For the past two years, Mikala Dainter, 52, and her husband Antony, 56, have lived in separate homes. The pair, who share a teenage son, currently reside 15 minutes apart in the village of Oundle, North Northamptonshire.
The couple, who tied the knot in 2005, have rarely woken up side-by-side during that time – Christmas and on our son’s birthday’ – but they say they have absolutely no intention of splitting up.
In fact, their love has never been stronger, buoyed by date nights and holidays and the freedom to do what they want – he loves motorbike rides, she prefers yoga. They no longer share the burden of domestic drudgery; each cleans up their own mess and that’s how they like it.
The Dainters are one of a growing number of couples known as Living Apart Togethers (LATs). They are couples, often middle-aged but not always, who are fully committed to the vows they made on their wedding days, but who have no intention of co-habiting.
The LAT lifestyle has hugely benefited Mikala and Antony’s marriage, allowing them to focus on raising their child while avoiding the inevitable arguments and tension that a busy family life can often bring.
Now, instead of fighting over housework, they simply enjoy each other’s company – and make sure they’re snuggled up separately at the end of each day.
Their 16-year-old son happily splits his time between the two homes and the pair say they feel free to live independent lives, pursuing their respective hobbies and friendships, while safe in the knowledge they still have a special someone.
Antony tells the Daily Mail that choosing the dynamic had given them their lives back, and reignited their love.
Mikala Dainter, 52, and her husband Antony, 56, have been married for 20 years, but two years ago they decided to live separately and say it’s done wonder to their marriage
The couple tied the knot in 2005 (pictured) and have no plans to split up or file for divorce and see each other for regular dates and at the weekends
Mikala says while their relationship might seem happy and stress-free now, their marriage had reached a make-or-break point just two years ago.
With various stresses in their lives, Mikala said they both started to drift away from each other and no longer recognised the people who had exchanged vows two decades earlier. They were also dealing with the highs and lows of a blended family.
When their son was small, Antony’s teenage daughter moved in with them and Mikala, an IT consultant, says the couple found it hard to deal with a teenager in the midst of her GCSE exams while also caring for their then toddler son.
Later, financial pressures during Covid hit the businessowners hard and Antony’s health began to deteriorate. The combination of factors left the couples’ 21-year marriage on thin ice.
‘In the grand scheme of things, everything seemed fine, just the stresses of separated families – nothing new there,’ Mikala explains.
‘It was an accumulation of many things over the years. There were financial pressures, a teenage girl going through her [own] pressures, and Antony really struggling – and then there was COVID.
‘I look back on that period of time and think that I was functioning on adrenaline. We brought that tension into our home with our young son. We just hit our breaking point but we knew we didn’t want to separate.’
In 2023, Mikala suggested a huge change that breaks with convention – they would stay together but try living separately.
Mikala explains that they financially disentangled themselves from one another and worked out a new living situation scenario.
Antony remained in the family home, buying out Mikala and transforming it into a space that better suited his two children from his previous relationship, while Mikala bought a house separately nearby for herself and their son.
Antony took over the bills for that home, covering the mortgage and maintaining it, while Mikala, using money from her stake in the house, decorated her new home and took on their son’s private school fees.
There were teething problems though; Antony struggled to adapt to the family’s new way of life.
Mikala says: ‘I think it was hard for Ant, and I think the term he used is “If it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, it’s a duck…”. He thought it was divorce, a full separation.’
Antony found the change so hard at first that he considered moving out of the village all together, she adds, but says she reassured him that she loved him and had no intention of asking for a separation.
The couple have separate homes just a 15-minute drive apart and their 16-year-old son splits his time between them
She says: ‘We just needed to find a different way of living and be the best people we could, and also for our son to get the best out of his mum and dad.
‘I didn’t look at it as a separation. You can’t take away from the fact that we lived in separate homes but my close friends kept saying: “You have got the ultimate life, no filthy man messing up your bathroom, and no-one’s snoring away”‘.
