Older couples are leading the way in Living Apart Together — or LAT — relationships. They’re committed to each other, maybe even married. But they don’t want to share space 24/7. For Dating While Gray, I’ve interviewed couples who live maybe a few miles apart … maybe several states apart. Personally, the arrangement I find tempting to possibly replicate is when your romantic partner is literally, next door. Like Evelyn, who built a duplex with her romantic partner. We told her story in the “One Love, Two Homes” episode. That also features an interview with Vicki Larson, author of “LAT-itude: How You Can Make a Live Apart Together Relationship Work.”

And how about Norman and Julie? For them, home sweet home is a 3,200 square foot condo in the famed Watergate complex in D.C. They carved it up into two apartments with separate entrances and an adjoining door. Here’s an excerpt of my conversation with Norman and Julie, from the latest DWG/APM radio broadcast special, “The Way We Live.”

Haven’t had the opportunity to listen? Read the transcript — and leave a comment! What’s your ideal living arrangement with a romantic partner? Will you need to make changes as you age into the twilight years?

LAURA STASSI So you both showed up at this dance thing, separately.

NORMAN: Separately.

LAURA Okay, and how long had you been divorced by this time?

NORMAN: Let’s make it simple. Well, at the time, I was still separated.

LAURA Okay, did your reaction  — is this something you don’t want to get into?

JULIE  No, it’s funny because I thought he was divorced, but he did not.

NORMAN Well, I don’t want to get into that story.

LAURA  Yeah, okay, okay, we won’t get into it. But So you both showed up because were you dancing regularly are going to …

JULIE Yes, yes, but I don’t drive, so I have to depend on, you know, a lift to some of these places. So,

and we were both in our 50s then, and I was so jealous of people who met their partner through dancing, like they had a, you know, a guy who could lead, and I never, never could do that. And if I did have a boyfriend and they didn’t know how to dance, we would start taking beginning ballroom classes. And that was like, I didn’t need another beginning class.

 But I thought he had a long-distance relationship, because he doesn’t talk much, so I thought he had a girlfriend back in New Orleans. So we were friends for like, six months., which is great. So we did stuff as friends, which is probably why this is, like, my first, like, serious relationship a long time.

 LAURA

When did it boom?

JULIE : Yes, when was our …

NORMAN: Well, outside the Kennedy Center.

JULIE: I know.

NORMAN So I had probably smoked too many cigarettes. I really started getting nauseated outside the Kennedy Center, and actually had a lie down on one of their concrete, you know, walls that contains the plants.

JULIE This is getting embarrassing.

LAURA: No! He’s telling it like it is.

NORMAN: Do you want all the details?

LAURA: Yes, I do.

NORMAN: I got so sick I threw up.

LAURA: Oh (laughter).

 NORMAN: so I was lying down on this concrete, small concrete top of the concrete wall, really moaning and feeling really sick, and Julie came out early from she didn’t, you didn’t stay for the whole concert. So I thought that was, you know, because Julie is very serious about the events. She goes to the theater and the concerts and so forth. So I thought that was pretty nice, you know, that she just wasn’t going to leave me out there for an hour and a half.

And then, you know, I went up to our house up here with the ninth floor in the rest is history.

JULIE: Yeah.

LAURA STASSI Tell me about the conversation that you’re going to live together

JULIE

that was years later after that, right? Because that was two, like, 2004

NORMAN: I retired from my job in 2016,  and I was living in Reston until then. So we spent about, I don’t know, almost 10 years, you know, with her in DC and me and in Reston  just commuting back and forth.

LAURA STASSI Did you come out here? Or did she go there?

NORMAN  I mostly came here.

LAURA STASSI Because you drive.

NORMAN And I think she liked her apartment better.

 JULIE Because I had never been in a relationship that worked for a long time, I was happy to see, oh well, when it’s the right person and the right time, I said okay. I feel very comfortable. This is it. This is the one. So that was established, and that was cool. And then I said, we should live together, but like next-door neighbors.

 LAURA STASSI Did that feel a little weird to you when she said, hey …

NORMAN: No, no, no it made perfect sense to me. I mean, I would have liked that arrangement when I was living with my wife.

 JULIE : I wanted an adjacent apartment. That was the goal.

LAURA STASSI Okay, and did you look in other buildings besides this one?

JULIE: No.

