10 ms·

More Older Couples Stay Together Because They Live Apart

130 points by ytNumbers 7y ago

bitcoinbutter 7y ago
It's unfortunate the way that sexual relationships are intertwined with finances. Gone are the days where women have little/no earning opportunities. People should be allowed to keep finances separated unless explicitly deciding otherwise.
- ekc 7y ago
  They could just, not get married.
  - kweks 7y ago
    In many Common Law countries, you are automatically considered to be in a de facto relationship after a period of cohabitation (6 months in Australia, for example) Obviously designed to protect the rights of people in this situation long term, it's also rather frightening.
    - dijit 7y ago
      In Sweden there is a special word "Sambo", if someone lives with you (in a relationship context) for 6mo+ then they're entitled to 50% of your home, it also applies if you buy a home with the intent of living with someone. Or, at least this is what I've been told, I don't speak Swedish enough to read the relevant law myself but it's been corroborated by enough people I trust.
      - username90 7y ago
        No, that is not true. Sambolagen is for when a couple gets a new place to live in, not for when someone moves into the others home. Basically it makes a difference between assets acquired as a part of the Sambo relationship and assets acquired as a private person. So if X owns a home, then meets Y and they both start living in X's home, if they split up X will still own all of it. However if X buys a home for X and Y to live in, then it doesn't matter that Y didn't pay anything the home is still owned 50/50 according to Sambolagen. X can avoid this by making a written statement that the home belongs to X signed by Y.
        LunaSea 7y ago
        That's incredibly stupid but I'm not surprised that it exists in Sweden. Nothing should entitle Y to any percent of ownership of the house.
        maaaats 7y ago
        You should know the context before saying "nothing". The reason most laws like these exist, is because it used to be more normal to have a stay-at-home-mom, and the male making all the money. Just because the woman didn't contribute with cold, hard cash to the household, she still contributed.
        LunaSea 7y ago
        I do know the context and sure there is a contribution but not necessarily at the same level.
      - H8crilA 7y ago
        This legislation exists in other countries - automatic protection for partners in "unregistered" relationships. The logic is not deeply wrong - why should a formal act, essentially a signature, decide, rather than what's actually happening in reality? Similar to the evergreen debates on contracting vs employment - the reality of the relationship should decide, not the title of the contract. Also often your parents can sue you for alimony if they can no longer support themselves in their old age, just like a child can sue a parent. Family law can get you by surprise.
        Barrin92 7y ago
        >This legislation exists in other countries - automatic protection for partners in "unregistered" relationships. The logic is not deeply wrong - why should a formal act, essentially a signature, decide, rather than what's actually happening in reality? because automatically tying personal and romantic relationships and property arrangements together seems odd to people who want to keep them apart, just like some people might not want to have any relationship with their family any more and don't want to fiscally depend on them, or the other way around. It seems archaic to me to have some sort of parallel informal and customary law based on kinship that you're automatically opted into.
        H8crilA 7y ago
        That's exactly what I meant by "Family law can get you by surprise.". It's not there to protect you, like HR is not there to protect you. Just keep the ship going.
    - Blackstone4 7y ago
      > de facto relationship after a period of cohabitation (6 months in Australia, for example) I looked this up and it's not true. If there are no explicit documents, the court will interpret what the intention of the couple were in terms of ownership. If the property is in one person's name, that person tends to keep the property. If the property is put in both names then it is split 50/50.
      - kweks 7y ago
        Thank you.. you're correct, but there are some nuances. The defacto status is a qualitative status. My statement of 6 months is incorrect: it is two years of cohabitation, unless there is a child, or other circumstances. In regards to splitting assets, there is no hard and fast rule: meaning it could slice either way. https://www.armstronglegal.com.au/family-law/defacto/ https://www.armstronglegal.com.au/family-law/defacto/
        zxcmx 7y ago
        In NZ it’s 3 years of de-facto but the “family home” (even if one partner brought it freehold into the relationship) gets split 50/50. It’s complicated because even prenups can be overturned if one partner experiences regret and the courts decide the prenup wasn’t “fair”. The law is surprising enough to enough people that they’re looking at changing it.
    - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
      it's also rather frightening I suppose that depends on which side of the financial scales you are on.
      - kweks 7y ago
        Surely the uncertainty is scary for both sides! Frightening if you contributed less financially but risk to lose your house, etc. Frightening if you contributed more financially and risk to lose your house, etc.
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  Well yeah that's pretty much the default, UNLESS they choose to get married with the stipulation of shared ownership and finances etcetera. the Netherlands recently passed legislation that changed the default marriage agreement to no longer have the shared ownership stipulation. And even then, that's only one option (marriage, that is); there is nobody (except maybe family, church, etc) forcing anyone to marry. There's other options as well.
  - ajsnigrutin 7y ago
    Not everywhere. In Slovenia (and some other countries probably), we have a "zunajzakonska skupnost", which rougly translated means "out-of-wedlock relationship". If two people live together for a (undefined) "long" amount of time, and act in a way married couple do, they can be treated exactly as a married couple would be. That means, that one of the partners can claim they lived together in an "zunajzakonska skupnost", and everything acquired during the relationship canbe treated the same as with marriage, and split in half (unless someone proves they contributed significantly more,...). The existance of "zunajzakonska skupnost" iz not well defined and has to be decided in court, but it can bring many many problems. We also have only recently legalized prenups. Oh, and living wills are very very limited too. ..so yeah...
