Living Apart Together: What It Is and Why Couples Do It

 Dina Gachman-  Updated on 10/31/22 - For some, long-term romance includes milestones like leaving a toothbrush at each other’s place, giving each other keys, and eventually, moving in together. For a growing number of couples, though, living apart together (LAT) is way more romantic than sharing a bedroom, a bathroom, and a permanent address. Having separate addresses, for some, is the secret to a long and happy (and healthy) marriage.

What Does Living Apart Together Mean?

Living apart together (LAT) refers to couples who are in an intimate relationship, but choose to live separately for various reasons. Those reasons can be financial, personal, or both.

To learn more about this growing trend, we consulted experts Bella DePaolo and Sherrie Sims Allen. Because hey, if it works for Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband Brad Falchuk, maybe it’ll work for you, too.

Meet the Expert

    Bella DePaolo is an academic, researcher, and author of How We Live Now: Redefining Home and Family in the 21st Century.
    Sherrie Sims Allen, Ph.D. is a psychologist and relationship expert based in Los Angeles.

“We are in a whole new era of couples living apart,” explains DePaolo. Couples used to live apart mainly because they had no choice. For example, one or both had good jobs in different cities or countries that they couldn’t give up. That’s still the case for some, but the trend of choosing to live apart, regardless of your job situation, is on the rise. She adds, “What is relatively new, or newly getting recognized, are the couples living apart because they want to—or at least one person in the couple wants to."

Just like people are choosing to marry or have children later on, some are choosing to go a different route when it comes to their marriage. Especially for people who have spent their twenties and thirties single and living alone, independence can be tough to give up. “I see it as a possible growing trend as singles look at ways to connect that won’t cost them their preferred lifestyle or way of life,” offers Sims Allen.

Here are some things to think about if you’re curious about maintaining a LAT romance.
 

Why Live Apart?

Couples decide to live separately for different reasons, whether it’s because they love their solitude and space, they have to be in different locations for work or financial reasons, or because they feel like not being together constantly actually strengthens their bond. “Living apart might offer some relief to couples who value their individual space as well as each other,” Sims Allen says. If you each have established careers across the country from each other, but you meet on a cross-country flight and fall in love, you might decide it’s best for both of you and your relationship to keep your jobs, at least for a few years. Or maybe one person loves the mountains and the other needs the ocean, but you make it work anyway.

“The couple loves each other, but don’t feel they need to live in the same house to express their togetherness,” Sims Allen says of people who choose to live apart because of personal preferences. “They have an arrangement that is outside the box of traditional marriage,” she adds. Maybe having your own dedicated space is crucial for your well-being, and your partner understands that. It’s a conversation that should happen early on and both partners should be on board, or at least willing to try it and see if it’s right for your relationship.

Pros and Cons

Living apart means decorating however you want, making your own schedule, or seeing friends and relatives without feeling guilty about splitting time with your spouse. It also means seeing much less of your partner, depending on your schedules and distance and ability to come together. Sims Allen says that married couples who choose to live apart can have a “rich and intimate life that focuses on the heart of the relationship and not the daily details of existing together and running a household.” Meaning, your relationship won’t be defined by the daily stresses of whose turn it is to take out the trash or who didn’t close the kitchen cabinets. Having breaks allows your time together to be about bonding and spending quality time, instead of just time. DePaolo says that when LAT couples are together, “they focus on what they enjoy about each other and don’t spend a lot of time fretting about the small stuff.”

There are disadvantages to the arrangement, too. If there are any insecurities in the relationship, jealousy can come into play if one or both partners feels like they’re being ignored or if they worry about where their spouse is and what they’re doing.

It’s important to check in frequently and listen to how your partner is feeling about living apart.

There’s also the possibility that you’ll grow apart and seek out a new love who lives closer to home. The key to combating these challenges, according to Sims Allen, is that both partners need to remain flexible. Communicate about the fact that things aren’t working, and stay open to going the more traditional route if it’s worth it to you both. Like any relationship, it’s a process and what works well for a few months or years might not feel so ideal later on down the road.

Is It Right For You?

Having some alone time sounds amazing to most couples at some point, but make sure you’re fully committed to separate addresses and daily lives before jumping into the LAT lifestyle. Be clear about why you want to live apart and make sure one partner isn’t agreeing just to please the other. “The question becomes whether you are strong enough in your commitment to your relationship to withstand living in separate households,” Sims Allen says.

