"Living Apart Together" Just May Save Your Relationship
Actress Kaley Cuoco is the latest to admit that she and husband Karl Cook do not live together.
Gwyneth Paltrow moved in with husband Brad Falchuk a year after marrying him.
“All my married friends say that the way we live sounds ideal and we shouldn’t change a thing,” she told the Sunday Times.
The Real Housewives of New York City's Dorinda Medley has no interest in living with boyfriend John Mahdessian.
Now, Big Bang Theory star Kaley Cuoco has revealed she and husband Karl Cook do not live together full-time.
They married in June 2018, but have yet to reside under the same roof — which the actress likes.
“We are building our dream house,” she told E! News, adding, “We are eventually going to be under the same roof forever."
But for now, she says, “We have a very unconventional marriage, you know, we have different locations that we are at a lot. We are not together every single day, and I think personally, it’s important. It works well for us.”
According to experts, living apart together (LAT) can be great. It can also cause tension and distance. though, so you need to figure out what works for you as a couple.
“It’s become very prominent as of late, and there are positive elements of that and there are drawbacks, too,” reports Parade. “The focus is so much so on the self that we lose the idea of compromise — of negotiating with a partner, or a friend or a community ... Sometimes saying, ‘I want to live here and you want to live there, so let’s live separately,’ instead of figuring out a way to make it work together, there is something very essential and fundamental to marriage that’s potentially lost there.”
You mean that living together part?
The report explains: "Living together before you get married is a really good practice run for what it’s like to be married, to be in a partnership. And that’s what marriage is, it’s about being together. It’s about being committed and negotiating family life together."
A study by NYU found that the demographic "leading the way in this non-traditional relationship trend are senior citizens."
Why do most people who choose this unconventional living arrangement do it?
"Certain factors seem to recur throughout the trend," reports the NYU study. "For starters, many married couples have chosen to transition into an LAT arrangement to save their marriages. Whether they see it as a long-term solution or just a way to make it through a rough patch, more and more married couples have been making the move to separate homes to give themselves space to explore their own identities and interests outside of the relationship. For others, it’s simply a way to keep romance alive long into a committed relationship.
"For older, unmarried couples, on the other hand, the reasons are somewhat different. Coming from a generation where marriage was expected and traditional gender roles were stifling, many seniors are enjoying the freedoms of modern life and the hard-won independence they’re now experiencing. Older women in particular, who have already been married and raised families, are reluctant to give up their new, self-sustaining lifestyles. For them, LAT relationships are a liberating way to enjoy romance on their own terms – something which wasn’t afforded to them in the past."
Exactly what Dorinda's been saying!
