Irene Levin
Living Apart Together:
A New Family Form
Susan and Simon are a couple, and have been so for more than 10 years.
The difference between Susan and Simon and many other couples is that
they do not share their everyday lives together. They have both been married
before and have children from these previous relationships. Susan lives with
her children in a neighbouring town and meets Simon every weekend and
during holidays. Simon lives alone in the same town as his children, who live
with their mother. Simon wants to be close to his children so that he can meet
them as often as possible. By living in this current arrangement, Simon can
have both a couple relationship with Susan and a parenting relationship with
his children. Susan also likes the current situation because she does not have
to choose between a partner and her children or make her children move
away from their friends in order for her to keep her relationship with Simon.
Susan and Simon are living in a living apart together or LAT relationship
­ a historically new family form. LAT relationships are a result of changes in
our living arrangements. These changes have occurred, little by little, during
the past 30 years as a result of changing norms. Previously, it was expected
that one would be married in order to live together. Only in marriage was a
couple considered to be a `real' couple. Now, however, one can choose to live
with one's partner without being married ­ what we call cohabitation (Trost,
1979; Heimdal and Houseknecht, 2003; Kamp Dush et al., 2003). Today the
ritual of marriage is less important and feelings are what matters. Married and
cohabiting couples have, however, a lot in common. They live in the same
household and in everyday life there is not a lot of difference in their routines.
They share `bed and table'. The difference is the marriage ritual ­ cohabiting
couples do not have the status of being married. In many aspects of everyday
life this does not matter. Their children may not concern themselves about
whether or not their parents are married and their routines are often the same
in either case. There may be a difference between married and cohabiting
couples with regard to differing consequences of relationship breakdown.
Current Sociology, March 2004, Vol. 52(2): 223­240 SAGE Publications
(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) www.sagepublications.com
DOI: 10.1177/0011392104041809
Generally speaking, economic consequences differ when one of the couple
dies, or when the married couple divorces (Hopper, 2001) or the cohabiting
couple separates. The exception may be when the cohabiting couple has
entered into a special contract.
The question to be considered here is whether two people may be
considered to be a couple without having a common home. In recent times
the answer has become `yes' and a new family form has appeared. To be a
couple is no longer dependent upon sharing a common household. It is no
longer important for one to be married or to be living in the same household
­ one can still be a couple, and it is that to which the new term, LAT relation-
ship, refers. Can a LAT relationship be interpreted as a family form? As Levin
and Trost (1992) show family can be defined in a range of different terms.
The title of this special issue, `Beyond the Conventional Family', suggests
that the traditional concept of family and definitions of family norms are
increasingly challenged by a range of personal living arrangements. It is
argued here that the occurrence of LAT relationships is closely connected to
the occurrence of cohabitation and the changes in norms.
Changing Norms
In the 20th century two major changes occurred in the western world that
have affected family situations. One was the emergence of cohabitation
(Trost, 1979) and the other was increase in divorce rates (Moxnes, 1990, 2001;
Aharons and Rodgers, 1987; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980). Both of these
phenomena occurred before but not to the extent to which they were prac-
tised during this period. Previously, most marriages were dissolved because
of the death of one of the spouses. This is shown among other things in the
rather high remarriage rate in earlier times. For instance in England and
France during the years 1600­1700, between 25 and 30 percent of all
marriages were remarriages (Sogner and Dupâquir, 1981). Nearly all of these
remarriages occurred after the death of one of the spouses. As we get closer
to the 19th century, the remarriage rate decreased to around 15 percent in
Norway (see Sundt, 1975). In the beginning of the 1900s, a new divorce law
came into effect (1915) in Norway and remarriages continued to decrease.
During the 1900s life expectancy for men and women increased by 25 years.
This change in life expectancy must have had many consequences, not the
least of which affected marital relations. Previously, when marriages were
shorter, death occurred before couples had time to divorce. In our day,
divorce has replaced death as one of the main reasons for the dissolution of
marriage (Levin, 2001). Today, most marriages dissolve because one of the
spouses wants to divorce (Furstenberg and Kiernan, 2001). More often than
not, this occurs while children are still living at home.