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      In the United States (and presumably England) this is called "common law marriage". I don't know if it's enough for one partner to claim marriage to the other, but if they both claim it the marriage is valid.
      - ajsnigrutin 7y ago
        Here, only one has to claim it, but they have to prove it in court. Usually this is usually done by proving they lived together, bought things together, etc. and if there were other elements of a relationship. I have no idea what happens if two non-romantic roomates buy a couch together, and one of them moves out though.
- huffmsa 7y ago
  It's almost like there were good reasons for strict legal and religious positions on monogamy and marriage for thousands of years all around the globe. Not to say your statement is invalid or that it's time for a shift, just a reminder that this is a well trodden field.
  - winchling 7y ago
    These traditions developed around families with children. The situation now is that divorce and childlessness are common and people are adapting accordingly. Personally, I think it's sad. Long-distance relationships don't work. Yet, as I see it, short-distance relationships do work, though a period of adjustment may be required. Medium-distance relationships are stuck in the middle! And, to put a cynical hat on for a moment, the powers-that-be may be just fine with this. They want people isolated in separate dwellings for purposes of taxation, property pricing, general conformity to their agendas, etc.
    - groby_b 7y ago
      "Long-distance relationships don't work" I don't think that holds as a blanket statement. (I have multiple counterexamples in my immediate circle, at least. Some of them on the decades scale) Is there specific evidence, or is this simply an assumption you're making?
      - kemayo 7y ago
        Although I disagree with the grandparent post, I'd be fine with saying that long term long distance relationships are harder to make work. Mostly this is because there's a lack of cultural guidelines for how to handle it; if you're living with or near someone there's a cultural script to follow which mostly-works, but in a LDR you can't count on that and you need to put the work in to build your own system. Of course, relying on the default cultural script for local relationships often falls down as well when it turns out that you disagree about the details. But we accept that relationships fail all the time, and don't tend to say "local relationships don't work" just because many of them fail. :D
- tootie 7y ago
  My wife and I joined our bank accounts a few months before the wedding. We consider that to be our true wedding day. We got to Admiral status with Vanguard much quicker this way. Also, I intend to spend 100% of my time with her once we retire and I can't wait. My parents and her parents have been living like that for years.
parsimo2010 7y ago
Sometimes I am amazed at the cognitive flexibility of a writer to turn something into a story. Couples that aren't married and live in different houses? So... dating? This is a story about old people dating? Where a lot of them are divorced so they're maybe a little hesitant to move in together and get married? And there are a few long distance relationships as well? I know this is the kind of pessimism that attracts downvotes, but I can't hold my tongue. The WSJ not only paid someone to write this, but it actually made it into the print edition.
- username90 7y ago
  I've seen people "date" consistently with the same person for 30 years, doing joint family events like Christmas and Easter. I think calling them proper relationships is appropriate.
- stephth 7y ago
  You actually proved it’s a story: for some people it’s news that couples can live in different houses and have any other type of romantic relationship than dating.
- wsc981 7y ago
  In the past these kinds of relationships were called "Living Apart Together", or LAT-relationships [0]. --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_apart_together https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_apart_together
- alexashka 7y ago
  I found it endearing that older folks have someone to be with. It makes me happy - the same way a story about a rescued cat makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Perhaps it is not at all related to Hacker culture, but then again this is a free forum and if some cat rescue stories slip in every now and again, I don't mind :)
- ntlk 7y ago
  At a point in life where you include someone as the main beneficiary in your will / on your life insurance policy, you’re definitely not “dating”, even though you might live apart.
H8crilA 7y ago
I think things get a bit harder once you have too much free time on your hands (like retired folks do) and live with a partner. I've been travelling for several months with my girlfriend now (after we quit our jobs), and it is not as easy as when the daily routine of work and other duties is in place. Not saying that it's not good, it is, but it sometimes creates weird tensions that I didn't think about before. Some serious travellers that I've met on the road had similar stories to tell, about themselves or their friends. The root of the problem, I think, is that when you have a job you only really spend 20-50% of your awake time with a partner. When you don't it gets to a 90-100% range, and it is harder. No single person can fill 100% of your time.
- murph-almighty 7y ago
  I had a similar experience recently with my family- that is my dad, mom, grandfather and siblings. Doing _everything_ together is a socially exhausting experience. The way I coped with it was to find some bits of spare time to go do my own thing. For me this was something mundane- I wanted to find a popular ruin bar in the area, but in the process I found a backpack I really liked and later purchased. This might be a more complicated situation given it's your girlfriend but taking a bit of time to solo it helped me a lot.
- gumby 7y ago
  This is well attested over the years with stay at home wives unhappy with the disruption of their routine when the husband retires (especially culturally prominent in the salaryman class of Japan). Hou can also buy a yacht cheaply in Fiji because of the number of people who think it would be great to Sal together and, after a few months, realize it would be better to stay together than to live on a boat. My wife and I married after traveling together and I think in retrospect that was smart/lucky....at least it worked for over 20 years.
  - stronglikedan 7y ago
    > My wife and I married after traveling together I think everyone should spend a week (min) or two traveling with their prospective partner before committing to a lifetime together. You learn so much about people when you remove them from their daily routine.
