@simsa03 I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd split up more than a decade ago, but there were some things that happened in the next few years that set them up to live apart successfully. Namely, they both got much better jobs and moved to a bigger and better city.

In their earlier situation, they couldn't afford to actually split, because neither could pay rent / utilities / food / transportation alone.

Still, they didn't need to wait this long.