UK Edition
We're together, but we live apart - and it keeps our relationship fresh
My partner, Asanga Judge, 76, a retired GP, lives in a heavenly piece of North Wales, near Snowdonia and the sea. I am a 66-year-old journalist, living in London, in the gritty inner city.
We have been in a committed relationship for seven years, yet there’s a five-hour drive between us.
We are partners, but Living Apart Together. LAT was a term I first noticed when writer Angela Neustatter wrote about how she and her husband divided their house in order to live separately, but are staying in the relationship. Now it seems we are part of a growing social trend.
New research from Simon Duncan, a professor in social policy at the University of Bradford, shows that a quarter of couples now Live Apart Together, and an increasing number are older couples.
“Living apart together supposedly gives people all the autonomy – doing what you want to do in your own space, maintaining pre-existing local arrangements and friendships – as well as the pleasures of intimacy and a partner,” says Prof Duncan.
Most LAT couples, according to the study, live near each other - which seems practical, but Asanga and I relish the difference in each other’s environments. It works because Asanga grew up in London and I was brought up in a village in Yorkshire. So I can do mud and he can do asphalt.
He puts peanuts in his bird feeder, especially so that I can observe the visiting greater spotted woodpecker, nuthatches and coal tits when I’m visiting. I organize social events - I’m a co-founder of Advantages of Age – a social enterprise that aims to challenge the media narrative around ageing. We host vintage cabaret nights or picnics or poetry readings and Asanga loves a bit of flamboyant London.
And I guess we both like our autonomy too. Asanga was married for 30 years so is happy to have a different sort of relationship; I was a single mother for a decade and have many close friendships that are incredibly important to me. I find it profoundly reassuring to be in my own home and yet know that we are together. We see each other every couple of weeks for three or four days, we spent two weeks this Xmas together in London and I tend to go to Wales for August.
I savour the stability of commitment while being able to get on with other projects like poetry and writing a book. Meanwhile, Asanga has re-discovered climbing.
He also paints. Last year, I sent him ten of my poems, and he responded by doing ten watercolours to illustrate them. It was touching to receive his artistic interpretations via email.
Professor Duncan mentions that LAT couples tend to stay in contact via messaging platforms and that is true for us. We stay connected via WhatsApp, which means we can send each other photos and written messages. Asanga might be making jam and send me a photo of blackberries that he picked, while I might send a photo of the blue tits that are eating seeds from the bird feeder he made for me.
There are many wonderful interweavings in our separate dwellings that remind us of each other. I planted some hyacinth bulbs in a pot for him at Christmas and he sends me photos of them growing. He bought me a magnificent handwoven rug – in deep oranges and mustard yellows – that I look at adoringly every day.
Are there downsides? Well, travelling can be a bit much, and we miss each other. And yes, if one of us gets seriously ill, I’m not sure what we’ll do. Earlier this year, Asanga had a hernia operation so I made sure that I was there. But he has a daughter who lives near him, and I have a son who lives near me. As for the future, we’ll just have to see what it brings.
Which brings me to the ‘pleasures of intimacy’ that Prof Duncan mentions. Asanga is the first man to buy a bath for me that we can both fit into comfortably. We find that we talk about important parts of our lives there and sometimes, we undress each other silently before we get in.
Because we live apart, we anticipate and prepare to see each other. That for me is a major part of the pleasure. Living Apart Together means that we carry on having a healthy relationship and constantly think of new ways of giving to each other. For me, being a LAT couple is truly the best of both worlds.