Are You in a Roommate Marriage?

The experts sound-off on how to get back that Lovin’ Feeling

By Sharon Levinsohn

Does this scenario sound familiar? You have been married for a while and you and your husband have divvied up the responsibilities quite nicely. You share the house and the chores, the carpool duty and the parenting. You do the laundry, he pays the bills. You cook dinner (or get take-out) and he lugs the recycling bins to the curb. Most days, you and your husband eat breakfast and dinner with the kids and discuss everyone’s day. After you finish dinner, you do the dishes, he checks the kids’ homework, and you fold the laundry. By around 10:00 p.m., you both watch some television you surf for Grey’s Anatomy or Desperate Housewives and reruns of Sex and the City, and he favors ESPN (or any game that happens to be on) before you both collapse. Has sex become a fond yet distant memory? Was the last time you gave each other a backrub before the kids were born? Is the only romance in your life, between the covers of a novel? If you have answered “yes” to most of these questions, you may find yourself living in a roommate marriage.

The definition of a roommate, according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary is “one of two or more persons sharing the same living quarters.” Yet, the M-W definition, of a marriage of convenience “a marriage contracted for social, political or economic advantage rather than for mutual affection; a union or cooperation formed solely for pragmatic reasons” sounds vaguely familiar, leaving some wondering: Are you living the life, and in the kind of marriage, that you desire?

Only you can answer that question. However, keep in mind that roommate marriages don’t just affect couples that have been together 20+ years. “This does not only affect post-menopausal woman. Developmental changes in a woman's life such as pregnancy can also play a role. Naturally, your sex life changes throughout the course of a marriage, yet it does not need to become a distant memory,” says Dr. Susan Lee, a sex, relationship and marriage therapist in Palm Beach. “It’s the avoidance of discussing these changes that may cause resentment [and lead to roommate marriages]. If a couple’s sex life completely erodes it’s definitely heading toward tension arguing and possibly an affair or divorce.”

Jean Natey*, a housewife from Orlando, found herself trapped in a roommate marriage after ten years. She explains, “I really rushed into marriage and had kids right away, and I never took the time to work on the relationship. After a while, the routine just overwhelmed me. My husband was working really long hours as an attorney, and I was the full-time wife/mother/cook/housekeeper. With three children and a busy social life, we kind of just lost ourselves and the romance went out the window. When I confided in a friend, she recommended her therapist and we went into counseling to change our marriage. It took a while, but our therapist helped us to find each other, again. I finally feel like a woman, and not like a roommate.”

Talk therapy especially couples’ counseling can provide you with the tools to work on your problems and inject intimacy back into your marriage. “I hear about these kinds of marriages in my practice. They stay together for financial reasons, or for the children, or for convenience,” explains Lyn Vinnick Kaller, Ph.D., a psychologist in private practice in Scarsdale, New York. “The realities of life taking the kids to school, play dates, doctors’ appointments, birthday parties, paying the bills, preparing meals, going to work encroach on the marriage. These couples are pulled in so many directions that they feel depleted and intimacy goes out the window.”

Dr. Kaller also notes that there are points in time, in every marriage, where your relationship may feel like you are more like roommates than spouses. You can only divide yourself, so much, and you may feel as though you do not have the energy to change the situation. She notes, “You should figure out a way to feel rejuvenated lose weight, get a manicure and a pedicure, get a haircut, buy some great clothes. Once you carve out some time for yourself, you will start to feel better. You will also feel sexier and better prepared to address the underlying intimacy issues. Also, a counselor can help you deal with a wide range of feelings, including depression, guilt and anger. Therapy is a good place to work on yourself and your relationship.”

Dr. Lee, who has special training working on intimacy and relations has developed treatment techniques to discuss the roommate marriage. “Often, sex is not prioritized at all. Women who are married with kids can have this sense of entitlement. They think ’well, he understands if we don’t have sex.’ They’ll work out for two hours and make great dinner but when their husbands touch them they recoil. They aren’t seeing it as a priority.“ Dr. Lee’s prescription: She recommends planning time together. “Prioritize love making,” she says. “You can’t expect to have happy, pleasurable sex after 11 p.m. especially after you both have been working all day, taking care of children and dealing with other pressures.”