NORMAN: She was in 914, and  the apartment next door, she was trying to get the lady to sell it. That was going to be that was the first possible solution. When that didn’t work out, this place became available, I guess, and took a look at it, and the architects looked at it, said, Yeah, you could do, you could set, you know, put a wall up.

  LAURA STASSI  So did you – Okay, now I’m going to get all in your business. Did you? Did you buy one unit as a couple?

JULIE: No, I bought it.

LAURA Okay, so you bought it, and then did you sell to Norman?

JULIE: No.

LAURA STASSI okay, well, I mean.

JULIE He pays a little bit. You got monthly condo fees – coop. It’s a co-op.

LAURA: Uh-huh. So what you’re saying is, you bought the apartment and then you as the homeowner, decided to carve out a second apartment.

 NORMAN We don’t have a document or lease document or anything like that.

JULIE

Yeah. What do they call you? Are you a resident? What are you?

LAURA Laughter

NORMAN: I think I …. what does who call me?

JULIE: Like, do you vote?

NORMAN: I’m a registered voter.

JULIE: Like for the board?

NORMAN: I don’t have any ownership stake.

LAURA STASSI Okay.

JULIE But they don’t like long-term guests. I mean, you can’t have a guest here for years. If you’re going to walk in every day and have a key to the apartment, then you got to go through something with the board.

NORMAN I had to get letters of reference

LAURA: To live here long term.

NORMAN: Yes.

LAURA STASSI Does it ever make you feel financially precarious that you don’t have any ownership stake, and you also have a grown child?

NORMAN

Yeah, well, she’s on her own. And I have, you know, fairly significant retirement income. It’s not huge, but it’s certainly I can live well within its limits. And I don’t know how many more years I’m going to be here on this green earth, but I think I have enough to make it without any real concern.

 LAURA STASSI Okay, I have to ask this, what happens if Julie goes first?

JULIE

Oh, that’s in my will.

NORMAN She has a will. And I don’t know if I would be so inclined to live in the Watergate or not. I just haven’t really given it much thought. I do like certain aspects of it, being close to the metro and being able to walk to a lot of places without much trouble, ands being very close to Virginia by the Roosevelt Bridge, which I still have friends there, and I still do things there. But as Julie mentioned. Monthly fee is substantial, and I don’t know, I guess I would start working in that when it happened. I don’t have any plans. Is it in the will that I have to stay here, though?

JULIE  No, he just gets the apartment.

LAURA STASSI What seems very and again,  you seem like a very nice guy, but this seems really generous of you.

NORMAN

She’s very generous, extremely generous, very giving,

JULIE Cheap and generous.

NORMAN She’s cheap with herself. Well, I don’t know if I’d call it cheap, necessarily. She’s frugal, really. She doesn’t indulge herself in a lot of things, but she will give a lot help a lot of people, relatives, friends who are in need.

 LAURA STASSI Do you all have a routine about  how much time you spend together, where you’re eating, and …

JULIE We don’t eat together.

NORMAN: Right. We eat at restaurants together.

JULIE Only with other couples.

NORMAN

we don’t really have that much in common in terms of specific likes. Like Julie likes theater. I’m kind of lukewarm toward it. I like playing the piano, classical music. I like salsa. She liked west coast swing, you know. But it doesn’t seem to bother that certainly doesn’t bother me, because we each have the freedom, I guess, our ability to pursue our interests and still have time for each other.

JULIE And we both like privacy. So neither of us would want to share an apartment, and if it weren’t for the cats, because the cats can go back and forth all the time, and they do. We mean, if it weren’t for the cats, we wouldn’t probably see each other half as much as we see each other.

NORMAN I think I see you at least four or five times, six, maybe even 10 times. I come over here.

JULIE: A day or a week or a month?

NORMAN: A day.

Well, the best part is that I’m living with somebody that I really get along well with and I love and I can’t I mean, I think the first few years, you might have had a few blow ups at each other, but I’m perfectly comfortable with her, with Julie.

 JULIE At one point, I felt so comfortable with Norman. I said, Maybe we should get an apartment, the two of us together, and Norman said, If I left a dirty dish in the sink, would that be okay? I go, No, that would drive me crazy. Okay, okay, we’ll do it this way.

 Episode transcripts are posted on the Dating While Gray website before they are thoroughly proofread. The audio of this episode is the authoritative record. For terms of use and permissions, please email laura@datingwhilegray.com.