Make no firm plans about living together or apart. Do what works for the preservation of your marriage. Sims Allen says she knows of a couple where the husband lived in South Africa and the wife was in New York. They loved where they each lived, loved their jobs, and they loved each other, so they, like a growing number of couples, made it work.

“Having a place of your own just isn’t that unusual anymore” DePaulo says. “Sometimes it is living with someone else that takes some getting used to.”

Source: https://www.brides.com/living-apart-together-5189895

My Partner and I Are "Living Apart Together," and Our Relationship Is All the Better for It

By Leah Rockwell, LPC, LCPC,Published: Aug 25, 2022, Every Monday, I wake up at 5:45 am and I drive, half-asleep, to a local pool for my morning laps, my every-other-day routine for more than 20 years. I swim in complete silence, the water blissfully making conversation impossible. I breathe deeply, sinking into my body’s rhythm, slowly awakening over the course of those 30 minutes. Then I melt into a warm shower, followed by a cup of coffee in solitude. Before daybreak, I relish the peace of not answering any questions or coordinating who’s responsible for packing lunches or doing the day’s grocery run, surrendering to this daily self-reflection practice before transitioning into my workday. And I’m able to do this despite having two daughters, ages 15 and 12, plus a committed partner with three teenage boys of his own. How? My partner and I don’t share a home, unwittingly joining the Living Apart Together (LAT) movement, and I can have these mornings when my kids are with their other parent.

Ben and I began dating several years ago, as each of us were mired in the midlife chaos of divorce and co-parenting, grieving the deaths of lives envisioned that never quite materialized. We were messy and untidy, raw and fragile, brittle and hollow. But in each other, we saw hope for order and fulfillment, if only we were willing to think differently about how to conduct our relationship.

Those who knew about us early on told us how adorable our “Brady Bunch” set-up might be; at face value, this party of seven might seem like a cute idea. Though there was validation in others’ belief that our crew had the makings of a '70s sitcom, the image of a blended family, to me, was one that was muddy and unappealing.

While I was falling deeply in love with Ben, I had pledged to be radically honest with myself and with him about my emotional truth, something that I had repeatedly failed to do during my marriage. Though I loved him, I was not remotely enamored with the idea of combining lives, families, finances, or homes. After my divorce, I realized how much I thrive on setting boundaries around my time and space; applying this same concept to my relationship, for me, has been the key to its endurance.

Five years later, this same partnership thrives. Ben and I each live in our own homes just a mile away from one another. Our co-parenting lives are designed so that we each have our children for two weeks at a time. When the kids are with their other parents for the following two weeks, we are mostly free to be together. Sometimes I invite him to stay with me; sometimes I stay with him. Occasionally, we overnight at a small home we bought together an hour away, which we like to refer to as “our baby,” the only shared legal venture we’ll likely ever have together.

On many nights, though, we are each alone. We have periods of time in which the busyness of our daily lives, especially raising teenagers, leaves us with a need to slow down and take time to recharge. By living apart, I have space for deep reflection about my life, about our relationship, and about both our shared and separate futures. I now have an unanticipated chance to listen to who I am and to sing out what love means to me.

I like to believe that the level of individuality that we maintain provides a buffer against what psychologists call the “hedonic adaptation treadmill.” In an episode of The Happiness Lab podcast titled “The Unhappy Millionaire,” Dr. Laurie Santos describes the concept as gradually becoming desensitized to experiences that initially brought us joy. For example, if you’re a chocolate lover as I am, you might agree that the first bite of that triple chocolate decadence cake is divine, all things rich and creamy. But by bite eight, we’re ready to set down the fork and push the plate away, the sweetness of the cake now cloying or the cocoa taste far too bitter, our tongues now exhausted by the same continuous flavor.

The writer and her partner have arranged their co-parenting agreement so they have two weeks at a stretch without kids.

Courtesy of Leah Rockwell

But because of our living arrangement and the overall flexibility in our relationship, I haven’t gotten desensitized to my time with Ben. Every time I see him, I appreciate the way he greets me, nearly always with a firm yet gentle kiss. And, while our goodbyes are gloomy, when we make plans to meet again, I feel the rush of anticipation, akin to that moment when one finally sits down to a lovely, painstakingly prepared meal at the end of an arduous day.

