“When I go to see him, love to see him. When it’s time to leave, bye-bye, see you soon. Life is good.” That’s actor Sheryl Lee Ralph, who plays Barbara in the lovely school sitcom Abbott Elementary, telling People magazine about her 19-year long-distance marriage to “Senator Vincent Hughes, Seventh Senatorial District of Philadelphia”, as she describes him, gloriously enunciating every syllable.
It is a sign, I think, of how our attitudes to relationships have evolved that the reaction globally has been positive. When Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton lived next door to each other, it was seen as evidence of their extreme eccentricity, and Gwyneth Paltrow made waves when she revealed in 2019 that she and her TV producer husband Brad Falchuk weren’t cohabiting full-time (though some saw the advantages. “One of my best friends was like: ‘That is my dream. Don’t ever move in,’” Paltrow said in an interview, after they had moved in together).
The vibe in media coverage and online commentary on Ralph’s revelation seems to be overwhelmingly: “Why not? Good for them!” There is an ever-richer spectrum of relationship models around us and Ralph and Hughes’s looks like a perfectly reasonable one (enticing, even: a friend says wistfully that they dream of saying: “My husband and I live separate lives” sometimes). It’s nice to remind ourselves occasionally that not everything in the world has got worse.
In principle, I am perfectly suited to long-distance loving. I am deeply rigid and intolerant, crave silence and, like Paltrow, “can’t sleep” if there are dirty dishes in the sink. But my husband and I crossed the Rubicon of having spent more of our lives living together than apart a while back and it’s far too late. We are essentially a single organism at this point, albeit one intermittently at war with itself over the acceptable amount of Capital FM and balsamic vinegar (none). I get sad and strange when he goes away for more than 48 hours, eating only crisps, having pass-agg conversations with the extractor fan and lining up tea towels precisely. I could no more live apart from him than from my liver at this point. I hope I never have to.
