While married couples traditionally move in together after saying “I do,” many modern husbands and wives choose to write their own relationship rules, and that sometimes means living in separate homes.
Gwyneth Paltrow and husband Brad Falchuk lived separately for the first year of their marriage, mainly because of their respective children from their first marriages.
Paltrow told the Sunday Times in 2019 that her intimacy teacher also advised her to keep the relationship fresh, explaining that Falchuck was at his house when his two kids were there and would stay at her home four days a week.
“Oh, all my married friends say that the way we live sounds ideal, and we shouldn’t change a thing,” she told the newspaper at the time.
The couple moved in together in the summer of 2019, and in 2020 she joked to Harper’s Bazaar that “our sex life is over.”
“One of my best friends was like, ‘That is my dream. Don’t ever move in.’ I think it certainly helps with preserving mystery and also preserving the idea that this person has their own life. So this is something I’m trying to remain aware of now as we merge together,” she added.
The “Shakespeare in Love” actress has always embraced the unconventional in her marriages, infamously having created the term conscious uncoupling to refer to her divorce from first husband Chris Martin in 2014.
“We have always conducted our relationship privately, and we hope that as we consciously uncouple and co-parent, we will be able to continue in the same manner,” they wrote in a message on the Goop website at the time.
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Along with the “apartner” term, as in partners who are apart, couples also sometimes refer to their relationship as “LAT,” or living apart together.
“Living apart can actually bring you closer when you’re intentional about it,” Damona Hoffman, author of “F the Fairy Tale: Rewrite the Dating Myths & Live Your Own Love Story,” tells Fox News Digital.
“LAT allows couples to maintain their own identities while nurturing the relationship,” she continues. “It’s ideal for those who value independence and personal growth. Plus, it allows you to be deliberate about when and how you come together and to build anticipation in the moments you’re apart.”
King Charles and Queen Camilla also have their own separate residences and often split up for the weekend then come back together at London’s Clarence House during the week.
“They are both independent people,” British broadcaster and photographer Helena Chard recently told Fox News Digital. “They don’t live in each other’s pockets, spending a healthy chunk of their time apart in their country homes.”
She added, “Camilla enjoys time with her many friends and family and Charles values private work and creative time.”
Royal biographer and Majesty magazine editor-in-chief Ingrid Seward said the royal couple actually “spend quite a lot of time apart,” with Camilla going to her country home, Ray Hill, in Wiltshire each weekend, according to The Sun.
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The home “is Camilla’s sort of release from royal life, if you like,” Seward said. “Before she married Charles, she made a pact with him that she would keep Ray Mill house as her bolthole. She goes every weekend when she can, and she goes during the summer so that she can spend some time with her grandchildren and her children, and it’s something that’s away from the whole royal world.”
Seward said that Camilla often doesn’t go with the king to his Gloucestershire estate, Highgrove, at all, “unless she and Charles are entertaining together.”
She said that Camilla escapes to Wiltshire because “she needed somewhere where she could actually relax and just be herself, and slope around in dirty jeans if she wanted to, and not be constantly monitored.”
Charles, likewise, will often go to Highgrove or Sandringham while she’s at Ray Mill, but they spend the week together in London at Clarence House.
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Hoffman notes that the “modern concept of living with a partner” has changed over recent decades.
“Among adults aged 18 to 44, 59% have lived with an unmarried partner,” she explains. “However, in the early 1960s, fewer than 3% of women who married for the first time had lived with their husbands beforehand. By the mid-1990s, this figure had risen to approximately 70%, indicating a significant shift in societal norms. Now many people are realizing that cohabitation isn’t necessarily the next logical step for them in a relationship, even in marriage, as it comes with pros but also some cons.”
She says that partners can actually “grow apart” with separate living relationships if you’re not checking in emotionally. “Without consistent effort, emotional distance can creep in. LAT only works when both partners are fully committed to nurturing the bond.”
Hoffman adds that “spontaneity” can also be “harder to come by” when living apart. “You lose the casual, everyday moments, the ones that build intimacy over time, when everything has to be scheduled.”
But she notes that long-distance relationships have become more frequent since the advent of online dating and because of the pandemic.
“LAT relationships allow love to thrive even when there’s physical distance,” she says.
