Taking ‘good terms with your ex’ to a whole new level: Woman happily lives with her two ex-husbands
“My dream life never looked like this”: Kristie De Garis explains how she makes sharing a home with both her ex-husbands and their children work.
The thought of living with an ex would be enough to send a shiver down the spine of most. But clearly not for one woman in Scotland, who has revealed she resides with her two ex-husbands.
Kristie De Garis shed light on her unusual living arrangements in an essay for The Times, detailing the practical reasons for which she shares a four-bedroom house in rural Scotland with her former partners, along with her two daughters (one from each marriage).
Romantic partners become roommates
The 46-year-old photographer married her first husband at the age of 21, welcoming her first child to the world soon after. The relationship lasted for a few years before they parted ways…until recently. More on that in a moment.
A short while later, she met and wed her second husband, with whom she had a second daughter. De Garis explains she was “more committed to trying” with her more recent spouse, with whom she bought their current house and co-parented her two girls. Just before the covid-19 pandemic, however, the pair split. But only in the romantic sense.
Practical and financial reasons keep exes together
The now ex-couple decided to keep living together in the same house, unable to afford “a proper split” and still on good terms.
“He took the downstairs bedroom, I took upstairs, and the kids kept their own spaces. There were tensions, of course,” De Garis confessed. “The same arguments over cleaning styles, spending, parenting, and then the steady awkwardness of long-term proximity but from a romantic distance”.
Just to add little more (potential) awkwardness into the mix, the photographer then asked her first ex-husband to join in the fun after deciding an extra pair of hands would help things in the house run more smoothly. A theory which has been proved to be the reality.
“None of us felt like we were drowning”
“Ex No 1 was between flats, working several jobs to pay city rents and struggling to make his life child-friendly,” De Geris explains. “He wanted to be better but just didn’t know how, between the absolutely not child-friendly four corners of his life. Moving in sort of made sense, he said. So he took the small office — which still has no proper storage — and joined the household.”
But how did she convince her other lodgers this was all part of some kind of masterplan? “More time, more support, less stress, less mess, less nagging” was her pitch to her second ex-husband, who agreed to try. The girls were “thrilled, and that was that”.
Like any household, there are typical cohabitation disputes, such as the best way to stack the dishwasher. However, the fivesome “found a new rhythm quickly” and, says De Garis, “for the first time in years, none of us felt like we were drowning”.
Unusual as it is, De Garis says their setup works. “My dream life never looked like this,” she admits. There are moments I wish it all looked a bit more like my fantasy. I still nag. But then I go for a two-hour walk in the evening or get a full day to work. And that’s more than I’ve had for most of my adult life”.
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