Jonny Marlow
Moving in together is one of the biggest relationship milestones. How well you blend into one unit often precludes other big changes, including getting married or raising kids.
But for older couples, there's another appealing relationship setup: living apart, together — also known as LAT.
A new study found that couples living apart experienced more mental-health benefits than single people. The study examined data gathered on over 15,000 British people between 60 and 85 years old and found that while LAT relationships didn't confer more mental-health benefits than being married, people who exited LAT relationships had fewer negative mental-health consequences than couples who divorced or left a shared home.
Ury, the director of relationship science at Hinge and an on-air expert in Netflix's "The Later Daters," told Business Insider that she's been seeing this trend thrive.
"They're like, 'I have my house set up the way I want. You have your house set up the way you want,'" Ury said. "'Why don't we be in a long-term relationship, but we don't need to live together?'"
It's not just logistical. Ury said living apart, together has a ton of perks — particularly for older daters.
If you're comfortable living in separate homes, it can broaden your dating options. You can manage differences in social lives or hobbies more easily by living independently than by trying to find someone who matches your lifestyle.
Ury said this is appealing to older daters. When you're younger and looking to start a family, "you want someone maybe with the same religion, the same lifestyle, the same education," she said.
But for older daters who aren't looking to raise kids together, ticking off all those boxes is often less important. Living apart allows each person to live in their own world — and that could be a boon for some relationships.
LAT gives couples the opportunity to keep living how they want, with the benefit of romantic companionship.
The study's authors concluded older women would likely benefit the most from the arrangement. Women often take on more domestic labor in marriage or cohabitation, so they "may have more to gain than older men from LAT" by having more autonomy, they wrote.
Ury said it makes sense that older women are drawn to LAT. Her research shows older daters typically have a "stronger sense of self" than younger people. She added that older people have reported having more satisfying sex because they know their bodies better and are more capable of asking for what they want.
Knowing yourself also makes it harder to compromise, whether it comes to sharing a bedroom or eating the same meals. "People are stuck in their ways, Ury said. "They're less flexible and they have their ways of doing things."
Ury said younger couples are like startups that grow together, whereas couples are more like mergers. "Mergers are notoriously hard because each one has their own HR department, their own CEO," she said. "It can be hard to blend those things."
