LIVING APART TOGETHER? What's Going On Here??

As a 21 year old single, one of my roommates had parents that had lived apart for years without ever considering divorce. How strange I thought. Years have passed (hmmm, most of lifetime, in fact) and I never given it a thought...until recently. A potential client came to me about a Reverse Mortgage and wanted to know that if she owned one property in her own name and lived there, and her husband owned another property in his name only and lived in it, would each of them be eligible for their own reverse mortgage? Yes, they were married; no, they weren't "legally" separated; yes, they preferred to each live independently, but they were a committed married couple in every other way. I'm checking it out now about the individual reverse mortgages.

But, her question made me want to know more about married (especially senior) couples living apart. I googled the subject, and was surprised to find that not only are millions of couples living apart, but that they have their own sociological catagory - LAT's...Living Apart Together. Below are a couple of articles about this living arrangement.

I'd love to know what you think and feel about living this way in your older years. What does it mean legally, socially and what do you do about illness, caretaking and caregiving? Please write to me or make comments below.

Gloria

More couples are opting to maintain separate households even after marrying or committing to a long-term relationship.
By Cynthia Ross Cravit, 50Plus.com

Once upon a time, people fell in love, got married and set up a house together. Or even if they opted to skip the official marriage vows, the idea was to integrate another person into your life by living together.

But this, it appears, is so 20th century.

Growing divorce and separation rates combined with more people delaying marriage until they're older have led to more couples opting to maintain separate households even after marrying or committing to a long-term relationship.

Researchers have even identified a new demographic category for such arrangements, calling it the "Living Apart Together" or LAT relationship.

One in 12 Canadians "live apart together" according to Statistics Canada. And while LAT arrangements are most common for 20-to 29-year-olds, 44 per cent of people in dual-home unions are aged 30 or over, with 14 per cent in their forties and 11 per cent over fifty.

While some LAT couples like the romance of "eternal dating", for others this attempt to balance independence and intimacy may be influenced by familial obligations.

"In an era of increased longevity, many older couples see LAT relationships as a way of avoiding complicated inheritance issues," Professor David Popenoe, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University told The New York Times.

Family obligations tend to affect younger couples as well. Many turn to LAT relationships after a failed marriage, particularly if children are involved.
And given that two households are more expensive than one, it might be expected that LAT relationships occur more often among people who are financially secure.

Yet in other cases, there may be social subsidies or income transfers supporting lower income people who do not live with partners, such as widowed seniors or parents of young children.

In the Statistics Canada survey, the 50-plus age group indicated they were most likely to stay with a LAT relationship and not eventually cohabitate. This may not be entirely surprising as the Boomer generation is known for self-involvement and a certain unwillingness to compromise. And older people, in general, tend to be more set in their ways.

"In many cases, Baby Boomers want to have the freedom to live on their own terms," said Gail Sheehy, author of Sex and the Seasoned Woman. "As you age, you have more commitments and possessions in your life that you are attached to that the other person may not want to share."

But isn't a part of intimacy connected to learning how to live and cooperate with a person and at times, giving selflessly?

While Professor Popenoe acknowledges that maintaining separate residences may make sense for older or divorced people, for others he worries that it might impair their ability "to form long-term relationships."

The trend toward unconventional relationships is even more prevalent in Europe. The Institute for Social and Economic Research in the United Kingdom predicts that one in five Brits will never marry. And Australian studies indicate that about 25 per cent of Aussies will never marry.

And according to The New York Times report, a million couples in Great Britain are in LAT relationships, with the trend also on the rise in countries such as Holland, Sweden, Norway and France.


Couples That Live Apart Together
by Morgana, September 15, 2008. BrooWaHa

Many claim to have seen the forest without first having examined the trees.

That means that conventional wisdom has a tendency to be both very dogmatic and very wrong. Although we use statistics to see the true patterns of people’s lives, when people look at the actual trees, their worldview of the forest changes.