Heather Dempsey, also in an LAT relationship, says that after buying a home and living together for three years, she and her partner of (now) seven years decided to un-cohabitate. Though she misses waking up to his hugs and sometimes longs for nighttime cuddles, she acknowledges that separation has actually created for them a stronger and more deliberate space for emotional connection, something that physical proximity to one another sometimes stood in the way of.

“We have a really powerful attraction, with very similar insecurities and fears, so we trigger each other at the drop of a hat,” she says. Living apart, she notes, means they can take some space and react more logically and patiently to each other, rather than experiencing the volatile interactions they had when they were always in the same room. “When we lived together, I also spent most of my time and attention on him, what he was doing, what he might want and what I could do to get more of his attention,” she adds. “But now that we’re separate, I have my attention on other things.”

Ann Turner, PhD, LICSW, CEAP, a couples and family therapist who works with and is part of a blended family herself (as a child and now as an adult) shares that not living with a partner can indeed have major benefits, especially for those who desire partnership but perhaps not in all areas of their lives. “The LAT relationship model is a great idea for couples where each person wants their independent time and space while also having the advantages of being in an exclusive, long-term partnership," she says. "The set-up usually includes sleeping and/or spending time at each other’s homes for some nights of the week but not living together full time."

"Single parents who have children may find this particularly helpful because they can nurture the couple part of their relationship while also keeping their single parent role and time with their own children separate from the other person," she adds. "The LAT model also replicates what many had before they had their children, a chance to get to know and connect with your partner without the ‘noise’ of dealing with kids in the mix.”

I don’t expect everyone to understand my LAT relationship, and I fully acknowledge that we are very privileged to be in a financial position in which this lifestyle is even a choice. But nearly five years in, there’s comfort in no longer trying to explain what works for us, and the more that I surrender to the relationship as it is, the more I embrace its truths. I relish each kiss hello when we reunite. I appreciate knowing that I’m the only one to blame for an empty toilet paper roll. I know that a streak-free countertop will remain so for at least a few hours after dinner. I don’t miss negotiating who has more stuff in the entryway closet, and I certainly feel zero regret at having a bathroom sink upon which rogue whiskers have no home. Zero.

There’s comfort in no longer trying to explain what works for us.

But it’s the relational wins that outweigh the superficial annoyances that we avoid by not cohabitating. For me, I’ve come to prefer joy with only a small side dish of turmoil; being in an LAT relationship has been the answer. It demands intentionality and a daily, deliberate commitment to showing care for one another, making the effort that isn’t a natural byproduct of shared space.

Perhaps there will be a time when this approach no longer works. Maybe it will become too fragmented, not satiating or just too logistically complicated to maintain very separate lives between two emotionally intertwined souls. For now, I’ll just keep savoring every moment of my life and love, each in its own space and season.

Leah Rockwell, LPC, LCPC is a licensed professional counselor in PA and MD, providing online counseling for women from a feminist and somatic-based orientation. In former lives, she was a Spanish language and sex education instructor, a school counselor and administrator, a wine vendor and she is pretty sure she was a mermaid.

Source: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a40967196/living-apart-together/

The Growing Popularity of Living Apart Together in Relationships

Two Homes, One Couple: The Growing Popularity of Living Apart Together

Actress and lifestyle guru Gwyneth Paltrow was in the tabloids recently, but not for any Hollywood-shaking incident. In fact, the GOOP forewoman made headlines simply because, after a year of marriage, she decided it was time to move in with husband Brad Falchuck.

That’s right, y’all — Paltrow kept her own digs to herself even after tying the knot back in 2018. And as it turns out, this dynamic is much more common than you think.

RELATED: 5 Questions to Ask Before Moving In Together

These relationships, in which a couple chooses to live in separate residences, are known as “living apart together” relationships (LAT, for short). And, if recent literature is any indicator, this type of amorous entanglement has become more popular, particularly among the elderly and millennials.

As Sharon Hyman, director of LAT documentary “Apartners” tells AskMen, like same sex relationships, LATs have always existed but are not spoken about as publicly. “Fortunately the tide is turning, and people are more open and accepting about what constitutes a relationship and a family,” she says. “It’s really about finding what’s right for you, regardless of what society dictates.”

