The beauty of LAT lifestyle
Por: Paola García / Edición: Claudia Rivera
Hello friends, it's our confession time: wow!! I’m so excited about this topic. I have been married and, to be honest, it was not the best experience ever , that's the reason why I have rejected every proposal ever since I got divorced. You may think I'm losing my mind, turns out I´m not, I´ll explain to you why.
There are those who can live happily married for decades enjoying it … truly enjoying it. I have met couples that, despite the years, look at each other with so much love it melts your heart; the way they treat each other is so adorable and how they speak to the other is beyond words. Everytime I get the chance to be surrounded by that kind of people it truly makes me wonder if I could live under the same roof with a person again but…
According to Heather Mazzei from Modern Intimacy
“LAT is a emerging relationship dynamic which is a generally a monogamous intimate partnership between unmarried individuals who live in separate homes but identify as a committed couple”.
For some of us, that is not our happy reality. However, let's not freak out, there is the marvelous LAT, have you heard about it? The Living Apart Together lifestyle, which happens to be quite popular among europeans and it's starting to be popular on this side of the world, consists on having a relationship with a significant other, with all that includes, such as: traveling together, spending weekends, watching movies together, going out for dinner, cuddling, sleeping as one, but each one has its own house, it's own space and sometimes it is like a sleep over.
You can be together under the same roof as long as you want to, but get to keep your house and so does your partner, and that happens to be wonderful because if at any point you need a little bit of space, quiet time, or just don't feel like being with someone else in that moment you can go to your safe sacred home and enjoy your time alone. If you and your better half have a disagreement, same thing: you just go back home, chill out, cool down and then go back to the relationship, isn't that beautiful?
Illustration by Jess Lenz taken from Philadelphia Magazine
Why people are choosing LAT lifestyle?
We can assure that LAT might be a choice; however, it’s a result of a huge variety of relational functionalities, such as:
Fear of lost autonomy
Ease for relationship dissolution
Place more importance on friendship
Lack of commitment
Prioritizing long term boy/girlfriends
Avoid the legal and financial complications of common-law relationships