decided to write 20 blog articles, I really don’t want someone turning up at my door five minutes later asking:

“Fancy a coffee?”

No.

I fancy 20 blog articles.

That’s my adventure right now.

 

And then there’s the other Mystique.

She’s somewhere in Friesland on a boat thinking:

“Where are all the people?”

There were people.

Dogs.

Boats.

Conversations.

Shooting stars.

A party boat passing by.

A sailing school.

Kayaks.

People heading somewhere.

People arriving.

People disappearing again.

And it was wonderful.

I could retreat whenever I wanted.

But I could just as easily reappear whenever I wanted.

Nobody had to arrange an appointment with me.

Nobody had to know in advance whether I was in the mood for company.

The encounter was simply allowed to happen.

 

And that’s where a rather interesting question wants to be asked:

How much closeness do I need – and how much retreat?

Not in theory.

In everyday life.

Because “I need my own space” sounds perfectly reasonable.

But what does that actually mean?

A separate flat?

Your own room?

A door?

A studio?

A home office?

A garden?

An hour a day?

Or simply an agreement:

“When I’m sitting here, I need some peace and quiet right now. It has nothing to do with you.”

That can make an enormous difference to a relationship.

 

Perhaps a shared home therefore needs two kinds of spaces.

Spaces for us.

The kitchen.

The dining table.

The sofa.

The terrace.

The garden.

The place where you cook together.

Talk.

Laugh.

Listen to music.

Have a glass of wine.

Or sit next to each other, completely exhausted, and still feel good about it.

And then:

Spaces for me.

A room.

A workshop.

A studio.

A reading nook.

A desk.

An armchair.

Somewhere where it’s clear:

This is where I’m alone right now.

Not sad.

Not offended.

Not on the way to a break-up.

Simply:

alone.

 

Perhaps that is actually a sign of closeness.

It sounds paradoxical at first.

But perhaps closeness works better when retreat is allowed. If I don’t constantly have to worry that my desire for peace and quiet will be interpreted as rejection, I don’t have to be afraid of it either.

Then I can say:

“I’m going to my room for two hours now.”

And the other person knows:

“Okay.”

No discussion.

No hurt feelings.

No:

“What’s wrong now?”

Simply:

Space.

 

And of course, it works the other way round too.

Perhaps you’re the person who enjoys company.

Your partner wants some peace and quiet.

That’s not a problem either.

If the home allows for both.

Perhaps there is an area where it is always clear:

This is where we can be together.

And another:

Here, everyone is allowed to disappear.

That can be a surprisingly grown-up approach to living together.

 

It gets harder when the home only allows for one of those two sides.

When everything is open.

When everyone can hear everyone else.

When there is nowhere to retreat to.

When you are constantly sitting in the same room.

When work and private life blur into one another.

When one person is on the sofa making a phone call and the other is trying to read.

When one person loves having visitors and the other is already planning an escape route internally the moment the doorbell rings.

A conflict can quickly emerge that doesn’t actually have to be between two people at all.

Perhaps it’s a space problem.

And space problems can feel remarkably quickly like relationship problems.

 

Because a room can force behaviour.

If there is nowhere to retreat to, I can’t retreat.

If there is no shared centre, living together becomes harder.

If visitors can only sit at the dining table, every visit automatically becomes a meal.

If the home office is in the middle of the living area, work is constantly visible.

If the bedroom is simultaneously an office, laundry zone and dumping ground, sleep suddenly becomes an afterthought.

We underestimate how much our spaces define our options.

 

And sometimes the solution is surprisingly simple.

Not:

“We need a bigger house.”

But:

“We need clearer spaces.”

Perhaps one person needs a room that is genuinely theirs.

Perhaps the other person needs a room that is genuinely theirs.

Perhaps the couple needs an area that explicitly belongs to both of them.

And perhaps there also needs to be an agreement:

“When the door is closed, it’s closed.”

Not emotionally.

Physically.

Wonderfully uncomplicated.

 

But perhaps it goes further than that.

Perhaps at some point you realise:

This house simply cannot meet our needs.

Not because it’s bad.

Not because it’s ugly.

Not because the kitchen is old.

But because the fundamental structure doesn’t work.

Perhaps the location is wrong.

Perhaps you’re missing proximity to people.

Perhaps you’re missing nature.

Perhaps you’re missing water.

Perhaps you’re missing movement.

Perhaps everything is too spread out.

Perhaps everything is too cramped.

Perhaps there simply is no way to combine retreat and togetherness in the way you need.

Then it is perfectly reasonable to think about another home.

 

But please don’t start looking at houses straight away.

Talk to each other first.

Not:

“Which kitchen do you want?”

But:

“How do you actually want to live?”

How much time do you want to spend alone?

How much time do you want to spend together?

How spontaneous can visitors be?

How important is nature to you?

How important is the city to you?

How important is having your own space?

What do you need to feel at home?

What do you need not to feel trapped?

And:

What do you need in order to enjoy closeness at all?

These are questions people surprisingly rarely ask before signing a mortgage together.

 

Perhaps the perfect shared home isn’t the one with the biggest living room at all.

Perhaps it’s the one with the best possibilities.

Possibilities for closeness.

Possibilities for retreat.

Possibilities for spontaneous encounters.

Possibilities for peace and quiet.

Possibilities to lose yourself.

And possibilities to find each other again.

Perhaps that is actually the most beautiful definition of a home:

A place where you can be both yourself and together.

Not either.

Both.

 

And perhaps this doesn’t just apply to couples.

Families need retreat too.

Friends who live together.

Adult children.

Multi-generational households.

People who live together for practical reasons.

Or people who love each other and still don’t want to spend every minute together.

We don’t all have to live in the same way.

We just have to work out what kind of closeness our lives actually need.

 

And then there’s the very personal question.

If you were living with someone you loved today:

What would your home need to look like so that you didn’t lose yourself in it?

Where would you go if you didn’t want to see anyone?

Where would you go if you did want to see someone?

Where would you sit together?

Where would you work?

Where would you be silent together?

Where would you celebrate?

And where would be the place where you could say:

“I need an hour to myself now.”

without it turning into a crisis.

Perhaps good living together begins exactly there.

Not with the shared toothbrush holder.

But with the permission:

 

You’re allowed to be you. I’m allowed to be me.

About the Author

I'm Regine Rauin, also known as Mystic Maveress.

I read rooms the way other people read tarot cards.

And every now and then...

...I write a book.

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🗝️ Because many of the answers are already living with you.