224 Current Sociology Vol. 52 No. 2
At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, marriage rates,
in most of the western world, started to decrease. In some countries the
changes occurred very rapidly, as in Sweden and Denmark, followed by
Norway and Finland. In England, this development was somewhat slower
than in the Nordic countries, but not as slow as in, for example, Belgium
(Trost, 1995). At the same time, the practice of cohabitation began to increase
(see Trost, 1979). In the traditional marital system before 1970, four elements
were closely connected in time. The prevailing sequence was: the marriage
ceremony, moving in together, having sexual intercourse together, having the
first child about a year later (Trost, 1993, 1998; Levin and Trost, 2003). The
traditional marital system normatively prescribed these four elements, in
the given sequence, as the sanctioned practice. With some exceptions, the
marriage ceremony and moving in together occurred at the same time,
meaning the same day. This seems to have been true for all western societies.
Having sexual intercourse together was only sanctioned after the
marriage ceremony. Premarital sex was prohibited for all, but in some coun-
tries more than in others, this prohibition was particularly underscored for
women. The norm against premarital sex, however, was primarily an ideal
norm which did not necessarily translate into a behavioural norm. Norway
is a good example of this differentiation: the ideal norm prescribed chastity
before marriage but in practice almost all couples had sex before they
married. One indicator of this claim is that by the year 1960 one-quarter of
all brides in Norway were pregnant at the time of the wedding. The fourth
element prescribes that children be born nine to 12 months after the marital
ceremony. Preferably and normatively, children should not be born to unwed
mothers.
These four elements have lost their normative power and today they are
no longer connected to one other. This development is related to the great
increase in the rates of cohabitation. It can be argued that cohabitation has
become a social institution (Trost, 1979). When cohabitation becomes a social
institution of the sort we find in, for example, the Scandinavian countries,
there is no normative or expected connection between the four elements that
traditionally constituted the marital system. In Sweden, more than half of all
children, and about two-thirds of all first-born children, have unwed
mothers. In Norway, the numbers are slightly fewer, but the changes in
norms are more or less the same.
Without changes in the normative structure connected to these four
elements, LAT relationships would not be as visible or as numerous. The
couple would then have probably been defined (by themselves as well as by
their own social networks) as `going steady', `engaged to be married' or
simply as `lovers'. These terms are less definite than a LAT relationship indi-
cates. Prior to normative transformations the couple would not openly stay
together overnight. With the changes, they now can do so without any
Levin: Living Apart Together 225
sanctions. Without a general acceptance of cohabitation and its insti-
tutionalization which puts it on an equal footing with marriage, LAT
relationships would have remained hidden or `invisible' (Levin and Trost,
1999) and they would be much less common than they now are.
The relatively high divorce and separation rates in many western coun-
tries might help to make LAT relationships more common and more visible
also, especially where cohabitation has become a recognized social insti-
tution. Historically, LAT relationships have occurred before but certainly
not as commonly as they now do and in the past such relationships were
quite hidden from the eyes of others. The higher the divorce and separation
rates are, the higher the likelihood not only of remarriages and recohabita-
tions, but also of LAT relationships. Recohabitations always involve a change
of home. Either one moves into the other's home or both members of the
couple move from separate homes to a common home. In most cases of
remarriage the same holds true. But there are instances where married
couples remain in separate homes. Some couples who have lived together in
a marriage or in a cohabiting relationship cease to live together in a common
home without dissolving their relationship; they just form a LAT relation-
ship out of a living together relationship.
Within the context of high rates of divorce today (Moxnes, 1990), many
people postdivorce want to start new relationships but they are not ready to
risk another divorce. The high rate of divorce and the acceptance of cohabi-
tation as a social institution (Trost, 1995) can account to some extent for the
higher incidence of LAT relationships. When Simone de Beauvoir (1908­86)
and Jean Paul Sartre (1905­80) established themselves in what we are now
calling a LAT relationship, they were seen as being `a little different' from
other couples. They were intellectuals and lived, so-called, `Bohemian lives'.
There are many people today who live in tune with the lifestyle of de
Beauvoir and Sartre. They are living in LAT relationships, which have
become a new family form in western societies. This is not because the LAT
relationship is entirely new, but rather because of the greater visibility and
higher frequency of people living in LAT relationships. The greatly elevated
numbers make us look upon these couples as representing something new.
While journalists both in Norway and in Sweden are now interested in the
phenomenon of LAT relationships there remains little research on the
phenomenon.
Defining LAT Relationships
The definition of a LAT relationship used here is a couple that does not share
a home. Each of the two partners lives in his or her own home in which other
people might also live. They define themselves as a couple and they perceive
226 Current Sociology Vol. 52 No. 2
that their close surrounding personal network does so as well. The definition
requires three conditions: the couple has to agree that they are a couple;
others have to see them as such; and they must live in separate homes. This
term refers to homosexual as well as heterosexual couples.
