A couple have revealed their rather unorthodox way of living as a "blended, yet unblended" family, as they live in two separate suites within the same home, but swear it works perfectly for them.
Shelley Hunt and Peter Verge, from Penticton, Canada, all live together in one big home with their five children, but not in the way that you might think.
Mum-of-two Shelley lives in one suite within the home with her children from a previous marriage, while Peter lives in a suite upstairs with his three kids, and in all honesty, it sounds perfect.
The couple have been together for a number of years now, and both have joint custody of all five kids on the same schedule, meaning they either have all five kids at once, or none of them, giving them alone time to enjoy as a couple.
After previously revealing their unusual living situation, the couple recently took to TikTok to answer all the burning questions people had about their family dynamic.
"I live on the upper floor, I have three bedrooms for me and my three kids and Shelley is on the main floor with her two. We have our own entrances, there's a door that locks in between," Peter explained.
"I pay 58 percent of everything and Shelley pays 42 and that's based on square footage. I'm responsibly for my suite, I cook, I clean, and the same thing for Shelly downstairs."
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Shelley added: "Our suites are really separate so we have our own rooms but we have shared custody on all five of our children on the same schedule, so we either have all five of them or none of them and if they're not here, we open the door and strangely, we sleep in my room, but we use Peter's living space 'cause it's cooler."
Explaining a little bit about how they came to be in that situation, Shelley explained that they were both looking to get onto the property ladder very early in their relationship, so it made financial sense to buy together, while still maintaining some separation for the sake of their children.
Despite things being a little unorthodox, the couple believe their children get along better with one another than they would've done had they been living in closer proximity with each other.
"We believe the kids get along better because they have space, they call us a family, they call each other step-siblings, that was totally on their terms, we didn't push that language on them," Shelley said.
"We do all of our holidays and birthdays together and we do dinner a couple of nights a week altogether."
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