What had changed was only the knowledge about the facts. A look at the numbers suggests that we should look at the numbers more often instead of relying on what the “news” tells us are the numbers.

The bottom line is that in today’s world, the potential for personal satisfaction is at its highest level ever due to the plethora of individual choice and freedom.

Although the future rarely is as predicted, the trend is for more choice.

Reinforcing our choices is our ability to connect and communicate with communities of not only large size but also even the smallest niche.
For example, a choice rapidly growing in popularity, of living apart from one’s spouse or spousal-equivalent.

America’s first ambassador to France was Ben Franklin. That meant Ben did not see his wife on a monthly basis, let alone weekly or daily. It’s been the same hundred of years for soldiers and sailors. In America’s capital, Washington D.C., many politicians share quarters on Capital Hill, then travel holidays, every other weekend and breaks back to their spouses/spousal-equivalent. Many dual-career couples now live apart.

So also, do many retirees. In 1990, according to the U.S. Census, about 1.7 million people in the United States were living apart for reasons other than separation. By 2005, the number of committed couples was about 6 million with no plans to ever live together on a daily basis. AARP’s statistics show that married/ spousal-equivalent people over 50 that live apart tripled in that age group in just four short years from 2001 and 2005.

Two careers, two houses, seeing each other holidays, traveling to be together every other weekend and vacations, is rapidly escalating as the way of life for the modern marriage/commitment. The most famous example might be American Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and former American President Bill Clinton.

The statistics reveal that these two household marriage/commitments are holding up better than couples that live together. When being apart is the norm, being together becomes special. The result is that love becomes constantly renewed rather than being taken for granted.

Being in-love verses loving/loved reduces the chances of cheating/being cheated on. Absence does makes the heart grow fonder. The greater degree of space and privacy in living apart is the pressure valve that relieves the daily stress and boredom of marriage/commitment. That significantly reduces the possibility of divorce/break-up.

Due to the excessively high cost of divorce and divorce attorney’s obstructionist ways and their increasing flat-out lying solely to jack their fees up, many people are foregoing marriage for an exclusive committed relationship.

Along with long-distance long-term, committed monogamous couples, there is an exponential increase with short-distance long-term, committed monogamous couples. Often these couples even live in the same city or county or area.

The reasons are not only because of the excessively high cost of divorce, but also parents, children, friends, career, school, religion, health, smoking, cooking, snoring, race, ethnicity, gender, how clean the house is, incense burning, ego and more.

LATs (live apart together) have roommates that are not romantic relationships.

LAT have learned the value of the pragmatic ability to see the good in their chosen partner, even when their partner fails to live up to daily ideals and expectations.

LATs succeed and prosper as a couple because they focus on the feel-good emotions and physical reactions they have for each other. Choosing to see the good in other people has a favorable effect on other people and that effect increases the success of the feel-good in a love relationship lasting.

LATs are more prudent, independent, trustworthy, confident, sexually satisfied, honest, and much more likely to stay in-love. That’s because LATs have happily discovered lust’s eternal glow from waiting to be with ones chosen one lasts longer than the increasing ho-hum boredom of couple’s daily interaction dwindling down love’s flame and finally smothering even lust’s spark.

Clearly, LATs take their relationships as, and increasingly more, seriously than married couples.

Even the ever shrinking number of couples that do choose to live together under the same roof are growing in their choice of separate bedrooms for the same reasons LATs choose separate houses. Homebuilders have noticed this trend and built accordingly.

Employers have found to their delight that LAT employees are better employees. Without the daily distraction of the spouse/partner, the employee gives more to their daily job.

State tax agencies and the IRS are still trying to figure out residency implications for LATs.


Sources: British Office For National Statistics, Global Relocation Survey, National Association of Home builders Survey, U.S. Census, AARP, Center For Study of Long-Distance Relationships, Canadian Social Trends, Microtrends, Mark J Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne, New York Times Patrick Healy’s “For Clintons, Delicate Dance of Married and Public Lives, “One Heart, Two Homes” Celia Brayford, The Times (London).