To get the low-down on LAT relationships, AskMen spoke with Hyman and a number of LAT couples to figure out if living apart together could be right for you.

Why Do Couples Want to Live Apart?

Generally speaking, the younger you are, the less money you have. Therefore, many young couples remain together but live apart due to financial constraints, work, school or a combination of the three. For Jonathan Barkan, 35 and his girlfriend, 31, the two plan to move in together one day, but only when both have better planned for their future.

“For now, we basically split our time between the U.S. and Canada because that's what makes the most sense for us,” says Barkan.

When it comes to older couples, the main reason seems to be in order to remain independent. Most have been married and had children that have fled the nest. They don’t want to sacrifice their autonomy, nor do they have the time, interest or energy to start over. The biggest difference between the two? Most young couples wish to move in with their partners some day, whereas older couples, like Deborah, 49 and Mike 59, have no such plans.

“We are often faced with explaining this arrangement to people, especially because of the assumption that it must be temporary, and that we must be seeking ways to establish one residence,” explains Deborah. “We have no immediate plans to minimize the distance and move in together, nor do we have plans to marry, and yet we are fully committed for the long haul. We feel more connected and married in all the best ways.”

According to Hyman, many couples prefer to live apart to keep the family unit intact if they have children from a previous relationship.

“Many experts say this can be healthier for the children than introducing a new adult into the equation,” she says. “Not to mention, sometimes people have very different schedules, lifestyles or even standards for cleanliness. All of which are non-issues when you live in separate residences.”

Are There Advantages of Living Apart Together (LAT) Relationships?

Independence is without a doubt the biggest advantage cited for LAT relationships. People can enjoy their time to themselves while also experiencing the benefits of intimacy, and that warm fuzzy feeling that surges through your body when in love.

They also tend to experience less conflict, as separate living spaces offer time to cool down and retreat from their partner when they’re feeling frustrated. This gives the couple time to better think things out instead of reacting quickly without much thought. In addition, LATs also feel that when they do see each other, they value the time more as they aren’t together every day, all day. Basically, they’re more likely to make the effort to make each moment count.

Barkan, a resident of Ann Arbor, Michigan, loves that he and his partner, who lives in Toronto, get to share their cities with each other. “Part of the fun of being long-distance is that when one of us visits, the other can share what makes their little corner of the world so special,” he says. “It also helps figure out what is going to be best when we decide to make the next step, such as what kind of place we want to live, which country, what is important in the areas where we live, etc.”

As for Deborah, she sees her relationship with Mike as “a Venn diagram” — each have their own individual circle unique to them, but there’s also some overlap going on with things that they share.

“I think we both feel like the solitude refreshes us for the togetherness and the togetherness gives us a fresh start every week to do our own personal best, to be productive and to do meaningful things, and then to come back together again and again.”

LAT relationships are also easier to end. It may not sound romantic, but walking away from a relationship where there are no shared assets – mainly a house and the possessions within them – is a lot easier to do when a split is on the horizon.

Are There Disadvantages of Living Apart Together (LAT) Relationships?

For Jonathan, the biggest disadvantage is the planning. “It's hard to make plans with friends because we don't know where one of us will be on a given weekend,” he says. “It also makes little things, like being home for packages, that much harder because I may be gone for a few weeks or she'll be with me for a long while. We have to plan around these things that many people don't really think about.”

For others, like Janice, 59, it is the costs associated with living alone that weigh on her most. If she lived with her partner, who currently lives just 14 minutes away, these fees would be halved.

Janice adds that, while she is not one who is prone to ask for a hug if she’s feeling down, “it’s nice to get that when you’re with your partner and can tell they’re not themselves.” She also says living apart can sacrifice spontaneity in a relationship, using a spur-of-the-moment hike at 7 a.m. as an example.

“I would also suspect that people who have trust issues would find living apart a real challenge because you don’t know what’s going on with your partner 24/7,” she says. “Fortunately, that has never been a problem for us.”

As you can imagine, living apart together is truly just about embracing the fact that relationships don’t have to follow a certain formula. Instead, like every couple, they are unique, and different things work for different people. To think every relationship should conform to one singular model is foolish. If living apart is working for you and you’re happy with the way things are, keep them that way. As they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

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Source: https://www.askmen.com/dating/dating_experiences/is-the-living-apart-together-dynamic-the-new-normal-for-couples.html