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Remember the days when we had to hide the fact that we were "living in sin" from our grandmas? We wonder how she'd feel if she knew we were married, but not living together. They're often called the "living-apart togethers."According to the Daily Mail, a new survey found a surprising new trend: One in 20 committed couples chooses to live separately. That marks an increase of 40 percent in the last decade. See: Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter, who live apart, two kids and 10 years into their relationship.
While young couples choose to live separately to retain their independence, those over 35 are likely to resist cohabiting because they have accumulated too much crap over the years to cram into one place. (This sounds like a metaphor to us.) The study also found that men are more likely to delay moving in than women, and that country folk are less likely to cohabit than city dwellers.
While living apart may cost you more (in addition to paying two rents, couples who commute between homes are apparently three times as likely to be burgled), it sounds like these live-aparters are onto something: a relationship that doesn't involve fighting about whether the toilet seat is up or down. It sounds like pure bliss.
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Monday 04 October
By nick
Wonder if BILL CLINTON told HILLARY that is his dream, having Monica and Jennifer in a king size bed and AL GORE wishing he had some.
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Monday 04 October
By me
That is such a bizarre comment it makes me have to write a response. The Clintons live separate lives and have for years. Who cares? If it works for them, then who are we to judge!! Live and let live and don't judge.
Monday 04 October
By Kim
Hey Nick - If you think like you write you need some professional help.
Monday 04 October
By Amy
I'll admit I'm only in my mid-20's but it just saddens me that our culture is so unwilling to compromise, to share, to look beyond our own immediate needs that even marriage has become a bother.
By all means, to each their own; if a couple comes to the point where, for example, one is losing sleep due to the others snoring, sleep separately. But now "open marriages" and living separately is becoming a new trend which supposedly shows greater commitment? That doesn't sound like love to me
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Monday 04 October
By JingoBets
Amy, you are wise beyond your years, and it gives me hope for our future that there are young people like you out there.
All of this BS about living apart is shear lunacy and will only work those with cash to burn, other will try it because it's "trendy" and suffer because of it; just like all of these rich stars deciding to become "single moms", most "single moms" and their children end up in poverty. People need to wise up and return to the moral foundations that made this country great.
Monday 04 October
By thegrrrr8est
That's because you're still young and have stars in your eyes about what love is. It isn't a big fancy wedding. It isn't playing house together. It isn't even holding each other as you blissfully fall asleep together. Mature love -- that is, love that lasts beyond that first few years of physical craziness -- recognizes that loving another person doesn't mean walking lockstep with them through every moment of every day.
My love and I live in separate residences. It's the ideal world. I think that movies and TV have created an insane (and impossible) picture of what real love is. Little girls grow up to want the big wedding, but never give a thought to what they want their actual LIFE to be like.
Tuesday 05 October
By magyymae1
Amy, I agree with you, although sometimes sleeping in a different room can be a must. My husband had really bad snoring and I have horrible insomnia - not a good combination, but living in separate houses doesnn't even seem like a marriage does it?
Tuesday 05 October
By isisreptiles
I am not young, nor do I have stars in my eyes, but I agree with everything Amy is saying. I find it very sad that people have become so self-centered that they cannot be bothered to make the compromises necessary to share their space with another person. Perhaps those people who want to live this way would be better served to simply remain in a dating relationship and not bother getting married at all. What's the point if they wish to continue living as though they were still single?
Tuesday 05 October
By Tippy
You are correct, marriage is about sharing. Living together with your wife is the greatest joy god gave us.
Monday 04 October
By jtoose
hmmmmmmmm.......I think I'll run this by the wife.
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Monday 04 October
By Sara
I would miss the snuggling... but not the snoring....real love can happen on the kitchen table...you think ?
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Monday 04 October
By lesli
I find it odd that there is no break down of the "whys" in this article. Like how many of them are living separately due to work? Or how many are living separately because of things due to the kids (medical, special schools or lessons or sports). Everytime you hear of a child star or an Olympic gymnast, their parents seem to always live separately. And how many people have actually made that choice as a couple. My parents and my grandparents for that matter lived apart by certain standards. My dad and grandfather worked for the same company in Ohio where they kept an apartment. My grandmother and my mother lived in Pennsylvania at different residences. They commuted home on the weekends (Friday night) and left again on Sunday evening. For my parents this went on for the first 17 years of their marriage because my mother was caring for her elderly grandparents. Once they passed on, we moved to Ohio. But I guess I don't see what's so "odd" about it. Its always gone on, its just never been documented.
