This is how I feel. I’d be neighbors with my SO, I’d share a duplex, but not a house.
Yours is good too, but I was thinking of this one by Johnnie Taylor:
Which was especially beautifully performed by Buddy Guy:
During the COVID lock downs, my wife needed more space than our apartment could provide so she took the kids to her parents.
Being recently laid off and not wanting to spend my summer with my inlaws, I stayed in our city apartment and focused on job hunting and so on. I’d go visit on the weekends.
It was kind of nice. I get the benefit of not having to deal with the annoyances of kids and married life while not actually being a middle-aged divorced or perpetually single loser.
The downside IMHO is that long-term, such an arrangement is not would I would consider a “marriage”, unless you are solely married for the shared economic benefit.
The “weekend SO” arrangement seems like it would be common in scenarios where one partner’s job caused them to travel a lot. In my Deloitte Consulting days, I would frequently travel Mondays through Thursdays. Even though it’s different from weekend SO relationships where you just don’t want to be with the other person during the week, it can still create relationship stress.
So I guess my question is if you only really want to see you SO for limited periods of time on the weekend, how serious about this relationship are you really and how long do you keep at it because it’s convenient?
I’m currently at home and my husband is at our permanent campsite 93 miles away. From April 15 to October 15, he spends most of his time there. He comes home every other weekend for 3 or 4 days. We have a standing every other Wednesday chiropractor appointment and then he goes back either that day or Thursday morning. I go down there every other weekend on Thursday morning and stay until Sunday morning.
It’s not really much different than when he worked for the railroad and he would be gone anywhere from 24 to 36 hours at a time. I was working nights at the time and there was one two-week period when I only saw him awake for 14 hours.
He calls me every day around 1:30pm (after The Young and the Restless). I do all the yard work here and he does it there. I joke that he only comes home to get his laundry done and get some more cash to take back and the occasional haircut. He’s an incredibly picky eater, so I get to eat what I want. I really can’t stay there all the time because I keep this oiled machine running and I really can’t stand having to drive 26 miles just to get to the grocery store.
We’ve been doing things this way since we retired in 2015 and it just works for us. When he’s home for 6 months in the winter, after The Young and the Restless is over, he heads to the man cave in the basement to watch his Westerns and emerges every once in a while to see if we got any mail and to eat dinner.
On reread of my OP, our new friend sounds like a klutz. In reality he is actually graceful and athletic. However, he is refurbishing our dock, doing the work of a two or three man crew.
This is totally the airline crew experience. The difference is the job is career-long, not just an early phase of a career on the way to e.g. a non-traveling management job.
The upside is most of us work a bit less, more like gone 3 home 4, and with no work responsibilities when home. The bad news is it’s not synced with the usual Mon - Fri schedules of kids in school or spouses with more typical jobs. And for most folks is subject to continuous revision week to week and month to month. Which can generate a lot of stress. And a lot of divorces.
I’ve often said there are two models to a marriage. One is “You and me become only a we”. The other is “I’m me, you’re you, and we’re us. All three modes coexist.” As long as both partners subscribe to the same model, and in the latter case both agree to within a few percent about how much “us” is the right amount, they can make it work happily and smoothly.
Differing models produce rapid divorce. Second model with large “us” fraction disparities produce miserable marriages and late divorces. Knowing accurately what you and they want a priori is key, but very difficult. And may evolve at least some over time.
Not an easy problem to work through.
Dolly Parton was once asked if she believed in living together before marriage. She replied, “I don’t believe in living together after marriage.”
On another occasion, she was asked the secret to a long and happy marriage. She said, “Separate bedrooms.”
She may also have meant “separate bed-mates”, but ordinary schlubs like you or I may have a harder time negotiating that deal than she did. 
I am in full agreement. I would love a place all to myself. We’ve been sleeping in separate rooms for about 10 years now and yes, we do meet up in one bed…quite often. But afterwards, we kiss goodnight and I head to my own room. I love when I have the house to myself if he happens to be working when I have a day off. I love the peace and quiet and the house stays immaculate.
