Former Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, have announced that they are splitting after 29 years of marriage.
In an unusual move, however, the pair have said that they are not getting divorced, or even moving out. Instead, they will both be free to pursue other relationships and date who they want.
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The couple claimed that the difficult decision came during a conversation at home about two months ago when they spoke about why they were not 'lovey-dovey anymore'.
“You can’t fake it,” McCray said during the interview with the New York Times in which they even high-fived each other.
“You can feel when things are off … and you don’t want to live that way,” de Blasio added.
“One of the things we’re saying to the world is we don’t need to possess each other.”
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Among the reasons that the couple have decided to call it quits was the immense pressure that came with de Blasio running to be the mayor of New York.
Being mayor of any city is no mean feat, but when it's one of the biggest, richest, and most diverse and widely-known cities in the world the task seems almost insurmountable
He explained: “Everything was this overwhelming schedule, this sort of series of tasks. And that kind of took away a little bit of our soul.”
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McCray said: “How can you be a couple in the fullness of what you tend to think … when you’ve got this responsibility on your shoulders and you don’t want to add to that?
“There’s a certain weight … that goes with being with Mr. Mayor.”
McCray had been living as a lesbian before marrying de Blasio. Though the former mayor admitted that he did have his reservations.
He admitted: "For the guy who took the chance on a woman who was an out lesbian and wrote an article called ‘I Am a Lesbian’ … there was a part of me that would at times say, ‘Hmmm, is this like a time bomb ticking? Is this something that you’re going to regret later on'?
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“So I always lived with that stuff.”
Neither De Blasio nor McCray mentioned anyone else being involved in the split.
Topics: US News, Sex and Relationships, Politics
Kit Roberts