A married couple who spent 8 months apart say they would do it again

• A married couple who spent eight months living apart have finally moved back in together.
• Sana Akhand told Insider that she and her husband Adnan fell apart after seven years of marriage.
• They now share a place in California, but Shana says they would live apart again.

ONE married couple who spent eight months living in separate New York apartments have moved back in together – but they won’t rule out doing it again.

Sana and Adnan Akhand married in their twenties and lived together for just under seven years. SanaThe 32-year-old told Insider in February that she and her husband felt their marriage was falling apart. In an effort to save their relationship, they decided to live in different homes and manage their finances separately.

Sana said they envisioned a marriage where they maintained their independence. they didn’t want to slip into traditional husband and wife roles. But the opposite happened.

Sana’s story went viral on TikTok in January in a video he shared that has more than 1.5 million views as of Friday. The couple agreed to live apart for a maximum of three years, but decided to get back together in June – eight months after the experiment – after he started a new job on the West Coast.

Speaking to Insider from their new rental in Los Angeles, California, Sana said the distance made the heart grow fonder and she wouldn’t say no to living apart again.

Adnan, he said, “changed a lot.” In addition to appreciating her more, he said he has become “more loving and affectionate.” Traditional marriage dynamics can become “stale,” he added. Life away from Adnan has rekindled their intimacy, passion and “excitement to be together again”.

With their new residence on the west coast, Sana said they plan to live a bicoastal life with homes in New York and Los Angeles. They are still choosing to live apart once again.

“Part of it makes me wonder if living together right now is a test,” Shana said, noting that she’s writing a book about women, relationships and self-love. “Will more space make it better and easier? Or is it just a way of life that people can and should do?”

He added that the one scenario in which they would stay in the same house long-term is the children. “If we had kids, we’d definitely be living together full-time,” Shana said. “I’m not doing it alone.”

But getting back together has its challenges, says Sana

After months of living apart, the process of getting back together was “an adjustment,” according to Sana.

She explained that at first they were excited to be back together and spend every day with each other. But after three weeks, Sana began to feel “completely exhausted” and slipped into old habits, such as making lunch and dinner for Adnan every day. She said she was depressed and didn’t feel like her usual self.

“I stopped doing all the things I learned in the last eight months and said I would never do it again,” he said.

She and Adnan decided to set “boundaries” so that everyone could have independent time. Shana said she wanted more time alone and with her own friends.

“Monday through Thursday, we do our thing,” he said. When Adnan works late, she said she takes those days to pursue her hobbies of painting and drawing.

Weekends are spent together.

“Friday night, we cook dinner together; on Saturdays, the phones are off,” she said.

While it’s not easy to distance yourself from the person you love, Sana said she “actively makes sure I don’t make him my whole world.”

Another challenge was reconciling with family members who she said did not understand why she and Adnan lived apart. He added that family members were affected by the negative opinions of strangers commenting on their lifestyle on social media.

“They let what other people say get to them,” Shana said. “Confronting social norms will make people uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”