Some consider it unnecessary to give LAT relations a special name. If we
go back in time, before cohabitation was common and considered `normal',
we had terms such as `going steady' which designated a premarital form.
`Going steady' was usually limited to a certain period of time in which the
couple either decided to continue and become a `real' couple and get engaged
to be married, or decided to break up the relationship. The `going steady'
stage is a part of the LAT relationship and arguably for some the LAT
relationship is only a temporary situation which ends up being more like
`going steady' ending in relationship dissolution; but for many the LAT
relationship is something much more than `going steady', and it lasts over a
longer period.
The term `LAT' was first used in the Netherlands, where a Dutch jour-
nalist, Michel Berkiel, wrote an article in the Haagse Post, in 1978, about a
phenomenon he had observed, and in which he lived himself with the person
he loved. During one of the morning meetings of the newspaper, while he
was writing the article, he asked his colleagues to help him choose a title.
Someone suggested that he name the article after a recent movie shown in the
Netherlands at that time, titled Eva and Frank: Living Apart Together.
`Living apart together' seemed too long to him and so he chose to use the
acronym LAT or lat. Already a word in the Dutch language meaning `stick'.
this also made its usage easier to accept. The Netherlands is the only country,
as far as I know, where the term LAT or lat is integrated in everyday speech.
In the Scandinavian countries the term srbo, in Norwegian, and särbo, in
Swedish, have now become relatively well-known terms; however, this is
more true in Sweden than in Norway.
In France, a different term has been used in a study by Caradec (1996)
who uses cohabitation intermittente and cohabitation alternée. The first term
refers to the same phenomenon that is referred to by the phrase LAT relation-
ship ­ a couple living in separate homes, and looked upon as a couple, by
others, and by themselves. The latter term, cohabitation alternée, refers to
cohabitation where the couple alternates between their two dwellings.
Caradec's study claims that nearly 6 percent of the adult population in Paris
were living in LAT relationships.
In Germany, Schneider (1996) refers to `partners with different house-
holds' or Partnerschaften mit getrennten Haushalten in German. Included in
his study are only those LAT relationships that have lasted for at least one
year. The study is rather special as it contains a majority of `young adults
who are in education, mainly studying, or who are in their early period of
gainful employment' (Schneider, 1996: 96; my translation). In this study more
Levin: Living Apart Together 227
than 10,000 people, aged 18­61, were interviewed in 1994. He found that 9
percent of the respondents were living in LAT relationships. In the USA, the
discussion about LAT relationships is just beginning. There, but also in other
places the term `commuting marriage/cohabitation' is used interchangeably
with `dual-households' or `dual-residence living' (see Winfield, 1985). What
marks the distinction between commuting marriage/cohabitation and LAT
relationships is closely connected to the issue of one's home or domicile. If
the two live in one home and one (or both of them) has a second apartment
where he or she stays when away from home, due to their work or studies,
these relationships are defined as commuting marital/cohabitational relation-
ships. In order to be an LAT relationship, each partner must have his or her
own home, which means that the partners live apart in two separate resi-
dences.
Quantitative Study
This research on LAT relationships draws upon data collected by both
quantitative and qualitative methods. Most of the quantitative data come
from Sweden, where we collected data on three different occasions. The first
was in August 1993 when SKOP (a Scandinavian opinion research organiz-
ation) included some of our questions in one of its monthly surveys, with a
probability sample of 1021 inhabitants of Sweden, aged 18­74 years. The
same questions were asked in a probability sample of 2121 people, aged 18­74
years, in January/February 1998, again by SKOP.1 Here the relevant question
was (in translation): `Do you live in a marriage-like relationship with
someone while maintaining separate homes?'. This question followed a
previous one about being married or cohabiting. There were also questions
concerning how frequently they were together and how far away from one
another they lived.
The 1993 Swedish opinion research survey found that 6 percent of those
respondents who were neither married nor cohabitating affirmed that they
were living in an LAT relationship. The survey suggests that Sweden had
about 60,000 couples, or 120,000 persons, living in LAT relationships. The
data collected in 1998 found that the relative number of persons living in
LAT relationships had increased to 12 percent of those respondents who
were neither married nor cohabiting. This suggests that at least 130,000
couples or 260,000 people were living in LAT relationships at that time.
Some of these couples are same-sex couples but the majority are hetero-
sexual couples.
In the year 2001, a third data collection was undertaken which showed
a slight increase in LAT relationships from the survey results in 1998.