“For individuals with children from previous relationships or demanding careers,” she adds, “this setup allows for love and connection without disrupting existing responsibilities.”
But she cautions that expectations must be “aligned from the start.”
“If one person sees LAT as a temporary period and the other sees it as the end goal, that misalignment can lead to frustration or heartbreak,” she says.
Hoffman notes that Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian, who married in 2022, “have maintained separate homes since their wedding. They live just a block apart, allowing their children from previous relationships to stay in familiar environments. Kardashian has expressed that they plan to move in together eventually but are taking their time to ensure their children are comfortable with the transition.”
In 2022, Kardashian opened up on the “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast about their living arrangement.
“We want our kids to also feel really comfortable, and they have both lived in their homes their whole lives and just they each have their rooms and we are a block away so it’s kind of a special time that we are like what a cool time,” “The Kardashians” star told host Amanda Hirsch.
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“Every night he comes over, and we have our routines within our house and when the kids are at their dad’s house, I stay at his house and there’s still nights when we stay at each others’ houses in between, but I get up at 6 in the morning and I carpool every morning and I go straight to his house and have matcha, he has it ready for me and then we have matcha, and like talk and hangout and then workout together, and then we start our day.”
She added, “We have like a thing, and he comes over every night no matter what … kisses me whether it’s midnight and he’s getting back from the studio or whatever.”
The couple finally decided to move in together last summer.
“It feels like we kind of figured out a plan for now. We’re going to move into his house, which is a block away and then redo my house at the same time so that we can all be together, living together under one roof with the baby,” she said on her reality show last year.
Hoffman notes that “many famous couples with busy careers and travel schedules have made LATs work. Generally, when they succeed, though, it’s not a long-term arrangement and the couple makes plans to eventually blend like Travis & Kourtney, Ashley Graham & her husband Justin Ervin, and Billy Baldwin & Chyna Phillips, who only recently moved back in together after years of living in different cities.”
“He’s been an awesome roommate these past few weeks,” Phillips said in a YouTube video earlier this year. “I don’t know, there’s been a shift. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s him, maybe it’s God — maybe it’s a little bit of everything.”
Still, Alessandra Conti, a celebrity matchmaker, tells Fox News Digital that’s she “not a fan of this trend for a number of reasons.”
“While there are absolutely situations in which a married couple may be required to live apart for a few months, the apartner trend is not a sustainable long-term solution for a healthy marriage and family,” she contends.
She adds that she’s “old-school in my belief system when it comes to relationships, not out of blind faith, but because through my 13 years working with thousands of singles and couples, I have studied the science of relationships, researched all of the potential outcomes, and kept to date with countless studies that all lead to the same conclusion: living with a spouse (with the disclaimer that they are a relatively healthy spouse aka they are not struggling with addiction or mental illness) is statistically linked to a longer lifespan, stronger happiness/mental health ratings, and literally yields children that are more productive members of society.”
She says the “family system” works, “and this is why it’s been in place for centuries.”
“In fact,” she adds, “I would push for an extended family unit, which includes grandparents, cousins, etc., because we’re seeing a stark rise in loneliness in the last five years, and it has become a psychological pandemic of sorts. In Japan, people can even rent a family; they essentially pay ‘actors’ to play their husband/wife/children for a day.”
She says she recently found out from a “beautiful and successful woman” in a professional women’s group about hiring a “body double,” a person who is paid just to be present “while they work/live/do life.”
“While I do not judge the woman in the group, it is devastating to me as a Matchmaker that we as a society are normalizing paying someone to be a companion,” she says. “This is one of the benefits of a relationship. Separating or normalizing not living with a spouse is [a] slippery slope.”
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Conti says “physical contact is essential for romantic relationships. Oxytocin is released by a mere 10-second hug,” which she explains is known as the “‘cuddle hormone’ and fosters positive feelings of bonding, trust and love.”
“Physically being with your partner also releases essential hormones for happiness: dopamine, serotonin, and it reduces the stress hormone cortisol.”
Conti, however, is a fan of apartnering before marriage.
“Not living together until marriage may seem like an antiquated idea, but it’s actually backed by countless studies and science; if you want your relationship to last, wait to live together until marriage.”