onetimemanytime 7y ago
>>Rather than marry or live together, many of them have separate homes and see each other several times a week, or three times a month; they often say they are highly committed to each other but want personal space and independence. In other words, they are not couples, just people that date sometimes. Next story please :)
- freddie_mercury 7y ago
  "she spent weeks [living] with him after he had surgery" That's what you do with someone that you date sometimes? My dating life was quite different than yours, I guess! Also, why so dismissive of how other people structure their lives? They don't describe it as "someone I date sometimes" so why do you?
  - onetimemanytime 7y ago
    >>Also, why so dismissive of how other people structure their lives? They don't describe it as "someone I date sometimes" so why do you? do whatever you want, I just disagree with the label.
tw1010 7y ago
This is part of some cynical narrative on HN. Don't buy into it wholeheartedly. Plenty of couples stay together really long despite living in the same apartment. True love does exist, even though the internet loves to brainwash you into believing it doesn't.
- Numberwang 7y ago
  For most people true love is a myth. People settle because they ate afraid of being alone. Then they stay out of fear, but unhappy. Children does not bring much happiness either. This is true for most couple. Yes, true love exists for like 5% of couples. This does not mean we should all pretend this is the norm. There are better, more interesting lives to live rather than 40 years of bickering.
- chris123 7y ago
  All of this depends on your definition of true love. and if love is something you seek to give or seek to receive. If you think they give love, then just give it. Love has no conditions. And it's available and unlimited supply.
- maaaats 7y ago
  How is it cynical? If something, it's wholesome to see people make nontraditional things work for them.
- unicornfinder 7y ago
  To be fair I think it depends on the kind of person you are. I'm pretty happy with the person I'm with, but ultimately if I didn't have her I'd probably have someone else and that's fine too. Not to mention, in the nicest way I can put this, I don't really see how any relationship can last forever. I don't mean this as a criticism of my partner, I'm genuinely very happy with her, but I'm also well aware of just how much I change over time.
- wffurr 7y ago
  I don't know why you think this is a part of some conspiracy. Knowing about more types of relationships is extremely useful for designing software. It helps to avoid baking in assumptions about relationship status and the implications thereof.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
You know how people say you get less flexible as you get older? It's generally true, and not just because you have limitations on adaptability as you age. You also are wise enough to know some sacrifices just don't actually work, no matter how much you wish they did. Now multiply that by two. Two inflexible people, both unwilling to shoot themselves in the foot for so-called love, trying to find some means to meet in the middle. Besides, a lot of our relationship expectations are rooted in the idea that a baby will or could be the result. When that stops being true, it gets a lot harder to cave to convention and a lot easier to negotiate whatever terms you two can privately agree upon. Add in the fact that your parents may be dead. Who do you need to please or seek permission from? Possibly no one. Your coworkers or what not may have no idea you have some kind of unconventional relationship. You may be well past the age where your social circle is going to actively butt into your romantic life. If they do, you may just dump them as friends rather than accept that.
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  On the note of expecting children - I suspect there's also a broader idea that the current state of affairs isn't permanent. A lot of the petty frustrations of living together are transient. They change when you change towns, change jobs, have a baby, have that baby grow up into a kid, have your kid move out, and retire. But after all that, there's a long stretch where people's schedules and lives don't necessarily change very much beyond needing more support. That's not universal, people can make all kinds of big changes well past retirement, but it's common enough that people start asking "do I want to deal with this for the rest of my life?" And that doesn't just mean younger people are putting up with bad relationships out of hope for the future. They could potentially be very compatible, making sound decisions like "your sleep schedule clashes with mine, but I'll deal with it for now and it'll be a positive down the line when we have to take care of kids at all hours of the day". It's just that the standard for a 'good' concession to make is different when you're weighing future circumstances against the present than it is when you're going to keep doing the same thing indefinitely.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 7y ago
>Many couples who begin relationships later in life are keeping separate homes because they cherish private space and financial independence Where by "many" the author means "some in my affluent circles of the 10 percenters and up".
- closeparen 7y ago
  We’re talking about older people; the cost of hanging onto a paid off house in a low property tax jurisdiction is minimal.
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  > * Mr. Demetre, a 63-year-old retired draftsman who spends several nights a week at her apartment because it’s bigger.* > A roofing contractor, he had repaired her roof a few times... He lives in the big house that he built on 60 acres in the country, with tractors and a satellite TV for watching sports. She lives in a brightly decorated home with no satellite TV in the college town of Columbia, Missouri. > Mr. Pastoret moved from his family home to an apartment 250 steps from hers. He comes over every evening for a supper of fruit and sandwiches. He washes the dishes. She dries and puts them away. They watch the news and “Wheel of Fortune,” holding hands, then go out to the front porch. Do those really seem like stories restricted to the upper crust? These people aren't broke, to be sure, and it's worth recognizing that pressure to live together to save money is part of how income affects divorce rates. But most of the people in this story are widowed or divorced with kids - they have property and maybe savings, but not enormous incomes. A house in Columbia, MO is $200k, and several of the other people have apartments.
  - linuxftw 7y ago
    > Do those really seem like stories restricted to the upper crust? Yes, most people can barely afford to maintain a single modest home, let alone 2 or 3.