My gf lives in Blackpool and I’m in Farnborough, Hampshire, about 250 miles apart. About once a month I’ll go there, she’ll come here, or we meet in the middle somewhere for a few days. Using this method we’ve visited a lot more places in the UK than the average resident. Next may it will be 20 years that we’ve been doing this.
I get the appeal, but I don’t think most people would.
There was a guy in my area that ran 2 video stores about 40 miles apart in 2 small towns. He would run one store during the week and stay with a girlfriend that lived in that town, then run the other video store on the weekends and stay with another girlfriend there. That apparently went on for 10+ years.
I don’t think I’d ever want to live completely alone. Me and my sister already have plans to be old widows together, if it comes to that.
I like having someone to talk to, to split chores with. I like havong someone to make half the choices, so I don’t have to do it all.
I mean, I wouldn’t want to live with just anyone–with moat people I’d probably have to act conventional all the time, and that sounds awful. But my husband and I are unconventional in compatible ways, and I like it a lot. I do a 2 week business trip each year, where I get to “live by myself” in a hotel room, and it sorta sucks.
If he started traveling 4 days a week, I am sure there would be aspects I’d enjoy, in a silver lining way, but overall, I would never choose it.
Can I have a different one every weekend?
Isn’t the question more “would a different one have me every weekend?”
Although the doxies would be a powerful girlfriend magnet.
I hadn’t considered this. I have a serious under-utilized asset here.
That’s probably just in your area. Around here, the moat people are free spirits and loads of fun. The same with the bog people. It takes a little while to get used to the smell, but otherwise they make great house mates 
I’m okay with occasional long trips away, but I don’t think this kind of relationship would work for me. I think I would drift away emotionally over time. I’m pretty independent from a relationship standpoint. If I’m not with a person on a regular basis, I tend to find other ways to occupy my time and don’t necessarily feel the need to go back to the person.
10 years into our marriage with two gradeschool-age kids I moved 180 miles away to finish school. Both my wife and I returned to college at the same time in 2011, both attending the same community college. I finished a year ahead of her and since I was in a BA transfer program, I had little choice but to move away to finish. She finished a year later but already had a job lined up so we were effectively separated for 21 months, seeing each other every other weekend or so as well as vacations/holidays. It sucked, but we made it work.
I definitely like the odd weekend when she goes to visit her sister in Tacoma. I get to eat what I want, watch what I want, and the house stays a lot cleaner. But I don’t like being without her for longer than that so while I can see myself being single, since we are together I like being together, if that makes sense. I like having someone around that I can talk to, hang out with, help feed the cats, water the garden, argue over curtain colors, and help me grocery shop. Otherwise, what’s the point of being in a relationship?
Since she snores I can, however, foresee the day when we need sperate bedrooms. I’m totally ok with that.
Because of my mothers death, and another impending death in the family I’ve been spending more time away from home. A week or two a month.
I work from home (or anywhere with a good computer set up). My Wife will start working from home at least 1 or 2 days a week in a month or two. We have separate office space at home. That’s a must.
My Wife worked from home for about 2 weeks when COVID hit. Got a good set up for her. But the computer hardware is going to have to be redone. I work in IS/IT so that won’t be a big deal. We’ll figure it out.
It works. We play online chess nearly every night when either of us are away. We talk/visit during those games.
I loved the years that I lived alone. Going to a nice restaurant and getting a table for one. Going on a cruise solo. Coming home from a night out and only having 3 hours until I was due at work.
Good times.
I think that lifestyle can work well as a short-term arrangement. I’ve had quite a few boyfriends that I only saw on the weekends: one because he was in college and I had graduated, one because we were both working full-time and going to night classes several evenings a week, and one because we didn’t live near each other (and I was freshly separated from my husband).
Long-term, I would want someone who actually lives with me (but does not sleep with me – I like to sleep alone). But in those transitional periods of my life – transitioning from being a student to an employee, transitioning into being both an employee AND a student, and transitioning out of a marriage – the extra space kind of worked.