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Most evenings Andrea* will settle down to watch TV. Leigh, an hour’s drive away, will do the same. Throughout the show, they’ll text, “Hey, what do you think about that? Wasn’t that funny?” Discussing the same TV program from different lounge rooms in different suburbs is a regular activity for the couple. “It’s a way of staying in touch,” Leigh says.
Andrea – or Andy, 66, and Leigh, 68, met online in 2010 and have been in a committed relationship for 14 years. They typically spend Monday to Thursday apart and Friday to Sunday together.
This kind of relationship, known as living apart, together – or LAT – is becoming more popular among over-60s, says Elisabeth Shaw, a clinical and counselling psychologist and the chief executive of Relationships Australia New South Wales.
“For people who have had a lot of relationship experience or life experience, it’s about saying, ‘I can really love this person … but I no longer am driven by the need to do the conventional relationship and all the implications that come from that, such as being a carer, giving up property, sharing finances.’”
Shaw has observed for decades, since the introduction of no-fault divorce in Australia in 1975, a greater acceptance that relationships can break down. “The commentary now is that it’s quite expected that people may have two or more really significant relationships across the lifespan.”
For Andy and Leigh, maintaining separate homes is a conscious decision, though they sometimes discuss the idea of cohabiting.
“We can afford to live separately and still enjoy our lifestyles [and] we don’t have to deal with a lot of the domestic argy-bargy that some couples have to deal with by living together,” Andy says. Never married, she has lived in the same suburb for 38 years and has friends and activities she enjoys close by.
Outside their regular Friday to Sunday at Andy’s, the couple holiday together and have cared for one another after surgery, for weeks at a time. But Leigh, like Andy, enjoys his independence and own company. “When I got divorced, I wanted my own space,” he says. A keen fisher, he appreciates the freedom to pack up on a whim and go away, without negotiation or compromise. “We’ve never begrudged each other the chance to do those things that we like to do solely.”
The couple maintain that their relationship is strong. “[Our] commitment is not based on financial or real estate –,” Leigh says, before Andy chimes in “– or children that we have together. [It’s] purely because we enjoy each other’s company.”
There are some downsides to their arrangement. “The travel gets a bit tedious sometimes … We’ve got Punt Road and Hoddle Street between us,” Leigh says. The prospect of an hour-long commute along one of Melbourne’s busiest arterials, however, isn’t motivation enough to change the status quo.
‘I just appreciate my own space’
In December a UK study reported that older couples who choose LAT experience better mental wellbeing than people who remain single, on a par with marriage – while avoiding the friction of close quarters and day-to-day obligations.
A Western Australian couple, Marina, 62, and Mark, 66, live within walking distance of one another and spend Friday and Saturday nights together. They have no plans to combine property or assets, intending for those to pass to their children.
Their lifestyle allows them the freedom they both value. “It’s not freedom to go and chase other women or anything stupid like that,” says Mark, an IT professional. He enjoys motorbike riding and kayaking, neither of which interest Marina. “[It] just gives me freedom to be myself. I love it.”
For Marina, an HR manager, it’s the freedom to pursue her career and spend time on her own. “I just appreciate my own space and my own thinking time,” she says.
Shaw says it’s not uncommon for those in LAT relationships to protect their autonomy. “People who have quite busy separate lives … want the time without question and without interruption to get on with those things.” This doesn’t diminish the couple’s pleasure in getting together, she says.
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An entire working week might pass without Mark and Marina speaking to one another. “I think of her constantly during the day,” Mark says. “We just don’t have that need to be constantly talking to each other and messaging.”
“I’m not a texter,” Marina says. “I don’t phone unless I’ve got something to say. But when we’re together, there’s an intensity and a real exchange. We just don’t stop talking. We’re never stuck for a word. I love his company.”
What started out as dating 19 years ago is now a committed, monogamous relationship. The couple have supported each other through life’s hardest events: parenting, losing Mark’s mother and father, losing Marina’s mother and moving her 94-year-old father in to live with her. “[Mark’s] most definitely my significant other,” Marina says.
Mark is unequivocal. “She’ll always be number one.”
Cohabitation has been on and off the table during the 20 years that Lindy, 63, and Colin, 68, have been together. “In the old days I’d often say I don’t see enough of her,” Colin says. Even now, he admits, he sometimes still doesn’t. But neither have taken steps to change that. Lindy lives in Melbourne’s north-east and Colin is in an inner-city suburb 15km away. They spend weekends together and chat by phone morning and night. “I’ll tell her about my day,” Colin says. “She’ll tell me about her day.”
They started dating after being introduced at a wedding. “We spoke about this lovely idea of living together,” Lindy, a teacher, says. There are things about Colin, she says, that still give her butterflies. But the practicalities of parenting two high-needs children, a full-time teaching load and maintaining an extensive property meant cohabiting wasn’t an option.
Colin, who owns a travel consultancy, isn’t against it but is concerned about how much he’d need to compromise. “I’d like to at some stage,” he says. “[But] it’s a bit scary. Some people say you can spoil a good relationship by moving in together. We’re both quite strong personalities … and she’s a lot tidier than I am.”
And then there are the practicalities: where to move – he loves the inner city, she loves the beach; and the challenge of accommodating his jumble of travel memorabilia, photos and penchant for mismatched colours.
Having scaled back her teaching load, Lindy now has time and head space to contemplate alternatives to their lifestyle. Front of mind is Colin’s cancer scare last year and the physical demands of their separate properties. She wants to enjoy more travel with him and return to the same house to wake up together. “I love him,” she says. “I’m hopeful that we will live together one day because I would like to age with him.” But she’s also realistic. With one high-needs adult child still at home, that day isn’t now.
Shaw says LAT relationships challenge society’s markers of commitment. “If someone says, ‘We’re in a very committed relationship, we’re choosing not to live together,’ it’s very easy for the audience around them to see it as either selfish, unable to attach, lacking commitment or that the love is questionable,” she says.
“We don’t have a roadmap for this. And so, it’s very easy to judge, and it means that even the couple ask themselves more questions.” They say, “Are we missing something?”
Colin has questioned himself. “Am I being too selfish by wanting to be by myself?” He has watched various friends recouple and marry or move in with each other after a few of years. The idea that if you’re in a committed relationship you share a home, responsibilities and don’t want to maintain a separateness is hard to shake. Lindy is his soulmate. “Sometimes I do think, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ Then I think, ‘No, nothing wrong with me. What’s wrong with them?’”
*First names only have been used to respect the couples’ privacy
