Amir Khan believes having a separate "lad pad" has made his marriage stronger.
The 33-year-old boxer lives in a four-bedroom abode with spouse Faryal Makhdoom and children Lamaisah, five, Alayna, 23 months, and four-week-old Zaviyar but he thinks having another smaller house that he can retreat to when he wants some time and space has been the "best thing ever" for their relationship.
Faryal told the new issue of OK! magazine: "Sometimes when you can’t stand each other, you have to think that you have children…"
Amir added: "That’s why I’ve got the other house, so I can take a walk there.
"I swear its the best thing ever. I do think having a separate house has also made our relationship stronger, because you’re not in each other’s face all the time.
"I still need my own space sometimes, to have my friends over and have a little chill. And Faryal can do the same."
But the couple – who have been married for seven years – also think becoming parents brought them closer together and made them grow up.
Amir said of parenthood: "It’s made it stronger. You think about each other."
Faryal added: "When you don’t have kids, you think young and act young. But with kids, you do grow up and I think it does definitely make you stronger."
In 2017, Amir and Faryal split up and trade hurtful insults on social media before finally reconciling.
Amir previously blamed a "lack of communication" on the pair’s marital problems.
During a TV appearance at the start of 2018, he said: "You want to change things at times, the way it went public wasn’t nice … anger sometimes takes over. That happened in 2017. Hopefully going into 2018 we’ve both put that behind us, we’ve got a lovely baby coming this year, we have also have Lamaisah, my boxing career, [I will] get some good fights in. What went wrong? A lack of communication."
Faryal added: "It was just a misunderstanding. I was in England he was in Dubai, he thought he was a bit cool in Dubai doing some tweets."