A growing number of couples, a new report says, are Living Apart Together – “LAT.” So: this is when you maintain both a romantic relationship and your own private home, and it’s led by older women who (according to Brides magazine) are prioritising a newfound freedom. “After years of taking care of their husbands and children, these women seek a new chapter where their individual needs are at the forefront.
” I mean, I love it, obviously. I love that this is the new “When I’m an old woman I shall wear purple”, when I’m an old woman I shall get my own bedroom, these women finding their voices, their sexuality, their freedom in their 50s, but it also highlights how, the world being the way it is, these versions of utopia are only available to the wealthy. Who wouldn’t want their own house just so, their bathroom untouched by other feet, unlittered with half-empty bottles of Head & Shoulders shampoo? Who would honestly say no, if money were no object, to a room of their own and all the nudity, slobbiness, collecting of curios and war rugs that implies? It’s like when parents break up and the modern advice is for their children to remain in the family house while the parents move into separate flats.
Three homes! If they had the luxury of those kinds of choices, I counter, perhaps the parents wouldn’t have broken up in the first place. It reminds me of the best divorce I’ve ever heard about, where the parents simply moved into different wings of their m.