    - Bartweiss 7y ago
      And these people are each maintaining a single modest home or none at all. By my count, the story has four renters, three homeowners, and one unknown. One of the renters even sold his home to make this arrangement more viable. This is an age bracket with an 80% homeownership rate. (That's not the same as % owning homes, but most people mentioned were divorced or widowed, which shrinks the difference.) All of them appear to be either working or retired; no one here is a stay-at-home spouse whose partner bought them a second house for comfort. No couple here even has three houses, so I don't see where that enters in. If these people were single, or just starting a relationship, would we look at pairs of them as "owning two homes"? This is just a story about people who are staying 'dating' instead of remarrying and moving in together, which is viable for any demographic that isn't living with strangers to save money while single - and that includes most of the middle class.
huffmsa 7y ago
This is undoubtedly contributory to the housing shortage. People wastefully living by themselves in space which could house 2 or more individuals are selfishly hurting both the younger generation and the environment. I'd expect nothing less from the Boomers and Gen X. And I'm only somewhat joking.
ramijames 7y ago
I wish that me and my wife could live apart. We get along well on a personal level but are terrible fucking roommates.
- newshorts 7y ago
  my wife and I aren’t much better at fucking roommates either... Which is probably why we don’t have any right now.
- asark 7y ago
  I sleep better alone. Wish I could at least most nights without it becoming an issue. My dream house (kids aside—that makes an already infeasible dream even less realistic) would have my wife and me in separate bedrooms with our own separate bathroom and kitchen and a living space, then one or two shared rooms in between us.
  - teshier-A 7y ago
    Separate bedrooms are common enough, bathrooms I can somewhat understand, but kitchens ? Why does your dream have this ?
    - baldeagle 7y ago
      Not the OP, but sometimes I wish that I had a separate kitchen so I could prep like I did back when we lived apart and had date nights. Candles, clean kitchen, and hot food that she hasn't been smelling for the last hour...
    - asark 7y ago
      Very different ideas of what and how to cook, where and how to store foods (especially, what goes in the fridge and what doesn't), and so on. Instead of one kitchen with both our stuff in it and little shared, we could have much more orderly separate ones with only a little duplication. It'd be fine if only one of us ever cooked, and if either of us didn't find the other's methods and tools frustrating to use at best, but that's not the case, so here we are. Examples: my ideal kitchen would contain a rice cooker and zero crock pots. Hers would have zero rice cookers and at least two crock pots. Mine would have at most two non-stick pans of any kind—really, I could live with just one—but several cast iron pieces, and some steel. Hers would have exclusively non-stick. I'd be entirely content with a single short built-in oven to save space. She'd want a full-size double oven. That sort of thing. [EDIT] also, whether it's OK to leave any small appliances on the counter full-time or they must all go in cabinets when not in use. We finally, after years, compromised on the stand mixer and we're up to a 4-slice toaster now so it's just too damn big to store, but the rest...
glangdale 7y ago
It seems regrettable that after having endless subsidies and encouragements to buy a family home, that people are insisting on keeping them long after there's any point in having a large house. Given the housing shortage in so many markets, this seems like another nifty way for the Boomers to pull the ladder up after them.
- lm28469 7y ago
  I don't have a strong opinion on the subject but I recently read an article [0] that tells another story. You might find it interesting. [0] https://www.businessinsider.de/millennials-vs-baby-boomers-big-houses-real-estate-market-problems-2019-3?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.de/millennials-vs-baby-boomers-b...
  - javagram 7y ago
    The article also says “Millennials buying their first home today are likely to pay 39% more than baby boomers who bought their first home in the 1980s”. Real estate inflation has been dramatic over the last several decades. If there were really a glut of old people attempting to offload their paid-off homes on the market, the prices might drop to more historically normal levels... I’m not sure how the statistics actually work out but if single or married people are staying in oversized homes for longer without kids, it does seem like that could affect the supply of homes for families with children. I know the UK had a controversy over a “bedroom tax” that tried to address this issue.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      There’s a glut of homes for sale, in places with either no economic prospects or low desirability to live. More and more higher income people competing with each other in less and less land area = higher sale prices.
      - brewdad 7y ago
        This. My Dad's home in a lagging industrial town in the Upper Midwest is probably only worth about 1.5x what he paid for it 40 years ago. He has well over an acre and the house is in great shape. No one wants to move there though, so housing prices are depressed. He'd like to move, but would have to take on a mortgage in his 70s, so he'll stay put and my sibling and I will sell it for whatever we can get when he passes.
nugga 7y ago
I saw some articles somewhere that some people, despite living together in a relationship, sleep in different beds or even rooms.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  I honestly can't imagine sleeping in the same bed as someone, personally. For a bunch of various reasons... 1) I need to be very cold to sleep and don't want to be disrupted by someone else's warmth 2) I'd be woken up when the other person shifts around, and vice versa 3) What if my partner snores, has sleep apnea, mutters in their sleep? 4) What if we just have different circadian rhythms? I like to be up at 6am, which means bedding at 10pm. But my partner(s) have historically been night owls.
  - throwaway8879 7y ago
    Agreed. I've been keeping a 3:30am-9:30pm schedule for a couple years now and I don't see it working if I had to share a bed, or even a house with a partner. I suppose people have to make certain adjustments if the relationship is worth to them, and most people end up doing so.
- landcoctos 7y ago
  More common than you think.
- amyjess 7y ago
  My parents were like that when I was little. Then again, they split when I was 6...

