New age thinking....new age marriage....
Check this out....I can totally do this btw:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/23/g...robert-b-parker-a-house-divided-lovingly.html
ROBERT B. PARKER and his wife, Joan, have been together for almost half a century, have raised two children, and since 1987 have worked together turning his famous detective novels into TV movies. He dedicates his books to her, and she appears in them, thinly veiled, as a major character named Susan.
But real life has thrown them some curves. In 1982, they separated and discussed divorce. Instead, they each underwent intensive psychotherapy and confronted a vexing truth. Despite incompatible lifestyles -- she is tirelessly social, he's a loner -- they couldn't or wouldn't sever their bonds.
''In 1984, we reunited in a loving, monogamous relationship,'' said Mr. Parker, 69. With the slight smile that is a cue for some classic Parker-fiction banter, he glanced at Ms. Parker and said, ''Her yearning for me was palpable.''
Mr. Parker, creator of the tough but erudite private investigator Spenser, got a response befitting Susan, Spenser's feisty girlfriend.
''That is humor based on fantasy,'' she said.
In the Parker household, real life and theater often overlap. Ms. Parker, also 69, is half of Pearl Productions, which generates made-for-TV movies. A&E will broadcast their 10th, ''Walking Shadow,'' with Mr. Parker in a cameo role, on Sunday.
It will also be their 45th anniversary, and they plan to spend all day together -- an unusual occurrence for the Parkers, who have forged a living arrangement that many couples only dream about: two independent apartments united by a single roof.
The Parkers are professional storytellers, and one of the best stories they tell is their own. Here is the abridged version:
They met in college, married, had two sons, earned graduate degrees, split up, got back together and then, in 1984, embarked on what they now call their second marriage.
They ended their ''trapped suburban lifestyle,'' as Mr. Parker put it, in Lynnfield, north of Boston, and with both children grown and out of the house, bought two separate condominiums. They continued to see a lot of each other, but they missed some of the intimate things they liked about living together: spontaneous walks along the Charles River and impromptu Sunday brunches with Mr. Parker, Spenser style, at the stove. Ms. Parker's contribution at mealtime is eating.
Then, in 1986, they found the answer. It was a 14-room house a few blocks from Harvard Square, big enough to let them establish their unusual lifestyle, with two homes separated by an exterior stairway. They've lived there happily ever since -- not unlike Spenser and Susan, who live in separate quarters but remain quite close.
The house is a three-story Victorian with a mansard roof, just off elegant Brattle Street, where towering trees shade red-brick sidewalks. The hook for Ms. Parker was the stairway that ascended from a side garden to the third floor, where the previous owners had installed a four-room apartment.
Here she set up a full apartment for herself (living room, dining room, galley kitchen, bedroom, bathroom), a place to dine with friends at 9 p.m., her feet on the table, and to watch television alone well into the night. On the second floor, she installed a second full apartment for Mr. Parker, who eats at 6, his feet on the floor, and turns in at 10. Here he could write his customary five finished pages a day, with time to nap and get to the gym before making dinner. (His 41st book, ''Death in Paradise,'' is scheduled for release by Penguin Putnam in October.)
When they wanted to get together for a romantic dinner, they met at his place or hers, and when they wanted to entertain, they did it on the ground floor, where they kept a third kitchen.
''Although I hardly ever used the external tower stairway, I needed to know I could be autonomous,'' Ms. Parker said. ''It was pivotal in our ability to enjoy a combined household.''
A former state education official, she is far more outgoing than her husband and loves to be a host. She is an active fund-raiser for charities that assist people with AIDS, support the arts and promote awareness in high schools about the challenges faced by gay teenagers. As the mother of two gay sons -- David, 42, a choreographer; and Daniel, 38, an actor -- Ms. Parker wants ''to matter on these issues,'' she said.
''Joan organizes our social life, and on weekends I follow her around,'' Mr. Parker said contentedly. Ms. Parker replied, ''With all our challenges -- I've had breast cancer twice -- Bob is the rock upon which we all stand.'' Indeed, she added: ''I find him very heroic. And, despite a tough exterior, he's a mush ball who can cry at a traffic light.''
In 1998, after Mr. Parker, an avid runner and weight lifter, had surgery on both knees and needed to move downstairs, she decided to reconfigure their arrangements once again.
''I was just going to bump out the ground floor a little to convert the dining room into Bob's bedroom,'' Ms. Parker said. Then, both agreed, the little rehab project turned into a very big deal.
Three years and $1 million later, they have two new apartments and a new addition out back.
''For me, decorating is an organic, ongoing process; it's the fun of owning a house,'' Ms. Parker said. A Boston-based designer, Eileen Patterson, gave her a hand, and they finished up -- for the time being -- last month.
All three floors are brimming with photos of family members and the Parkers' dogs. (Ms. Parker has a miniature English bull terrier named Rosie. Mr. Parker has a German short-haired pointer named Pearl.) She has added flea market finds and precious antiques: on the new top floor, where they entertain, a dinner table was fashioned from a 16th-century French armoire door.
Now Mr. Parker's apartment is on the ground floor, hers is on the second, and on the third there is room not only for their frequent dinner parties but also for overnight guests.
Onto the back of the house were added two ornately paneled atriums, one on top of the other. Mr. Parker's apartment opens onto a new back porch that steps down to the backyard, with more room for entertaining. Just off Ms. Parker's second-floor atrium, a new balcony overlooks the landscaped yard. The exterior staircase was enclosed and fitted with built-in benches on the third-floor landing.
Ms. Patterson, the designer, got rid of the floral pastel motifs in the apartments. She did Mr. Parker's apartment in two of his favorite colors -- burgundy and green -- along with sunflower yellow. (''He doesn't ask for much, so when he does, we listen,'' Ms. Patterson said.) A wall of stained and leaded glass separates his bedroom from the hallway. His private office has French doors and a custom-made workstation with a red suede pin board.
Ms. Parker's apartment has a dressing room with walk-in closet and a hallway to the tower stairs. She works in her atrium, at an antique secretary desk. Her new bed has a step stool so Rosie can climb up.
''The house is Joan's work of art,'' Mr. Parker said. Putting to rest any notion that her husband is a he-man who calls all the shots, Ms. Parker said: ''Right. The house is mine, and Bob does what I say.''
Their unusual living arrangement, they say, lets them avoid battles over the little things, like whether to have guests for dinner and when to work, while sharing their interests in the the arts and their family. As Mr. Parker put it, ''On the big issues, Joan and I are amazingly in tune, but on the creature-comfort level, we're incompatible.''
They also work together, a trying test of any relationship, collaborating on television screenplays. She adapts his novels, working alone upstairs. He edits and polishes downstairs. Then they get together to work out the details. The Parkers' latest project is a proposal for a movie based on the life of Jackie Robinson. Their scripts, Mr. Parker complained, rarely survive the production process intact. ''They destroy them,'' Mr. Parker said. ''They never come out the way we see them in our heads.''
But they can't resist watching anyway. On Sunday, after they observe their anniversay according to tradition -- with ''a raging pig-out'' that culiminates at their favorite clam shack -- they will be ''glued to the TV, popcorn ready,'' Ms. Parker said. ''In my living room, which is fitting since I have the bigger, better TV set.''