Since her 2014 study, Sue Malta has also focused on older people and their sexual health, a chronically understudied topic
On the other hand, LAT arrangements can simply be a way to preserve a new-found freedom. Says Malta: For a lot of women, it’s the first time in their life they’ve never had to answer to anybody, the first time they’ve never had to consider someone else’s needs within their own house or care for somebody else. You can see the attraction of that.
Even though McCarthy and Marsh are now married, they still maintain their own apartments in different suburbs. She spends three or four nights a week at his place and the rest of the time by herself at her own, a choice that is more hers than his.
I like to come over here, McCarthy says, sweeping a hand over the faux-mink throw on the long sofa, get into my plushy robe, scrub my make-up off and watch movies, or read. Warren isn’t a reader or a movie watcher. My hairdresser is over here, my dentist, all of that world you build up over time. I’ve been here since 1988. Your home is your home.
Picking a partner at this age, it’s like, I don’t need money, I don’t need sperm, I can choose to be here … or not.’ It’s very liberating.
Every woman I mention the Living Apart Together thing to thinks it sounds like a brilliant idea. The best of both worlds, if you can afford it. Men can be more lukewarm. Warren Marsh, for one, would prefer to have Annie McCarthy living with him full-time. He likes the idea of their buying a bigger place together. His idea of being a couple isn’t quite the same as hers: he feels they should do almost all their socialising together, as he did with his previous wife; she wants to be more independent and still be able to see friends on her own when it suits. Leer más