130 points by ytNumbers 7y ago

It's unfortunate the way that sexual relationships are intertwined with finances. Gone are the days where women have little/no earning opportunities. People should be allowed to keep finances separated unless explicitly deciding otherwise.

ekc 7y ago
They could just, not get married.
- kweks 7y ago
  In many Common Law countries, you are automatically considered to be in a de facto relationship after a period of cohabitation (6 months in Australia, for example) Obviously designed to protect the rights of people in this situation long term, it's also rather frightening.
  - dijit 7y ago
    In Sweden there is a special word "Sambo", if someone lives with you (in a relationship context) for 6mo+ then they're entitled to 50% of your home, it also applies if you buy a home with the intent of living with someone. Or, at least this is what I've been told, I don't speak Swedish enough to read the relevant law myself but it's been corroborated by enough people I trust.
    - username90 7y ago
      No, that is not true. Sambolagen is for when a couple gets a new place to live in, not for when someone moves into the others home. Basically it makes a difference between assets acquired as a part of the Sambo relationship and assets acquired as a private person. So if X owns a home, then meets Y and they both start living in X's home, if they split up X will still own all of it. However if X buys a home for X and Y to live in, then it doesn't matter that Y didn't pay anything the home is still owned 50/50 according to Sambolagen. X can avoid this by making a written statement that the home belongs to X signed by Y.
      - LunaSea 7y ago
        That's incredibly stupid but I'm not surprised that it exists in Sweden. Nothing should entitle Y to any percent of ownership of the house.
        maaaats 7y ago
        You should know the context before saying "nothing". The reason most laws like these exist, is because it used to be more normal to have a stay-at-home-mom, and the male making all the money. Just because the woman didn't contribute with cold, hard cash to the household, she still contributed.
        LunaSea 7y ago
        I do know the context and sure there is a contribution but not necessarily at the same level.
    - H8crilA 7y ago
      This legislation exists in other countries - automatic protection for partners in "unregistered" relationships. The logic is not deeply wrong - why should a formal act, essentially a signature, decide, rather than what's actually happening in reality? Similar to the evergreen debates on contracting vs employment - the reality of the relationship should decide, not the title of the contract. Also often your parents can sue you for alimony if they can no longer support themselves in their old age, just like a child can sue a parent. Family law can get you by surprise.
      - Barrin92 7y ago
        >This legislation exists in other countries - automatic protection for partners in "unregistered" relationships. The logic is not deeply wrong - why should a formal act, essentially a signature, decide, rather than what's actually happening in reality? because automatically tying personal and romantic relationships and property arrangements together seems odd to people who want to keep them apart, just like some people might not want to have any relationship with their family any more and don't want to fiscally depend on them, or the other way around. It seems archaic to me to have some sort of parallel informal and customary law based on kinship that you're automatically opted into.
        H8crilA 7y ago
        That's exactly what I meant by "Family law can get you by surprise.". It's not there to protect you, like HR is not there to protect you. Just keep the ship going.
  - Blackstone4 7y ago
    > de facto relationship after a period of cohabitation (6 months in Australia, for example) I looked this up and it's not true. If there are no explicit documents, the court will interpret what the intention of the couple were in terms of ownership. If the property is in one person's name, that person tends to keep the property. If the property is put in both names then it is split 50/50.
    - kweks 7y ago
      Thank you.. you're correct, but there are some nuances. The defacto status is a qualitative status. My statement of 6 months is incorrect: it is two years of cohabitation, unless there is a child, or other circumstances. In regards to splitting assets, there is no hard and fast rule: meaning it could slice either way. https://www.armstronglegal.com.au/family-law/defacto/ https://www.armstronglegal.com.au/family-law/defacto/
      - zxcmx 7y ago
        In NZ it’s 3 years of de-facto but the “family home” (even if one partner brought it freehold into the relationship) gets split 50/50. It’s complicated because even prenups can be overturned if one partner experiences regret and the courts decide the prenup wasn’t “fair”. The law is surprising enough to enough people that they’re looking at changing it.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    it's also rather frightening I suppose that depends on which side of the financial scales you are on.
    - kweks 7y ago
      Surely the uncertainty is scary for both sides! Frightening if you contributed less financially but risk to lose your house, etc. Frightening if you contributed more financially and risk to lose your house, etc.
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
Well yeah that's pretty much the default, UNLESS they choose to get married with the stipulation of shared ownership and finances etcetera. the Netherlands recently passed legislation that changed the default marriage agreement to no longer have the shared ownership stipulation. And even then, that's only one option (marriage, that is); there is nobody (except maybe family, church, etc) forcing anyone to marry. There's other options as well.
- ajsnigrutin 7y ago
  Not everywhere. In Slovenia (and some other countries probably), we have a "zunajzakonska skupnost", which rougly translated means "out-of-wedlock relationship". If two people live together for a (undefined) "long" amount of time, and act in a way married couple do, they can be treated exactly as a married couple would be. That means, that one of the partners can claim they lived together in an "zunajzakonska skupnost", and everything acquired during the relationship canbe treated the same as with marriage, and split in half (unless someone proves they contributed significantly more,...). The existance of "zunajzakonska skupnost" iz not well defined and has to be decided in court, but it can bring many many problems. We also have only recently legalized prenups. Oh, and living wills are very very limited too. ..so yeah...
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    In the United States (and presumably England) this is called "common law marriage". I don't know if it's enough for one partner to claim marriage to the other, but if they both claim it the marriage is valid.
    - ajsnigrutin 7y ago
      Here, only one has to claim it, but they have to prove it in court. Usually this is usually done by proving they lived together, bought things together, etc. and if there were other elements of a relationship. I have no idea what happens if two non-romantic roomates buy a couch together, and one of them moves out though.
huffmsa 7y ago
It's almost like there were good reasons for strict legal and religious positions on monogamy and marriage for thousands of years all around the globe. Not to say your statement is invalid or that it's time for a shift, just a reminder that this is a well trodden field.
- winchling 7y ago
  These traditions developed around families with children. The situation now is that divorce and childlessness are common and people are adapting accordingly. Personally, I think it's sad. Long-distance relationships don't work. Yet, as I see it, short-distance relationships do work, though a period of adjustment may be required. Medium-distance relationships are stuck in the middle! And, to put a cynical hat on for a moment, the powers-that-be may be just fine with this. They want people isolated in separate dwellings for purposes of taxation, property pricing, general conformity to their agendas, etc.
  - groby_b 7y ago
    "Long-distance relationships don't work" I don't think that holds as a blanket statement. (I have multiple counterexamples in my immediate circle, at least. Some of them on the decades scale) Is there specific evidence, or is this simply an assumption you're making?
    - kemayo 7y ago
      Although I disagree with the grandparent post, I'd be fine with saying that long term long distance relationships are harder to make work. Mostly this is because there's a lack of cultural guidelines for how to handle it; if you're living with or near someone there's a cultural script to follow which mostly-works, but in a LDR you can't count on that and you need to put the work in to build your own system. Of course, relying on the default cultural script for local relationships often falls down as well when it turns out that you disagree about the details. But we accept that relationships fail all the time, and don't tend to say "local relationships don't work" just because many of them fail. :D
tootie 7y ago
My wife and I joined our bank accounts a few months before the wedding. We consider that to be our true wedding day. We got to Admiral status with Vanguard much quicker this way. Also, I intend to spend 100% of my time with her once we retire and I can't wait. My parents and her parents have been living like that for years.