Fourteen percent of the respondents that were neither married nor
228 Current Sociology Vol. 52 No. 2
cohabiting said that they were living in an LAT relationship in 2001. This
suggests that the numbers had risen to about 300,000 people or about 150,000
couples.2
At that time we knew very little about how many LAT relationships
there were in Norway. However, in 2002, the Norwegian Bureau of Statis-
tics collected data in order to find out how many LAT relationships there
were in Norway. Approximately 1000 people, aged 18­74, were interviewed.
Eight percent of those who said that they were neither married nor cohabit-
ing saw themselves as living in LAT relationships. The interview study
suggests that about 60,000­70,000 people or 30,000­35,000 couples were
living in an LAT relationship in Norway, in 2002.
Qualitative Study
In our research we have also interviewed 100 people living in LAT relation-
ships. The interviews were in-depth and structured, but not standardized.
The interviews were between one and three hours in length. In order to visu-
alize interviewees' conception of family, a three-step method was used
(Levin, 1993). First they were asked: `Who is in your family ­ could you
make a list? Second, `Could you place your family on this sheet of paper
according to closeness and distance to you?' Third, they were interviewed
about their relationships to their family members and especially their living
arrangements.
In some cases we were able to identify people in a LAT relationship but
were unable to interview these couples. These people were given a short
semi-standardized questionnaire which they answered and sent back to us.
The sample is a convenience sample, and we found our informants in a
variety of ways. Sometimes at lectures or presentations, when we had
mentioned LAT relationships, people in the audience approached us. We
were interviewed in Norwegian and Swedish magazines and newspapers
articles in which we solicited people living in LAT relationships to take part
in the research. When people asked us about our research and we mentioned
the LAT study, some volunteered to be interviewed and others told us about
parents, children or friends in LAT relationships. The age range of our
informants in the qualitative study is from 20 to 80 years.
The interviewees may be divided into two subgroups:
1 Those who would like to live together but for one reason or another have
decided not to do so.
2 Those who would not live together even if they could, and who want to
remain a couple living apart together.
I start by describing some patterns we found in the first subgroup.
Levin: Living Apart Together 229
We Would Have Lived Together if it Were Not for One or More
Reasons . . .
Responsibility and Care
One reason why some people choose to live in LAT relationships has to do
with their feelings of responsibility for other people. This feeling of
responsibility is so strong that they do not want a new relationship to
another person to impinge upon their deeply felt duties. In particular, it is
the responsibility and care for children still living at home and for older
parents that are given as reasons for not living together with new partners.
If another person moves into his or her apartment or if he or she moves
away to another apartment, major changes will occur. When it comes to
relationships with older parents, people often did not want to leave them
alone as this can be a way of forcing them to move into a home for the aged.
These are people who do not believe that their children or their parents have
appropriated their own decision-making. Rather, they understand their
relationship to the new partner as unrelated to the relationship and responsi-
bility they have for their children or for their parents. Here LAT relation-
ships imply that one simply does not have to move everyone into the same
living arrangement.
People in this situation look upon the new couple relationship as an
addition to the relationships they already have and not as being instead of
those other relationships. The new couple relationship is not allowed to
threaten or replace already existing relationships. It is simply easier to give
each relationship `its due' by not creating a stepfamily household. By keeping
the home as it is, it is easier to keep relationships, with children or aged
parents, as they are. Even for a parent who is not the custodian of his or her
children, to move to another home can be seen as cheating one's own
children, to leave the child's parental home for the sake of another adult. The
following example illustrates such a situation.
Fred and Freda were first an unmarried LAT and they later got married
but kept their LAT relationship until all of the children had moved out of
their homes. Fred was 56 years old and Freda was 51 at the time of the inter-
view. They met 10 years before when Fred's three children were living at
home with him in his custody. At that time, his children were 14, 16 and 20
years old. Freda had two children. They were 10 and 14 years old, and in her
custody. Her ex-husband took care of their children every second weekend
and during some holidays. Fred and Freda were decided that they would not
move in together until their own children had grown up and left home. Both
lived in the same city, 15 minutes apart by public transportation. They met
and fell in love and felt that they were a couple very quickly, but it took about
a year until they were in an LAT relationship, according to their view at the
time of the interview. At the beginning of the relationship, they stayed
230 Current Sociology Vol. 52 No. 2
overnight at each other's home during weekends. They did not tell their
children about their true relationship at first, but introduced each other to
their children as old and good friends. Neither of them wanted to push the
other or to be pushed into relationships with one another's children.
After some time, the children on both sides accepted their parent's new
relationship.
Two years before the interview took place, Freda and Fred were married.