‘And Ant’s friends were like, “I can’t believe it, you’ve got a great life, you’ve got your own space. But you’re still a couple.”
‘So our friends saw it as us creating this utopia of married life.’
Antony agrees that while many might think their situation is unusual, both parties agree it’s made their relationship stronger, because it has let the couple ‘prioritise the things that are important’.
He adds that it’s been important for both of them to make sure their son is happy, saying they both invested effort to explain the situation to him.
Antony says: ‘We have to be super positive. Especially with teenage children, there’s a lot of playground talk about people’s parents splitting up, divorcing, and I think we have a natural assumption that if you’re not together, you’re apart.’
Two years later the trio have settled into the rhythm of their new family life. Antony goes round for dinner at Mikala’s three times a week and Mikala returns the visit after her gym classes.
They make sure to spend weekends together as a family, working around the son’s social and school commitments and still carve out time to see each other on their own.
Mikala says: ‘I will go for dinner Tuesday and Thursday, just because I’ve got an exercise class. So I’ll go straight over there after yoga and have dinner, then I’ll come home.
‘On Friday mornings, because we both work from home, we will meet for coffee, and we have our “Full English Friday”. We go for breakfast, just Ant and I, and we’ll talk about anything around our son.’
They also spend time together on weekends, enjoying a pint at the pub, visiting friends or taking out Antony’s motorbike for a spin.
While the couple rarely stay over at each other’s houses, and were diplomatic about intimacy, they do endeavour to be a unit for special occasions, waking up together for Christmas and their teenage son’s birthday and are happy with that routine.
‘At Christmastime, we wake up together on Christmas Day and for our son’s birthday.
‘We tend to stay together for those days, so we just all wake up as a family together,’ Mikala said.
While the pair are happy now, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing and Mikala and Antony decided to live separately after increasing financial pressures, poor health and blended family dynamics
The self employed IT consultant says that when they first lived separately, they tried to spend as much time as possible together but that has since tailed off.
She adds: ‘We are really independent, and probably don’t spend as much time together during the week now [as we used to].
‘When we first did it, we were probably overspending time together, whereas now we’re two individuals that are in a loving, caring relationship that live in separate homes.’
And the change has done wonders to their marriage. Mikala says they no longer argue and actually look forward to seeing each other.
‘We enjoy each other’s company again now. We’re not having to argue about things or be stressed about things.’ she says.
Antony chimes in that they’re both ‘calmer and less stressed’, explaining that their relationship has returned to its early days with inquisitive conversations and dates.
‘When you’re starting out in a relationship and you’re living separately, you have that time. When you move in together, and you start to have a family, all that sort of thing is just completely obliterated.
‘[Before] We were probably more apart when we were together,’ he says.
Mikala also explained that the new arrangement suits their personalities and routines better, and neither worry about the other feeling guilty or cornered in to doing something they’d rather not.
She can turn in for the night early while Antony can work late as he prefers, neither disturbing the other.
Antony admits that the separate living situation has allowed their personalities to flourish once more as they curate their own living spaces.
‘I’m quite fastidious. I like things to be tidied away and in their place. Now we’ve got separate spaces they’re managed and presented very, very differently.
‘I think our personalities have probably come back to our environments, rather than being compromised because you’re living with someone.’
While Anthony can keep his kitchen as tidy as he likes, Mikala can paint her house how she prefers – including opting for a neon pink downstairs toilet which she says she knows Antony hates but she loves.
Her ability to have her home as she likes has made her feel liberated: ‘What if they don’t like bright colours and lots of pictures and ornaments around, but they live with it every day?
‘It’s silly things like that and now we don’t have to have those discussions, we don’t have to feel as though we put up with things, or we have to compromise on anything.’
Mikala says that while many in her family don’t really understand her and her husband’s arrangement, she feels she is still holding true to the pact the couple made at the altar two decades ago.
Will the day ever come where they move back in together? ‘I don’t know what the future holds, whether we’ll ever end up in the same house permanently when there’s no children around, or, when we can afford a big enough house with a bedroom each.’