parsimo2010 7y ago

Sometimes I am amazed at the cognitive flexibility of a writer to turn something into a story. Couples that aren't married and live in different houses? So... dating? This is a story about old people dating? Where a lot of them are divorced so they're maybe a little hesitant to move in together and get married? And there are a few long distance relationships as well? I know this is the kind of pessimism that attracts downvotes, but I can't hold my tongue. The WSJ not only paid someone to write this, but it actually made it into the print edition.

username90 7y ago
I've seen people "date" consistently with the same person for 30 years, doing joint family events like Christmas and Easter. I think calling them proper relationships is appropriate.
stephth 7y ago
You actually proved it’s a story: for some people it’s news that couples can live in different houses and have any other type of romantic relationship than dating.
wsc981 7y ago
In the past these kinds of relationships were called "Living Apart Together", or LAT-relationships [0]. --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_apart_together https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_apart_together
alexashka 7y ago
I found it endearing that older folks have someone to be with. It makes me happy - the same way a story about a rescued cat makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Perhaps it is not at all related to Hacker culture, but then again this is a free forum and if some cat rescue stories slip in every now and again, I don't mind :)
ntlk 7y ago
At a point in life where you include someone as the main beneficiary in your will / on your life insurance policy, you’re definitely not “dating”, even though you might live apart.

H8crilA 7y ago

I think things get a bit harder once you have too much free time on your hands (like retired folks do) and live with a partner. I've been travelling for several months with my girlfriend now (after we quit our jobs), and it is not as easy as when the daily routine of work and other duties is in place. Not saying that it's not good, it is, but it sometimes creates weird tensions that I didn't think about before. Some serious travellers that I've met on the road had similar stories to tell, about themselves or their friends. The root of the problem, I think, is that when you have a job you only really spend 20-50% of your awake time with a partner. When you don't it gets to a 90-100% range, and it is harder. No single person can fill 100% of your time.

murph-almighty 7y ago
I had a similar experience recently with my family- that is my dad, mom, grandfather and siblings. Doing _everything_ together is a socially exhausting experience. The way I coped with it was to find some bits of spare time to go do my own thing. For me this was something mundane- I wanted to find a popular ruin bar in the area, but in the process I found a backpack I really liked and later purchased. This might be a more complicated situation given it's your girlfriend but taking a bit of time to solo it helped me a lot.
gumby 7y ago
This is well attested over the years with stay at home wives unhappy with the disruption of their routine when the husband retires (especially culturally prominent in the salaryman class of Japan). Hou can also buy a yacht cheaply in Fiji because of the number of people who think it would be great to Sal together and, after a few months, realize it would be better to stay together than to live on a boat. My wife and I married after traveling together and I think in retrospect that was smart/lucky....at least it worked for over 20 years.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  > My wife and I married after traveling together I think everyone should spend a week (min) or two traveling with their prospective partner before committing to a lifetime together. You learn so much about people when you remove them from their daily routine.