They continued to live in a LAT relationship at the time of the interview. We
later learned that they now do live together, after having spent 10 years of
their lives in a LAT relationship, both as unmarried and married LATs.
When it comes to caring for elderly parents, LAT relationships can be a
solution for those who want to continue to care for their elderly parents and
still keep a relationship with a new partner. Often, people in this situation
have lived in close contact and proximity to their parents for many years.
They might have liked or disliked this arrangement, but they accepted it as
a particular feature of their own lives. When the elderly mother or father dies,
or becomes severely ill, there are no choices for these people. They dutifully
accept the long-term care of their aged or disabled parent.
Taking care of elderly or disabled parents is a strongly felt duty, and a
very high priority in the value system and self-understanding of many of
those we interviewed that were in this particular situation. If they fail to
provide a high level of personal care, they know that they themselves will
suffer severely, with feelings of guilt, for not behaving in accordance with
their own standards of responsibility and morality. For others in this situ-
ation, it is a way of `repaying' the older generation for what it has done for
the child in earlier stages of life. Perhaps some respondents had received
important help and support with their own children from their parents. All
in all, it seems to be preferable for them to remain in their existing surround-
ings and to continue to care for the elderly parent. It may seem easier, all
things considered, to have a LAT relationship, with their partner living in
another home. In this way, one can avoid choosing between the aged (and
sometimes disabled) parent and the new partner. They can have both.
A strong feeling of responsibility and the duty to care for children and
aged parents existed in these people long before they met their new partners.
In these examples, the respondents perceive that they are significant others
for their children and for their parents. If they do not act in accordance with
their feelings of responsibility, they know that feelings of guilt will result.
The LAT relationship allows them to care for children or aged parents and
maintain a relationship with a new partner. For these people, the situation is
not `either/or' but `both/and'. By caring for those others who are so closely
related to them they are caring for themselves, too.
Levin: Living Apart Together 231
They Work or Study in Different Places
In many ways, reconciling the demands created by work or study with a
relationship with someone in a different geographic location is tackled by
relying upon a similar way of thinking. People in this situation do not want
to choose either their partner or their job. They want both and they decide
to keep both. A consequence of this decision requires them to live in separate
homes. This might be looked upon as a more temporary condition, in light
of their own perceptions, because one's job, at some future date, may be
changed. Their couple relationship and their jobs are important to them and
they want to maintain both. If either moved to their partner's domicile, career
opportunities would diminish. This might not be solely a question of money.
Even if the other person could support him or her, the arrangement would
not be acceptable. Being economically independent is a value of high import-
ance for these people. This characteristic is sometimes referred to as the
tendency towards individualization. A century ago, and even half a century
ago, people were seldom able to think in the same terms as these people now
do. Individualization is more pronounced today. There is more acceptance
for the idea that couples need to find ways to better accommodate one
another's needs for self-realization. Formerly, the matter was framed as a way
of showing one's love: `If you love me enough, you will relocate.' The job
and the partner are seen as being in competition, and one has to choose
between them. In particular there would have been social expectations pres-
surizing the woman to relocate. Ordinarily, she was the one who was
expected to give up her job and her friends. Today, there is acceptance of the
idea that she can keep her job and her friends, as well as her relationship with
children, parents and other relatives, and at the same time have a relationship
with a man and maintain separate dwellings.
This situation also includes students who study in different places. We
were somewhat surprised when we received answers from students defining
themselves as LAT partners. We, in our old-fashioned way, saw them more
as `going steady'. This is a way of seeing their relationship as less serious and
uses the traditional marital system as the guiding model (Trost, 1979).
However, these students told us that if it were not for their studies, they
would have been living together as a cohabiting couple. Since their studies
are preventing them, they define themselves as LAT partners.
Cohabitation, as a socially accepted phenomenon, has changed the defi-
nition of the situation for these students, relative to what would have been
the case earlier, when cohabitation was generally frowned upon by large
groups of people. Our material consists solely of people who define them-
selves as living in a LAT relationship. This means that we have no access to
any data from people who define themselves as `going steady'. It would have
been interesting to compare those defining themselves in a LAT relationship
with those who do not do so, but who do see themselves as `going steady'.
232 Current Sociology Vol. 52 No. 2
For students, the LAT relationship is a temporary one. They expect to live
together after graduation and find jobs near their common home.
