Source: Kateryna Onyshchuk / Getty
Happy couples spend a healthy amount of time together and apart. But, exactly how much time apart is healthy? It varies from one couple to the next, because people – both individuals and couples – have different needs. For some married couples, a substantial amount of separation is no issue. In fact, research reported on in Scripps News shows that the percentage of married couples living separately grew by more than 40 percent between 2000 and 2022.
There are many reasons married couples might choose to live apart, even if they’re still happily married. Rachel Lindsay and Bryan Abasolo of The Bachelorette lived apart for some time after tying the knot, due to their respective career demands. Choosing not to cohabitate doesn’t have to be a sign of trouble.
Reasons Couples Choose To Live Apart
Source: Caia Image / Getty
The idea of a married couple living separately might sound shocking at first, but there are actually sound reasons many pairs choose to do this.
Some blended families choose to live apart, so as not to uproot the lives of their children. Pew Research reports that blended families are most common among Black marriages. And parents know that changing a child’s routine, let alone living environment, can be incredibly disruptive to their emotional well-being and development. Simply moving from one house to another, with one’s original set of parents, can be traumatizing for some children. Taking on a whole new set of live-in siblings can bring a lot of turmoil – turmoil to which some blended families choose not to submit their children.
Then, some folks are just settled in their lives by the time they wed. The term “married couple” might elicit an image of a young couple, with their whole lives ahead of them. But, many people don’t marry until their 40s, 50s and sometimes 60s. In fact, The National Library of Medicine shows that Black women are more likely to marry later in life.
At a certain age, a person has created a home for themselves that they love, in a community that they feel deeply a part of. Moving would just be too emotionally difficult – even if they were moving in with a spouse.
