A couple came to see me a few months ago. What they wanted to ask me about wasn’t how to stay together – as a couples counsellor, coach and writer, this is what clients usually come to see me about – but how to separate. However what this couple wanted was slightly different.
They were in their mid-50s and they told me they had been married for more than 30 years. They loved each other. They’d had a marriage that had survived the ups and downs of most unions. They had three children all of whom had left home. Yet they were looking at a future together with apprehension. They didn’t want to divorce, they just wanted to work out how to stay together while also being apart. The wife was a homebody and also loved being near her children. The husband had rediscovered an adventurous side in himself that had lain dormant for a couple of decades.