Given the technological realities of our contemporary lives, the world
seems to be getting smaller and smaller. Telephones, faxes, emails, airplanes,
all function to make it easier and easier to keep in contact with people living
far away. Some of our informants report that they live on different con-
tinents. One of the respondents in our study told us that she lives in Norway
and he in Malaysia. For some periods in their relationship, she has lived with
him in Malaysia, and he with her in Oslo. They define their two homes as
theirs in common, but pay the expenses for them separately.
These couples look upon their lives as a process that changes all the time.
Their decisions are only made for the time being. When their working situ-
ation changes, they may also change their living arrangements. At the same
time, they are aware that moving to their partner's home might very well
mean losing a lot of the friendships and the close quality of their own social
network. Moving away will probably lessen one's contacts with children and
grandchildren.
The next subgroup we consider is very different from the first one.
Whereas people in the first subgroup do not really want to be in a LAT
relationship, for the people in this subgroup the LAT relationship is the
preferred living arrangement.
Those Who Would Not Wish to Live Together Even if They Could
Do So, and Still Want to Remain as a Couple
They Don't Want to Repeat the Same Mistake Twice
People in this situation often choose this way of living in order to avoid
creating the same conditions that led to the break-up of a former marriage
or cohabitation. For many years, they had all experienced living together
with another person in a couple relationship ­ a living situation that ended
in divorce or separation. In order to try being in a new couple relationship
they feel it is important for them to structure the situation so that another
break-up will not occur. They believe that living together, in itself, will
change the way each of them relates to the other and that those changes could
threaten the relationship's survival. Choosing to live apart is a strategy used
in order to avoid another painful separation.
The following example illustrates this approach. A woman had been
married for 23 years and had three children from that marriage. When her
husband asked her for a divorce, because he had started a relationship with
his secretary, her whole world fell apart. But somehow, she managed to pull
herself together. She bought an apartment and found meaning in her life as a
mother, as a grandmother and as a professional woman. Time passed, and she
Levin: Living Apart Together 233
began to like her new situation. She enjoyed the freedom of only being
responsible for herself, but did not use this freedom to meet new men. She
simply did what she wanted to do whenever she wanted to do so, and she
enjoyed the realization that no one expected her to `boil the potatoes' each
and every day. She liked being able to join her colleagues for a glass of beer,
after work, without inconveniencing anybody else. Eventually, she met a man
with whom she fell in love. He was living half an hour's car drive away, and
he wanted them to live together like ordinary couples do, in the same home.
However, she was worried about making the same mistake twice. Her
divorce had been too much of a shock for her, and she would do anything to
avoid repeating that experience. She refused his offer to live together, but her
refusal was not a sign of her lack of affection and love. On the contrary, she
says that she loves him very much, but she does not want to tell him just how
much she loves him. She says that she would rather live alone during the week
and meet him on weekends and spend holidays together. She does not dare
to live with him `full-time'. The risk is connected to her understanding of her
marriage and of its break-up and divorce.
She believes that the break-up of her marriage resulted from the fact that
she became less interesting as a woman. She is afraid that she will do the same
things that eventually made her boring to her husband. She believes that she
knows herself very well, and she is certain that she would begin to perform
all the traditional housewife activities. She would prepare food for him when
he came home from work, and she would become the person responsible for
all their home comforts. This is the behaviour she would expect from herself
and they are related to her own self-esteem and to her identity as a woman.
Since she loves him very much, she does not want to risk the good relation-
ship they share, just to live under the same roof, with all of the everyday
duties which he (or she) might define as humdrum and boring. She simply
does not want to experience another break-up. She has decided to live in a
LAT relationship in order to maintain a good couple relationship and to learn
the lesson of her past experiences. Her answer to the question `Do you think
that you might move in together one day?' is that they probably will do so
when she retires, `if he still wants me'.
Retired Couples
For retired people, the situation is somewhat different even though the result
is the same. These people too do not want to live together even though they
are a couple and love one another. Since one or both are not working any
more, there is the possibility of moving in together; but deciding to move in
together would create difficult practical decisions and necessitate some sacri-
fices. For instance, who would make the move? Whose furniture would be
redundant? Since both might have lived in a one-person home for many
years, a lot of the things they own are connected to memories of important
234 Current Sociology Vol. 52 No. 2
happenings from their previous lives. The things are cherished as symbols of
shared experiences. They are reminders of people, and are not just dead
things as some people may seem to believe ­ and as such, they are important
to them for their own well-being.