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Monday 04 October
By Lassie
A lot of 'fictional' couples do this, the best example Robert B. Parker's detective, Spenser, and his finicky paramour Susan. He's a real man's man, she is color-coordinated down to her toenails, and they realize living together would drive them apart. So they alternate houses, or just work and get together on weekends. Sounds like heaven to me! Once the honeymoon is over, a couple NEEDS separate spaces. Not necessarily separate houses, but I've been married 25 years and the secret to our success: a two story house, with a bathroom on each floor. I live downstairs, he lives upstairs, and we meet in the kitchen or the den in the basement. Works wonderfully well!
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Wednesday 06 October
By Kristoff
Not new. My great great grandparents lived in separate houses on their farm in the middle of Texas for decades. Apparently it was a family joke but it worked for them. They even had separate mailboxes.
Tuesday 05 October
By coastalkate
Wha'ts so weird about that? My Aunt and Uncle lived in seperate houses for 25 + years. they tried living in the same house once - lasted for about 4 months. We all need to keep our outlook about how other people live to ourselves. if they are not damaging someone else then it is entirely their business.
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Monday 04 October
By Jo
I agree that this article doesn't go deep enough into the "whys". My husband and I live 4 hours apart because he is in school. Too many factors didn't work out for me to move with him for the 2 years he'll be in school. And Amy, just because we don't live together doesn't make our marriage any less of a commitment and there is certainly no less compromise! Don't judge the many couples who are making the best of their marriages based on their own personal circumstances. Since we made this decision I've had countless people tell me they or their parents lived separately for long periods for many reasons.
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Monday 04 October
By sarahsotasprings
I have a couple of female friends who live that way - one is in her late forties the other is 52. Both were married before and don't want to get married again so they get together with their signifigant others a few times a week for dinner and sex and then send them home. This way they don't have to spend every moment entertaining someone else, or nursing someone when they're sick, or have some slob sitting around on their couch all weekend. They have companionship but they don't have to build their lives around someone else. Sounds perfect to me.
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Monday 04 October
By sophia
What you are talking about sounds like DATING to me and not at all to the point of what this author was trying to convey.. I have been married several times much to my dismay.. i am not proud of this, however, what i learned is that the marriages in most part did not last because the partners i chose were not committed to the marriage in the sense that we didn't spend a lot of quality time together,, which i realize now is essential.. even having someone you care about in the same room, house,, doing different things is a sign of togetherness. I agree,, you don't have to be in LOCKSTEP together every minute. everyone needs to grow in their own way.. true there are exceptions,, but how does one grow old together.. which is the point of getting married,,companionship.. if you are living in separate houses.. it's like we want the good without having to partake in the bad.. no wonder a lot of us never grow up....
Tuesday 05 October
By Aerin
Your friends are not married and don't wish to be. They want a "friend with benefits" but NO commitment. I think that is perfectly reasonable and if it works for them, it's great. However, it is not marriage. The point of marriage is that you LOVE the other person enough tha you WANT to nurse them if they are sick; you want to make them happy and have them make you happy.
Tuesday 05 October
By salesman
Thats exactly what kind of attitude is killing the morals of this country...getting together to have occasional sex and then ignoring them otherwise. You sound like you (and they) have relationship issues. maybe you all got screwed (in the bad way) and now are commitment phobic. But that is not what the gift of love and sexual relations within love are all about. You sound like a 60's-70's hippie...free love, screw the institutions that have somehow survived such sophmorish viewpoints for thousnads of years. By the way, how'd all that "free-love" crap work out for the hippies? Not very well did it, it didnt change the world for the better, it only broke down societal structures that protected us, and increased sexual deseases and metal/relatioship anguish a hundred fold. No casual sex is a childish, immature "I'll take my ball and go home" kind of attitude and not one that forwards society in any way. Make a committment and support it. That way you take your time finding someone who you really love, commit to that relationship, and honor the institution of marriage in a way that God intended it to be, and within in and through it, we all grow and mature.