“Living apart together”: couples who decide to live apart

The first time Ana lived with a boyfriend, their relationship ended at 11 months.

At the time, he was 25 years old and had lived in Canada for a while, where he arrived when he was 17.

“When I started living with that couple, I had a situation of internal conflict,” he tells BBC Mundo.

“On the one hand, they raised me to care for a man, to have children, to lead a domestic life,” he explains, referring to the upbringing he received in his native Mexico.

But on the other hand, I want my professional success. I want my independence. I am so valuable, why do I have to attend to this man? “

Today, after almost 10 years of similar experiences, Ana says that she found the ideal partner for her dilemma: “We have been together for five years. […] And in these five years, we have never lived together and it is not something we talk about or have planned to do ”.

“Living apart together”

Ana has a relationship that experts call “living apart together” or LAT for short.

And although this type of relationship is not new (many couples have had to live separated by external circumstances over the centuries), what has been seen a few years ago is a change towards couples who make the decision to maintain separate residences despite of being in committed relationships.

“In the last decade or two it has become more of a lifestyle choice. It is no longer because you cannot live with your partner, it is because you are choosing not to want to live with her, ”explains Vicki Larson to BBC Mundo.

Larson is the co-author of the book “The New ‘I Accept’: Reforming Marriage for the Skeptics, Realists, and Rebels.”

For her, the LAT movement has been driven in part by women. On the one hand, he says, there are the women who were married and do not want to replicate the experience; and on the other, there are young women seeking greater independence.

“Once we had the freedom to control our fertility and go to school and not depend on a husband to survive, a whole new world opened up,” explains Larson.

Practical reasons

For Canadian film director Sharon Hyman, the reasons that led her to start her LAT-like relationship 23 years ago were much more practical.

“In Montreal we are very lucky. We have rent-controlled apartments, ”he explains, referring to a public program that limits the amount of money property owners can charge for rent.

“I have been in my rent controlled apartment for 30 years. And he has his. I don’t feel like giving up my apartment, ”says Sharon with a laugh.

In addition, he adds, the two have very different lifestyles.

“We work completely different hours. He was going to work at 5:30 am and I am a filmmaker. I tend to work late at night. “

“At first it was just a matter of time and energy. But as it evolved, it just became very clear that I really enjoyed living alone. I think it’s the best of both worlds, ”says Sharon.

Greater privacy

Larson explains that one of the biggest difficulties that couples who live in the same home have is taking the other for granted.

“Many times when you are living with someone in the house, you are living parallel lives. You are occupying this same space but you are not really interacting, ”says Larson.

For LAT couples, he adds, there is a conscious effort to maintain intimacy.

“People who live apart come together in a very conscious way. They are interacting with each other because they only have tonight, or the weekend, and then they go to their separate spaces. It has much more intimacy because there is the expectation of seeing your partner, ”says Larson.

Ana, after 5 years in a LAT-type relationship, says she agrees.

“We talk daily, we see each other often and we are very involved with each other. We don’t really make big decisions without talking about them, but it’s not like we’re consulting with each other. It’s that I’m really interested in knowing what he thinks ”.

Stigmata

In the 5 years that she has been in a LAT-type relationship, Ana says she has had the support of her parents. However, he says they do not entirely agree with his decision.

“My mother admires that I am so willing to create the life that I want and my father respects it. My dad is very traditional. He doesn’t approve of anything I’m doing, but at the same time respects the fact that I’m going to do it anyway. What’s the point of fighting with me? “

And to that, you add the stigma of other people in your community.

“One person said to me: ‘no woman worth your salt would be with a man who doesn’t want to marry you.’ I started looking for articles on couples who do not live together, because I said: ‘I see people who do not live together and who lead a healthy life as a couple.

It was there that he found a very active community.

Creating community

Sharon, who has been in her LAT relationship for 23 years, says she never thought her experience would be interesting to anyone else. Until he spoke with “his mentor” in the film world.

“One day he told me that I should make a documentary about David and me […] I started researching and realized that in North America, one in 10 adults is in a committed relationship but they don’t live together, ”he says.

Hence the idea to create the “Apartners” group on Facebook, so that people living in LAT relationships could share their experiences.

Today it has more than 3,400 members.

Ana came to that group while doing her own research, looking for more people like her. And although she says that she is not very active in the group, she likes to read anecdotes from people who live like her.

“It’s fun to see some dynamics, and to see that people are honoring their wishes more and more and that people are listening to what they want and doing it.”

“We are freeing ourselves from stigmas and dogmas that are unnecessary. You don’t have to force yourself and do anything if you don’t want to! ”.