Kahlil Gibran, in The Prophet, wrote that in marriage you should have spaces in your togetherness and that you should not stand too near together.

But what happens when your separateness is more frequent than your togetherness? What happens when your branches and your roots grow so far apart that they forget they belong to the same tree? It is no wonder the divorce rate seems to soar at the age when people have toddlers. It’s sometimes just easier to chop the tree down that navigate your way back to the trunk.

A lot of people are fine with separate lives – it works for them. I don’t see the point. For better or for worse, a relationship should be the thing that binds the family. Without that in place, what is the point … what really is the point in being together?