11Feb – by Daniel Steingold – 336 – In Family Studies Happiness Studies Men Studies Original Studies Relationship Studies Women
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Perhaps love and marriage don’t go together like a horse and carriage after all. A new study finds that older Americans looking for love are latching onto a new trend that tempers the demands of a committed relationship, a phenomenon known as “Living Apart Together,” or “LAT.”
Spurred by a divorce rate that has doubled among this demographic since 1990, many older singles— often divorced or widowed— have taken on “an intimate relationship without a shared residence.” New research was conducted upon the increasingly popular relationship arrangement among those 50 years of age or older.
A new study finds that older Americans are embracing “living apart together.”
According to Jacquelyn Benson, a researcher at the University of Missouri who is entrenched in the topic, LAT has long been an established phenomenon in Europe, but it is just now reaching the United States en masse.
“What has long been understood about late-in-life relationships is largely based on long-term marriage,” Benson explains in a release. With marriage rates amongst older Americans declining, she argues that “if more people— young and old, married or not— saw LAT as an option, it might save them from a lot of future heartache.”
For their study, Benson and another researcher interviewed adults who were at least 60 years of age and in committed relationships, yet didn’t live together. From their interactions with this demographic, the two researchers found that there were a number of motivating factors for a LAT-type relationship.
https://www.studyfinds.org/study-finds-living-apart-together/