Living Apart Together

With housing in increasingly scarce and costly commodity, and under the hoary “two can live as cheaply as one” rule, logic would seem to dictate that couples would move heaven and earth to place themselves under a single roof. Many people set up housekeeping together simply to help foot the rent bill. But some couples, both those in longtime relationships and the officially married, follow a less-traveled path. They live in separate homes — on different floors of the same building, down the block from one another, in different neighborhoods, even in different boroughs.