Another reason for not wanting to trade two homes for one is their
relationship to children and grandchildren. It may be easier to maintain those
relationships if they keep their own homes, rather than living together with
a partner in one home. One woman told us that she lives 30 km away from
her partner and that she sees him every weekend and every Wednesday, and
that they go on holiday together. Moving in together is not discussed as a
serious possibility because she gets what she wants from their relationship as
it is. Why would (or should) she change it? When he is ill, she goes over to
his home in order to help him. However, he does not do the same when she
is ill. When that happens, she gets help from neighbours and from her
daughter-in-law. She likes the situation as it is and it has suited her for 18
years. Early on in their relationship they talked of moving in together but it
is not a question they discuss any more. They are quite satisfied with their
relationship.
She has been hurt by her partner's criticism of her relationship with her
disabled son who lives away. When he comes home her partner feels that she
favours him. This criticism was unacceptable for the woman and she gave her
partner an ultimatum. Now things have cooled down again and the relation-
ship is back to normal. She is very happy with matters as they stand. One of
the things that she most enjoys are their Sunday dinners. She drives them to
a neighbouring town and he pays for their meal in a nice restaurant. He is
also very generous when it comes to giving her gifts and that is something
she greatly appreciates.
From Marriage or Cohabitation to a LAT Relationship
Most of the LAT relationship patterns we found consist of people who begin
their LAT relationship without first deciding whether or not their relation-
ship was headed for cohabitation or marriage. For some of our respondents
the situation has been the other way around. They started as a married or
cohabiting couple and the LAT relationship was a solution to difficulties they
experienced in those relationships. They lived together for several years but
found that they got on each other's nerves in the course of everyday life
together. At the same time, they love each other and feel bound to one
another. For that reason, they do not want a divorce or a final end to their
relationship. It is not what they want, nor is it what their children want. As
a solution, one of the partners moves to a nearby apartment and in so doing
an alternative way of living, an arrangement that might better fit their life-
styles, for the time being, is undertaken.
An example of this situation is Paul and Paula who met about 20 years
Levin: Living Apart Together 235
ago. They soon became a couple and moved in together. A few years later,
they had their first child, and a few years after that their second one. For
several years their relationship had been deteriorating and it had become
boring. They were finding one another irritating. They still loved one
another, but a year before our interview, they decided to separate. They sold
their house and bought two apartments just a few minutes walk from one
another. Their children stay with their mother, but they both spend a lot of
time with their father, who also spends a lot of time in his ex-cohabitant's
apartment, which is larger than his own. This is their way of saving their
couple relationship, which in both their opinions would have ended in a
break-up without the LAT relationship.
They are clearly still significant others to one another and they both want
to maintain their relationship but everyday life together simply became too
trying. By having two separate homes they hope to be able to maintain the
emotions necessary for them to be a loving couple, for each other, and to be
good parents to their children. Here the LAT relationship is an alternative to
ending their couple relationship. For some people, this alternative might be
a peaceful way to a slow divorce without any abrupt changes for themselves
or their children.
Explaining LATs
This article has presented a range of situations where the LAT relationship
has been established by couples in ways which differ from marriage or
cohabitation. Couples often choose a LAT relationship as their living
arrangement in order to avoid choosing between (the felt responsibility to
care for) an elderly parent, or their own children, and the new partner, which
sharing a home would present An alternative arrangement is partly made
possible by LAT relationships because the pressure upon couples `to settle
down together' in a common dwelling has decreased. More and more people
are accepting the `both/and' solution that LAT relationships provide. As
Lewis and Meredith (1989) remark, some adult children live together with a
parent, not only because of their sense of duty to care for the parent, but also
because they enjoy spending time together with the parent.
A question frequently asked is whether or not LAT relationships occur
in all classes within society. Is it a decision that only the financially well-off
can make? Our findings show that one can find LAT relationships among all
sorts of people. This does not imply that being financially well-off does not
make the living arrangements easier to manage. Certainly long-distance LAT
relationships require the couple to spend more money on telephone calls and
travel, and one home is cheaper to maintain than two. There is no argument
with these matters of fact. In most cases, however, in our research, where
236 Current Sociology Vol. 52 No. 2
LAT relationships are found to exist, the couple already each have their own
home and are used to paying for their own home expenses.
Why is it that the number of LAT relationships has been increasing?
Why have we not noticed or registered LAT relationships before? There may
be more than one answer to these questions. One factor is the mortality rate.
The lower the mortality rate, the greater the likelihood for a person not only
to live longer, but also to experience divorce, the death of a spouse and separ-
ation from a non-marital cohabitant, and thus, the greater the likelihood,
ceteris paribus, for the person to enter into an LAT relationship, or some
other new relationship, for that matter. When mortality rates were higher, a
greater number of marriages were dissolved by the death of one of the
spouses. The need for divorce lessens, therefore, when mortality rates are
high.
