Vicki Larson: A Room of One's Own

Living together is thought to be an essential part of marriage, but Vicki Larson says some partners just need a room of their own.

Like many 20-somethings, I wasn’t really paying much attention to my parents. So, I didn’t question when my mother, a 50s-era suburban housewife, left my dad, our Yorkie, Teddy, and our family home in Queens, New York, bought herself a condo in Miami, got a job at an upscale salon there and started a new life for herself.

It wasn’t until I was in my late 40s, divorced for the second time and questioning the institution of marriage, that I finally asked her about her bold move.

“Mom, what the heck was that about?”

“I had enough,” was all she said. After being a wife and a mother myself for so many years, I knew exactly what she meant.

My parents didn’t divorce. My dad and Teddy flew down to Miami every month for a long weekend for about a decade until my father retired and joined her there. They had what is called a live-apart-together relationship and I am pretty certain that having places of their own is what made them last 61 years of somewhat peaceful marital coexistence.

I didn’t want my parents’ marriage, but in retrospect I think my own marriages would have greatly benefited if I had done what my mother had done — allowed myself to have “space.” Perhaps not thousands of miles away, but the freedom to take care of my own needs in addition to taking care of everyone else’s. I don’t think enough women do that.

Now I do, which is why my romantic partner and I don’t live together and probably never will.

Not to say that sometimes I don’t long to come home to what seems familiar — someone to share stories with at the end of the day and a warm body to snuggle next to every night. There are many pleasures that come with living with someone. And then there are the not-so-pleasurable things that come from living with someone 24/7, as many couples discovered during the pandemic lockdowns.

I feel blessed to have gotten a lot of good things from my mom — her blue-green eyes, her love of cooking, her creativity. And an unexpected, later-in-life discovery — the need for a room of my own.

With a Perspective, I’m Vicki Larson.

Vicki Larson is a longtime Bay Area journalist and author.