Married couple claim to have the best relationship – because they live in different COUNTRIES
A MARRIED couple claim to have the best relationship, despite living in different COUNTRIES.
Sarah Pritchard, from Manchester, has been with Martin, who lives in Wales, for seven years.
But despite getting wed three years ago the couple, who between them have six children from previous relationships, have never lived together or even been on holiday just the two of them.
As they both have full-time jobs, Sarah, 42, and Martin just see each other at weekends and claim it makes for the perfect relationship.
The couple met on a dating site seven years ago and Sarah admitted she initially knocked Martin back as they both lived so far apart.
But he wasn’t taking no for an answer.
Sarah explained: “I looked at his profile and I thought, ‘I’m not really too sure, he lives in Wales, it’s little bit far away’, so I ignored him.
“Then he sent me this email and it was fabulous. You could tell he’d really put the effort in, so I sent him a message back saying, ‘Thanks, but we live a little bit too far away from each other’.
“But he was like, ‘It’s only just over an hour down the motorway and I’m happy to drive’, so we arranged to go out.
“To be honest I didn’t really think much would come out of it, but I literally opened the door to him and saw this absolutely lovely, pleasant, really handsome chap and thought, ‘Oh he’s quite nice’.”
The couple started dating, seeing each other every Wednesday before gradually starting to meet up at weekends.
Over time they fell in love and their relationship became more serious.
But with Martin’s three children all at a Welsh-speaking school in their hometown Cefn Mawr in Wales and Sarah’s all studying in Manchester, the pair felt they couldn’t uproot their families and force them to leave their friends.
So they decided the only option was to remain living 60 miles apart.
Sarah explained: “Emma, Megan and Tomos are in Welsh speaking schools, so they’re actually fluent Welsh, and we thought it would be a bit of a culture shock for them to come to Manchester.
“And my children – Ella, Hannah and Billy – are city kids so they wouldn’t have liked a valley school.
“If I made Martin’s kids leave their friends and their school and likewise, if I took my kids out of their school, I think they’d resent us and it’d put a real strain on our relationship.
“If we’d have moved in together straight away, I think the stress of all this family merging might have killed our romance and put a real strain on us.”
But as the years went by, Sarah began to feel uneasy about their situation.
She recalled: “I didn’t feel like I had any commitment, we could be like this forever.
“We talked about it and we decided that we really did want to commit to each other, and even though we couldn’t live together because of the kids, we were that much in love that we wanted to be man and wife.”
When they announced they were getting married, Sarah told how some people were quite unsupportive.
She explained: “They couldn’t understand the point of getting married when we didn’t live together.
“But my argument to that was, if he was in the Forces, it might be weeks and months before I saw him.”
Three years later the couple still live apart and just see each other at weekends – and Sarah confessed many of their friends actually envy their situation.
She explained: “We have the best relationship.
“When you live with someone, you’ve got the day-to-day rigmarole, the same thing over and over and I just think it becomes really stale.
“We don’t have, ‘The kids are driving me mad, why haven’t you done the washing up, you’ve left a cup out’ – we don’t have any of the bickering.
“My friend’s ring me and they say their partner’s driving them mad, they don’t do anything in the house. I think sometimes having a partner is like having another kid.
“But Martin doesn’t get on my nerves because I’m not with him enough.
“I really recommend it, and all my friends say to me now, ‘I wish I could have the same relationship as you, I wish my bloody husband would move out!’
“At first they didn’t get it, but now they actually say, ‘I think you have it brilliant, it’s perfect, I wish I could do it’.”
Sarah said their weekends are precious and they go to great lengths to make their time together special.
She explained: “It’s great because he’s like a mum in his house, he’s got all the jobs to do during the week and he’s got to work and pick up his kids.
“I do the same here, so at the weekend we text each other and go, ‘One day ‘til Friday!’
“We literally do something every weekend, we don’t do housework, we don’t do gardening.
“On a Friday when I know he’s coming down, I still go upstairs, put my hair on, put my make-up on, answer the door, and people say it’s lovely because we go ‘Ahhh!’ and give each other a big hug.
“We just have the niceness all the time, and I just think it really works.
“I would say we’re quite needy with each other, we’re quite selfish, because we know we only see each other at weekends.
“And to be honest with you, when I see him Friday, by Sunday sometimes I’m ready for him to go home! And I think sometimes he thinks the same with me.”
Sarah said she thinks the reason it works so well is down to the fact they don’t have to endure the modern day pressures of being married and running a household.
She explained: “I’m a full-time mum and I’ve got a full-time job, but I don’t have the pressure of trying to have a relationship and making somebody else happy.
“I can get on with my job, I can get on with looking after the kids and then at weekends I can totally relax and be myself, and I think it really works, because it’s too hard to try to please a husband as well in the week.”
Sarah admitted the only time it felt unnatural being apart from Martin was two days after their wedding, when they both went their separate ways and returned to their separate houses.
She said: “While everyone else would go off on their honeymoon and go back to the house man and wife, he went home, and I went home!
“It was horrible. That was the only time it felt really odd and I did feel sad, it didn’t feel right.”
The couple have never been away just the two of them and usually holiday separately with their kids, as travelling as an eight is too expensive – and stressful.
But as the kids are getting older, Sarah and Martin plan to have their first trip as a married couple next year – but still don’t plan to move in together.
Sarah said: “We talk about it but we just never seem to get any nearer to moving in together, there’s always something.
“I think we’re both at the stage where we think, why fix something that doesn’t need fixing?
“People pull their faces and some don’t get it, but I actually think I’ve got a better relationship than most.
“And I do worry that if I do live with him, I might not even like him!”
Sarah and Martin have chosen to donate their fee for this article to their chosen charity, Wildlife Warriers.
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