Ambivalence and Living Apart Together in Later Life: A Critical Research Proposal (original) (raw)
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Enduring commitment: older couples living apart
Families, Relationships and Societies, 2022
As people live longer, there is an increasing possibility of couples becoming separated because one partner moves into a care home. Our qualitative mixed-method pilot study in an English town involved eight married couples aged over 65 years to explore experiences and practices of couplehood in these circumstances. This article focuses on the most striking emergent element of expressed couplehood in these now challenged long-term relationships: commitment. Drawing on in-depth (biographical) individual and joint interviews, observations and emotion maps, this article explores how separation affected the couples’ current sense and enactment of commitment to the relationship. Commitment in the partnership is now often one-sided. How committed the community-living partner feels – and its enactment – is heavily shaped by the shared history of happy and unhappy periods in the relationships, current contextual constraints, and family and institutional support.
Family Science Living apart together: Longing for the couple, enjoying being single
This study focuses on living apart together (LAT) partnerships in Belgium (Flanders) and uses semi-structured interview data from a sample of 54 LAT individuals aged 30–68 years to investigate the extent to which such unions are comparable to marriage with respect to five relationship dimensions: a couple dimension, an enterprise dimension, a value dimension, a role dimension and a form dimension. Although key relationship values put LAT on an equal footing with marriage, our findings indicate that transitional LAT partnerships exhibit far greater similarities to a marital relationship than permanent LAT partnerships in terms of perceptions of coupledom, joint enterprise and partners’ roles and responsibilities within the union. These similarities with marriage again diminish as the form dimension is taken into account.
Practices and perceptions of living apart together
Family Science, 2014
This paper examines how people living apart together (LATs) maintain their relationships, and describes how they view this living arrangement. It draws on a 2011 survey on LAT in Britain, supplemented by qualitative interviewing. Most LATs in Britain live close to their partners, and have frequent contact with them. At the same time most see LAT in terms of a monogamous, committed couple, where marriage remains a strong normative reference point, and see living apart as not much different from co-residence in terms of risk, emotional security or closeness. Many see themselves living together in the future. However, LAT does appear to make difference to patterns of care between partners. In addition, LATs report advantages in terms of autonomy and flexibility. The paper concludes that LAT allows individuals some freedom to manoeuvre in balancing the demands of life circumstances and personal needs with those of an intimate relationship, but that practices of LAT do not, in general, represent a radical departure from the norms of contemporary coupledom, except for that which expects couples to cohabit.
Living apart together: Longing for the couple, enjoying being single
This study focuses on living apart together (LAT) partnerships in Belgium (Flanders) and uses semi-structured interview data from a sample of 54 LAT individuals aged 30–68 years to investigate the extent to which such unions are comparable to marriage with respect to five relationship dimensions: a couple dimension, an enterprise dimension, a value dimension, a role dimension and a form dimension. Although key relationship values put LAT on an equal footing with marriage, our findings indicate that transitional LAT partnerships exhibit far greater similarities to a marital relationship than permanent LAT partnerships in terms of perceptions of coupledom, joint enterprise and partners’ roles and responsibilities within the union. These similarities with marriage again diminish as the form dimension is taken into account.
Advances in Life Course Research
The non-institutionalised, flexible nature of living-apart-together (LAT) raises questions about partner commitment in the context of the debate about the individualisation of society. We explored how partner commitment in LAT relationships in the Netherlands is shaped by individuals' satisfaction with, alternatives to, investments in and social support for their relationship. The underlying theoretical framework is an extended version of the Investment Model of Commitment. We conducted 22 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with men and women. The major themes that were addressed in the analysis were commitment, satisfaction, alternatives, investments, social support, relationship history and future plans. Participants were emotionally highly attached to their partner, but they doubted their commitment to maintaining their relationship in the future. Satisfaction with the current partner and intrinsic investments, such as emotions and effort, were described as contributing the most to feelings of commitment. Social support, quality of alternatives and extrinsic investments, such as material ties, were felt to contribute the least. Relationship history and life experience played an important role in how middle-aged and older individuals, of whom many were divorced, perceived the four determinants and experienced commitment. In this context, the LAT arrangement expressed fear of commitment and getting hurt, which was further reflected in limited investments. The paper concludes that although emotional attachment appears to be high among people in LAT relationships, they may have a relatively limited belief and interest in lifelong partnerships. 1. Introduction Partner relationship arrangements have diversified profoundly in many western countries since the 1960s. Amongst other phenomena, this diversification revealed itself in a rise in unmarried cohabitation, divorce and extramarital childbirth (Lesthaeghe, 2010), and in the increased prevalence or visibility of living-apart-together (LAT) relationships (Carter,
People who live apart together (LATs) - how different are they?
