Sarah Paulson Explains Why She Feels Married to Holland Taylor Without a Wedding

Taylor Shared How the Couple Makes Time Together in New York and Los Angeles

Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor have been together for more than a decade. In separate interviews, the two actresses spoke about how they share their lives. Taylor described the practical arrangements that allow them to spend time together when work takes them to different places. Paulson talked about why she feels deeply committed to Taylor and has been happy to remain unmarried.

Taylor spoke about their homes on The Drew Barrymore Show. Paulson, 51, discussed marriage on Chelsea Handler’s Dear Chelsea podcast during a November 12 appearance. Her answer came down to a feeling she already had about her relationship with Taylor and a sense of personal freedom she valued.

Paulson Stays at Taylor’s Apartment When She Is in New York

Taylor explained that work regularly takes the couple apart. How much time they spend together depends on where each of them needs to be. When their schedules bring them to the same city, they make use of the homes they already have there.

“Well we do as much time as we possibly can, because work takes us apart constantly,” she said. “But I have an apartment here [in New York City], and [Paulson] stays here in my apartment when she’s here.”

The New York arrangement gives Paulson a place with Taylor whenever she is in the city. Taylor’s answer described a routine organized around the work the two already do. Time together can follow a trip or a professional commitment, and the apartment is where they share that time when their plans overlap in New York.

Their Living Arrangements in Los Angeles Have Shifted

The couple have separate homes in Los Angeles, although Taylor said they had been spending much of their time under the same roof there too. Paulson had yet to move into her new house and had been staying at Taylor’s Los Angeles home for nearly a year by the time of the interview.

“In LA, I have a separate house from hers, but her new house, she hasn’t moved into.

“It’s been almost a year since she’s been staying in my house in LA, too. So we’re together as much as geography and our jobs let us be.”

The change in Los Angeles gives a clearer picture of what separate homes mean in their daily lives. Each has a place of her own in the city, and Paulson had been living with Taylor while her new home remained unoccupied by her. Taylor described that as part of how they were living at the time, with professional schedules still shaping when they could be together.

They First Met in 2005 and Began Dating a Decade Later

Taylor and Paulson first crossed paths in 2005. Their relationship became romantic in early 2015, about a decade after that first encounter. In March 2016, they made their relationship public.

Those dates mark different stages in their history. They had already known each other before they became a couple, and they spent roughly a year together before making the relationship public. By the time they gave these interviews, their relationship had lasted more than a decade.

Taylor’s account of their homes offered a glimpse of the routines they had developed over that time. Her description moved between the cities where they spend time and the work that often takes them apart. Paulson’s interview approached their years together through a more personal question about what a marriage would mean to her.

Paulson Says She Already Feels Married to Taylor

Speaking with Handler, Paulson said she was comfortable with the choices she had made about marriage. “I’m happy that I haven’t been married,” Paulson said. “I feel that I’ve maintained some sense of myself in a way.”

She then explained how she understood the depth of her connection to Taylor. “The bond, the connectivity I have with Holland, I feel married to her,” Paulson explained, “but I don’t have or have never had the need to have it be something written in stone somehow.

“The stoneness of it gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

Paulson used the word married to describe how the bond feels to her. When she spoke about making it formal, she focused on the permanence she associates with that step. Her answer was personal, grounded in what she has felt during her years with Taylor and in the choices she has made for herself.

What Paulson Meant by Freedom

Paulson also spoke about the freedom she associates with remaining unmarried. She connected that feeling to having retained a sense of herself. Her comments put independence alongside the closeness she described when talking about Taylor.

That sense of self came up before she explained why she feels married in her relationship. The sequence gives both ideas room in her answer. She spoke first about being happy with a decision she had made in her own life, then about the connection she experiences with the person she has chosen to share it with.

Paulson’s remarks centered on how she understands commitment after years with Taylor. The prospect of putting that commitment into a formal arrangement brought up a different feeling for her. She could describe the depth of the bond in terms familiar to anyone who thinks of marriage as a close partnership, while being candid about how a formal step would feel to her personally.

Two Interviews Focused on Different Parts of the Same Relationship

Taylor talked about time, location and the homes where they spend part of their lives. Her examples were specific. Paulson stays at Taylor’s apartment when she is in New York, and she had spent nearly a year staying at Taylor’s place in Los Angeles. Those details put an everyday shape around a relationship the two made public in 2016.

Paulson talked about what that relationship means from her perspective. She described a connection close enough that she feels married to Taylor and a degree of independence she has been glad to keep. Those were the parts of her experience she chose to emphasize when Handler asked about marriage.

Both women spoke about choices they have made over the course of their relationship. Taylor described finding ways to be together whenever their jobs and locations allow it. Paulson described the strength of a bond that has grown through those years. In New York, their time together has a familiar address. In Los Angeles, a move Paulson had yet to make had already given them nearly a year in the same home.