How Does Living-Apart-Together Fit Into Online Dating?
At Consonance (Gleichklang), we support our members within the framework of our psychological matchmaking service in finding and living a relationship model that can lead to high relationship satisfaction and stability. For an increasing number of people, especially in middle or older age, this also includes the Living-Apart-Together relationship model:
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Dating, Partner Search, and Living Apart Together
Even at the beginning of partner search, especially in online dating, the question of how closeness, daily life, and shared living space should be structured in the future plays a central role:
- Partners can live together in a shared apartment, they can live in two separate apartments in the same location and shape their daily lives together more or less regularly, or they can be connected across greater geographical distances. For successful matchmaking, it is crucial that these fundamental ideas are considered early on and are compatible with each other.
Relationships in which partners are together but do not live in the same household are referred to as Living Apart Together. The term is sometimes spelled out, sometimes abbreviated as LAT relationship; other formulations include living in separate apartments, separate households, or partnership without a shared residence.
Living Apart Together can take very different forms:
- Some couples live in the same city, others in the same building with separate apartments, and still others in different locations. Sometimes they are weekend relationships, sometimes relationships with frequent daily meetings, sometimes with greater geographical distance. Weekend relationships can also be lived entirely as Living-Apart-Together relationships.
However, the distance is usually small enough that Living-Apart-Together relationships differ from classic long-distance relationships, even though there are no clearly defined boundaries between the two.
For partner search and online dating, it is important that these different variants of relationship design – sharing an apartment, Living Apart Together, long-distance relationships – are considered from the very beginning in matchmaking, as they significantly influence whether a partnership develops happily or stably or not. However, it is not the individual variant itself that exerts the influence, but rather the ability of those involved to build connection with each other in the respective form.
What Exactly Are Living-Apart-Together Relationships?
Living Apart Together describes a committed partnership in which both individuals understand themselves as a couple, share intimacy, sexuality, mutual support, and future planning, while consciously not maintaining a shared household.
Closeness is not created through permanently shared daily life, but through intentionally designed encounters. However, such relationships are typically not long-distance relationships either. The Together is not only maintained across distances or through social networks, but there is also a relatively intensive direct daily community in physical encounters.
This relative distance is not a sign of lacking commitment, but rather part of the chosen relationship model. For partner search, this has the consequence that people can specifically search for partners who also aspire to such a model or are at least open to it.
In online dating, this can be clearly stated to avoid misunderstandings. Conversely, Living Apart Together should be ruled out if living together is experienced as an essential prerequisite for relationship happiness. For matchmaking, this means that needs for closeness and distance should be systematically recorded and aligned.
Who Lives in Living-Apart-Together Relationships?
Relationships with separate apartments can be found in all age groups, but their significance changes significantly over the course of life:
- In young adulthood, Living-Apart-Together relationships often arise from external circumstances such as education, occupational mobility, financial conditions, or still-open life planning. For partner search, this often means that separate apartments are accepted as a transitional arrangement, while a shared household is aspired to in the long term.
In online dating among younger people, a temporal perspective often plays a role:
- Living Apart Together is tolerated but not formulated as a long-term goal.
In the second half of life, a different pattern emerges:
- Here, living in separate apartments is much more frequently chosen as a conscious, long-term lifestyle. Many people begin new relationships after separation or widowhood, have established living arrangements, social networks, and clear ideas about how they want to live. The Living Apart Together model of relationship design accommodates this.
For matchmaking, it follows that for these partner seekers, people should specifically be found who want or at least accept a partnership without a shared household. In older age groups, this is a common variant.
Motives for Living-Apart-Together Relationships
The motives for Living-Apart-Together relationships again often differ according to the life stage:
- Younger couples more often live in separate apartments because external conditions suggest it or because they first want to test their relationship. For partner search, this means that openness to various models can be useful as long as the long-term goal is oriented toward living together in one apartment. This should be communicated early in online dating to avoid false expectations.
In older age, other motives take center stage:
- Many people want to experience closeness, intimacy, and connection without once again taking on daily routines, financial entanglements, or role expectations that they know from previous relationships. For matchmaking, it follows that Living Apart Together should be considered in these cases as an independent and also long-term aspired relationship form.
Advantages of Living-Apart-Together Relationships
Living-Apart-Together relationships are often characterized by the fact that shared time is designed particularly consciously. Encounters are planned, daily routines recede. At the same time, many everyday conflicts that arise when living together are avoided.
For many couples, this results in high relationship satisfaction and often closeness that is experienced as more intense. For partner search in online dating, it is helpful to seriously reflect on one’s own desires and possibilities. We should find a relationship form for ourselves that corresponds to our needs. We can free ourselves from normative expectations.
Which Relationship Model Suits Me?
This is the crucial question that we should ask ourselves before we have met our partners. Of course, answers can change, but it is often helpful to meet people with similar ideas or at least to talk about one’s own wishes early on.
There is no universally valid recommendation for or against living together or Living Apart Together. Both models can be transitional or permanent solutions. For partner search, it is decisive that people reflect on their own needs and bring them clearly into online dating and matchmaking. This also includes the question of whether long-distance relationships, living in separate apartments, or living together are acceptable or excluded.
The clearer this reflection is, the higher the probability of meeting people in partner search with whom a long-term sustainable and harmonious relationship can be built. Matchmaking can support this process by systematically taking relationship models into account.
Consonance (Gleichklang) Stands for Relationship Happiness
Consonance (Gleichklang) stands for relationship happiness that arises from compatibility:
Only compatible relationships can be durably happy, and only happy relationships promote life satisfaction. Unhappy relationships make people unhappier than if they had remained alone.
This is precisely why it is essential for matchmaking that people reflect on their own relationship possibilities.
Within the framework of psychological matchmaking, we guide our members in this reflection and then use a psychological matching algorithm that brings together those who have a high probability of building relationship happiness together.
Relationship models, values, and life philosophies are taken into account. The goal is to bring together people who, in partner search and online dating, already have a high baseline probability for relationship satisfaction and relationship stability – regardless of whether they want to live together in one apartment or connect with each other in separate living spaces.
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