onetimemanytime 7y ago

>>Rather than marry or live together, many of them have separate homes and see each other several times a week, or three times a month; they often say they are highly committed to each other but want personal space and independence. In other words, they are not couples, just people that date sometimes. Next story please :)

freddie_mercury 7y ago
"she spent weeks [living] with him after he had surgery" That's what you do with someone that you date sometimes? My dating life was quite different than yours, I guess! Also, why so dismissive of how other people structure their lives? They don't describe it as "someone I date sometimes" so why do you?
- onetimemanytime 7y ago
  >>Also, why so dismissive of how other people structure their lives? They don't describe it as "someone I date sometimes" so why do you? do whatever you want, I just disagree with the label.

tw1010 7y ago

This is part of some cynical narrative on HN. Don't buy into it wholeheartedly. Plenty of couples stay together really long despite living in the same apartment. True love does exist, even though the internet loves to brainwash you into believing it doesn't.

Numberwang 7y ago
For most people true love is a myth. People settle because they ate afraid of being alone. Then they stay out of fear, but unhappy. Children does not bring much happiness either. This is true for most couple. Yes, true love exists for like 5% of couples. This does not mean we should all pretend this is the norm. There are better, more interesting lives to live rather than 40 years of bickering.
chris123 7y ago
All of this depends on your definition of true love. and if love is something you seek to give or seek to receive. If you think they give love, then just give it. Love has no conditions. And it's available and unlimited supply.
maaaats 7y ago
How is it cynical? If something, it's wholesome to see people make nontraditional things work for them.
unicornfinder 7y ago
To be fair I think it depends on the kind of person you are. I'm pretty happy with the person I'm with, but ultimately if I didn't have her I'd probably have someone else and that's fine too. Not to mention, in the nicest way I can put this, I don't really see how any relationship can last forever. I don't mean this as a criticism of my partner, I'm genuinely very happy with her, but I'm also well aware of just how much I change over time.
wffurr 7y ago
I don't know why you think this is a part of some conspiracy. Knowing about more types of relationships is extremely useful for designing software. It helps to avoid baking in assumptions about relationship status and the implications thereof.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

You know how people say you get less flexible as you get older? It's generally true, and not just because you have limitations on adaptability as you age. You also are wise enough to know some sacrifices just don't actually work, no matter how much you wish they did. Now multiply that by two. Two inflexible people, both unwilling to shoot themselves in the foot for so-called love, trying to find some means to meet in the middle. Besides, a lot of our relationship expectations are rooted in the idea that a baby will or could be the result. When that stops being true, it gets a lot harder to cave to convention and a lot easier to negotiate whatever terms you two can privately agree upon. Add in the fact that your parents may be dead. Who do you need to please or seek permission from? Possibly no one. Your coworkers or what not may have no idea you have some kind of unconventional relationship. You may be well past the age where your social circle is going to actively butt into your romantic life. If they do, you may just dump them as friends rather than accept that.

Bartweiss 7y ago
On the note of expecting children - I suspect there's also a broader idea that the current state of affairs isn't permanent. A lot of the petty frustrations of living together are transient. They change when you change towns, change jobs, have a baby, have that baby grow up into a kid, have your kid move out, and retire. But after all that, there's a long stretch where people's schedules and lives don't necessarily change very much beyond needing more support. That's not universal, people can make all kinds of big changes well past retirement, but it's common enough that people start asking "do I want to deal with this for the rest of my life?" And that doesn't just mean younger people are putting up with bad relationships out of hope for the future. They could potentially be very compatible, making sound decisions like "your sleep schedule clashes with mine, but I'll deal with it for now and it'll be a positive down the line when we have to take care of kids at all hours of the day". It's just that the standard for a 'good' concession to make is different when you're weighing future circumstances against the present than it is when you're going to keep doing the same thing indefinitely.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

coldtea 7y ago

>Many couples who begin relationships later in life are keeping separate homes because they cherish private space and financial independence Where by "many" the author means "some in my affluent circles of the 10 percenters and up".

closeparen 7y ago
We’re talking about older people; the cost of hanging onto a paid off house in a low property tax jurisdiction is minimal.
Bartweiss 7y ago
> * Mr. Demetre, a 63-year-old retired draftsman who spends several nights a week at her apartment because it’s bigger.* > A roofing contractor, he had repaired her roof a few times... He lives in the big house that he built on 60 acres in the country, with tractors and a satellite TV for watching sports. She lives in a brightly decorated home with no satellite TV in the college town of Columbia, Missouri. > Mr. Pastoret moved from his family home to an apartment 250 steps from hers. He comes over every evening for a supper of fruit and sandwiches. He washes the dishes. She dries and puts them away. They watch the news and “Wheel of Fortune,” holding hands, then go out to the front porch. Do those really seem like stories restricted to the upper crust? These people aren't broke, to be sure, and it's worth recognizing that pressure to live together to save money is part of how income affects divorce rates. But most of the people in this story are widowed or divorced with kids - they have property and maybe savings, but not enormous incomes. A house in Columbia, MO is $200k, and several of the other people have apartments.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  > Do those really seem like stories restricted to the upper crust? Yes, most people can barely afford to maintain a single modest home, let alone 2 or 3.
  - Bartweiss 7y ago
    And these people are each maintaining a single modest home or none at all. By my count, the story has four renters, three homeowners, and one unknown. One of the renters even sold his home to make this arrangement more viable. This is an age bracket with an 80% homeownership rate. (That's not the same as % owning homes, but most people mentioned were divorced or widowed, which shrinks the difference.) All of them appear to be either working or retired; no one here is a stay-at-home spouse whose partner bought them a second house for comfort. No couple here even has three houses, so I don't see where that enters in. If these people were single, or just starting a relationship, would we look at pairs of them as "owning two homes"? This is just a story about people who are staying 'dating' instead of remarrying and moving in together, which is viable for any demographic that isn't living with strangers to save money while single - and that includes most of the middle class.

