Couples Choosing to Live Apart Because They’re Not Ready to Commit
We’ve all heard of how Tim Burton and wife Helena Bonham Carter live separately and there have even been reports of how it can benefit a marriage.
Now, new research shows that more Brits than initially thought are living separately despite being in a long-term relationship.
One of the biggest reasons couples are living apart is because they feel that they are not ready to move in with their partner, with a third of couples living apart choosing this reason.
This shows how times are changing and how people are waiting longer to progress through their relationship instead of rushing into big commitments such a living together and getting married.
Professor Simon Duncan from the University of Bradford says, “Living apart together allows people to meet their needs and desires in balancing closeness and personal autonomy, and at the same time to adapt to external circumstances.
“It enables them to find time and space for other family or work commitments, to deal with the difficulties of finding housing, to grapple with relationship problems, or just to allow their relationship to develop at its own pace.”
Researchers from the University of Bradford, Birkbeck, University of London and NatCen Social Research also found that a third will choose to live apart in order to manage other commitments.
Commitments such as children, family, friends and work all factored into the decision to choose to live apart.
A further third live apart due to commitments outside of the relationship, such as having to work or study in different locations.
Despite there being a recent outcry that a large portion of those who were living separately were doing so to gain more benefits, this research shows that only 1 per cent were living apart for that reason.
Professor Sasha Roseneil, from Birkbeck, University of London says, “Nowadays very few people settle into a life-long relationship in their early twenties and stay with their partner ‘until death us do part’.
“People have complex relationship histories, and they often carry with them the emotional legacies of divorce and separation.
“For some people, more or less consciously, living apart together is a way of dealing with the messiness of intimate life today, protecting themselves, their children and their homes from some of the distress that they have previously experienced when a cohabiting relationship breaks down.
“That said, most people in LAT relationships have a strong sense that they are a couple, and many are in long-term relationships to which they are deeply committed.”
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