Sociological Review, 2010
‘Living apart together’– that is being in an intimate relationship with a partner who lives somewhere else – is increasingly recognised and accepted as a specific way of being in a couple. On the face of it, this is a far cry from the ‘traditional’ version of couple relationships, where co-residence in marriage was placed at the centre and where living apart from one's partner would be regarded as abnormal, and understandable only as a reaction to severe external constraints.Some commentators regard living apart together as a historically new family form where LATs can pursue a ‘both/and’ solution to partnership – they can experience both the intimacy of being in a couple, and at the same time continue with pre-existing commitments. LATs may even de-prioritize couple relationships and place more importance on friendship. Alternatively, others see LAT as just a ‘stage’ on the way to cohabitation and marriage, where LATs are not radical pioneers moving beyond the family, but are cautious and conservative, and simply show a lack of commitment. Behind these rival interpretations lies the increasingly tarnished spectre of individualisation theory. Is LAT some sort of index for a developing individualisation in practice?In this paper we take this debate further by using information from the 2006 British Social Attitudes Survey. We find that LATs have quite diverse origins and motivations, and while as a category LATs are often among the more liberal in family matters, as a whole they do not show any marked ‘pioneer’ attitudinal position in the sense of leading a radical new way, especially if age is taken into account.
People who live apart together (LATs): new family form or just a stage?
International Review of Sociology, 2011
‘Living apart together’ – that is being in an intimate relationship with a partner who lives somewhere else (LAT) – is increasingly recognised and accepted as a specific way of being in a couple. On the face of it, this is a far cry from the ‘traditional’ version of couple relationships, where co-residence in marriage was placed at the centre and where living apart from one's partner would be regarded as abnormal, and understandable only as a reaction to severe external constraints. Some commentators regard living apart together as a historically new family form where partners can pursue a ‘both/and’ solution to partnership – they can experience both couple intimacy, but at the same time maintain personal autonomy and pre-existing commitments. Alternatively, others see LAT as just a ‘stage’ on the way to cohabitation and marriage, where LATs are not radical pioneers moving beyond the family, but are cautious and conservative, and simply show a lack of commitment. Behind these rival interpretations lies the increasingly tarnished spectre of individualisation theory. Is LAT some sort of index for a developing individualisation in practice? We take this debate further by using information from the 2006 British Social Attitudes Survey and from in-depth interviews with LAT partners. We find that LATs do resemble cohabitating (unmarried) couples in demographic and social terms, but also display quite diverse origins and motivations. One group of LATs do not see themselves as couple partners at all, but more as special boy/girlfriends. Others live apart mainly in response to external circumstances. But some LATs do seem to be developing a new way of living in their relationships, as a means of balancing both couple intimacy and personal autonomy over the longer term.
The initiation and progression of late-life romantic relationships
Journal of Sociology, 2012
This research explores the initiation and progression of new late-life romantic relationships among older Australians (60 years plus). Our research found that older adult romantic relationships were meaningful, important and sexually intimate. However, few led to cohabitation or marriage, with these older adults preferring to date or to maintain separate households (living-apart-together, LAT). In line with Giddens’ ideal of ‘pure’ relationships, our research indicates that older adults are looking for egalitarian relationships based on emotional and sexual equality, albeit not necessarily based on cohabitation or monogamy.