huffmsa 7y ago

This is undoubtedly contributory to the housing shortage. People wastefully living by themselves in space which could house 2 or more individuals are selfishly hurting both the younger generation and the environment. I'd expect nothing less from the Boomers and Gen X. And I'm only somewhat joking.

ramijames 7y ago

I wish that me and my wife could live apart. We get along well on a personal level but are terrible fucking roommates.

newshorts 7y ago
my wife and I aren’t much better at fucking roommates either... Which is probably why we don’t have any right now.
asark 7y ago
I sleep better alone. Wish I could at least most nights without it becoming an issue. My dream house (kids aside—that makes an already infeasible dream even less realistic) would have my wife and me in separate bedrooms with our own separate bathroom and kitchen and a living space, then one or two shared rooms in between us.
- teshier-A 7y ago
  Separate bedrooms are common enough, bathrooms I can somewhat understand, but kitchens ? Why does your dream have this ?
  - baldeagle 7y ago
    Not the OP, but sometimes I wish that I had a separate kitchen so I could prep like I did back when we lived apart and had date nights. Candles, clean kitchen, and hot food that she hasn't been smelling for the last hour...
  - asark 7y ago
    Very different ideas of what and how to cook, where and how to store foods (especially, what goes in the fridge and what doesn't), and so on. Instead of one kitchen with both our stuff in it and little shared, we could have much more orderly separate ones with only a little duplication. It'd be fine if only one of us ever cooked, and if either of us didn't find the other's methods and tools frustrating to use at best, but that's not the case, so here we are. Examples: my ideal kitchen would contain a rice cooker and zero crock pots. Hers would have zero rice cookers and at least two crock pots. Mine would have at most two non-stick pans of any kind—really, I could live with just one—but several cast iron pieces, and some steel. Hers would have exclusively non-stick. I'd be entirely content with a single short built-in oven to save space. She'd want a full-size double oven. That sort of thing. [EDIT] also, whether it's OK to leave any small appliances on the counter full-time or they must all go in cabinets when not in use. We finally, after years, compromised on the stand mixer and we're up to a 4-slice toaster now so it's just too damn big to store, but the rest...

glangdale 7y ago

It seems regrettable that after having endless subsidies and encouragements to buy a family home, that people are insisting on keeping them long after there's any point in having a large house. Given the housing shortage in so many markets, this seems like another nifty way for the Boomers to pull the ladder up after them.

lm28469 7y ago
I don't have a strong opinion on the subject but I recently read an article [0] that tells another story. You might find it interesting. [0] https://www.businessinsider.de/millennials-vs-baby-boomers-big-houses-real-estate-market-problems-2019-3?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.de/millennials-vs-baby-boomers-b...
- javagram 7y ago
  The article also says “Millennials buying their first home today are likely to pay 39% more than baby boomers who bought their first home in the 1980s”. Real estate inflation has been dramatic over the last several decades. If there were really a glut of old people attempting to offload their paid-off homes on the market, the prices might drop to more historically normal levels... I’m not sure how the statistics actually work out but if single or married people are staying in oversized homes for longer without kids, it does seem like that could affect the supply of homes for families with children. I know the UK had a controversy over a “bedroom tax” that tried to address this issue.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    There’s a glut of homes for sale, in places with either no economic prospects or low desirability to live. More and more higher income people competing with each other in less and less land area = higher sale prices.
    - brewdad 7y ago
      This. My Dad's home in a lagging industrial town in the Upper Midwest is probably only worth about 1.5x what he paid for it 40 years ago. He has well over an acre and the house is in great shape. No one wants to move there though, so housing prices are depressed. He'd like to move, but would have to take on a mortgage in his 70s, so he'll stay put and my sibling and I will sell it for whatever we can get when he passes.

nugga 7y ago

I saw some articles somewhere that some people, despite living together in a relationship, sleep in different beds or even rooms.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
I honestly can't imagine sleeping in the same bed as someone, personally. For a bunch of various reasons... 1) I need to be very cold to sleep and don't want to be disrupted by someone else's warmth 2) I'd be woken up when the other person shifts around, and vice versa 3) What if my partner snores, has sleep apnea, mutters in their sleep? 4) What if we just have different circadian rhythms? I like to be up at 6am, which means bedding at 10pm. But my partner(s) have historically been night owls.
- throwaway8879 7y ago
  Agreed. I've been keeping a 3:30am-9:30pm schedule for a couple years now and I don't see it working if I had to share a bed, or even a house with a partner. I suppose people have to make certain adjustments if the relationship is worth to them, and most people end up doing so.
landcoctos 7y ago
More common than you think.
amyjess 7y ago
My parents were like that when I was little. Then again, they split when I was 6...