The closer society got to the 20th century, the greater the decline in
remarriages, the greater the rise in the divorce rates, and the greater the fall
in mortality rates. The remarriage rate near the middle of the 19th century
was about 20 percent, in Norway, but by 1885, it had decreased to about 15
percent (see Sundt, 1975). The remarriage rate continued to decrease during
the 20th century, and the lowest rate was reached just before the outbreak of
the Second World War, when the remarriage rate was approximately 8
percent (Levin, 1994). During the same period of time, divorce increased and
new laws regulating divorce in Norway in 1915 and in Sweden in 1916 came
into effect. These laws accepted fault and no-fault grounds for divorce and
subsequently the divorce rate continued to increase.
A second factor that has contributed to the increase in LAT relationships
has to do with changes in the labour market. A higher degree of specializa-
tion is required, these days, and that means a demand for higher levels of
education for most job applicants. Fewer people can simply decide to relocate
and assume that they will be able to find a good job. This is true for both
men and women. Working women are less able to follow their husbands and
find a job when they relocate. The relatively short history of the full-time
housewife is almost over, in many countries, and in some others, this role has
already become a thing of the past. In order to really understand the new
structure of relationships between women and men, including LAT relation-
ships, one has to look into the many processes promoting gender equality
and equity in contemporary society.
A third factor has to do with the frequency of travel and with the avail-
ability and use of IT communication. People on holiday, or travelling because
of their job, meet people living in other places. Some of these meetings result
in couples falling in love. Many of these relationships will last, and if one or
both cannot or does not want to relocate, they might form a long-distance
LAT relationship. Travel for leisure or for work will probably increase, even
though advances in IT communication continue apace. Couples are being
Levin: Living Apart Together 237
generated on the Internet. Some of those virtual relationships may develop
into long-distance LAT relationships. We will probably see an important
increase in LAT relationships in the near future, and the growth will include
married and unmarried couples choosing to live in a LAT relationship.
Traditionally, informal social norms prescribed that a couple should live
in the same home. Sharing a domicile was the taken-for-granted pattern for
couples. In cases where the two could not live together, living arrangements
were considered to be merely temporary. With the high divorce rate, the
increasing numbers of women who are gainfully employed, and the consider-
able victories that have been won, by women, in the battle for equity, society
and its norms have changed. The move towards greater gender equality and
equity has had consequences for intimacy and for couple relationships (see
Giddens, 1994). Few men, but many women, see advantages in LAT relation-
ships. Therefore the woman is usually the active one in suggesting to move
apart.
To summarize, only a few decades ago, marriage was the sole socially
approved institution for couples planning to live together. Cohabitation was
frowned upon and seen as a deviant phenomenon. There has been a remark-
able change in the acceptance of cohabitation. These days, it is more often
seen as being a viable option, and it has become an accepted social institution,
in its own right, alongside marriage. Without this acceptance of cohabitation,
LAT relationships would not have emerged. One might say that cohabi-
tation, as a socially accepted institution, was a prerequisite for the establish-
ment of LAT relationships. The recognition of LAT relationships as a new
social phenomenon, in several western societies, and the documented rise in
its frequency, as well as the general increasing awareness of the term `LAT
relationship', are factors at work today that may some day establish the LAT
relationship as a generally recognized and accepted social institution in many
more countries.
There are many reasons for predicting that LAT relationships will be
more common in the near future. The labour market will probably not return
to the relatively simple structure it had only a few decades ago. Specializa-
tion will probably continue to increase, affecting even more job-holders.
Holiday and work-related travel probably will not decrease, even if IT
communication becomes even more important. In fact, IT communication
might be used more frequently as a way for people to meet new partners.
Same gender couples may increasingly `come out of the closet' and cohabit
or form LAT relationships. Divorce and separation rates will probably not
decrease, and new partnerships will be formed in increasing numbers. The
LAT relationship may become a more common way for dealing with a diffi-
cult marriage or non-marital cohabitation. The mortality rate will probably
continue to decrease in most countries, and that means that people will live
longer, and probably be healthier, and thus more prone to find new partners.
238 Current Sociology Vol. 52 No. 2
Notes
The research reported on in this article was carried out with Professor Jan Trost,
Uppsala University, Sweden.
1 This second survey was financed by SKOP and by the Magnus Bergwall Foun-
dation.
2 If the percentages in England were the same as in Sweden, there would be,
approximately, 750,000 couples living in LAT relationships.
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