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They love each other, but they have decided not to live under the same roof. Does this new type of long-distance relationship promote lasting love? Or is it just a temporary arrangement that allows them to avoid commitment?
Is this the ultimate form of romanticism? Is it selfishness? Living as a couple, but each in their own home: this formula appeals to thousands of men and women who, they say, have chosen it as a new way of loving. They no longer want the traditional couple, they refuse the routine of everyday life, they prefer to wait until their children have grown up before living with someone again. Or, single again after a breakup or a bereavement, they want to preserve their brand new independence.
For sociologist Serge Chaumier, author of L’Amour fissionnel, le nouveau art d’aimer (Fayard), “this fission love [as opposed to “fusional”, editor’s note] is characterized by the possibility of a separate life: the couple allows themselves, even in a minor way, the right to no longer be a couple”. This lifestyle, consistent with the times, responds to individualist values and the social injunction “be free and be yourself”. “Today, no one wants to sacrifice their self, their personal development on the altar of the couple”, confirms Ghislaine Paris , sexologist, psychosomatician and author of Faire l’amour, pour
Excellent for activating desire
Living alternately with and without the other seems to guarantee individuality and self-affirmation. A means of self-fulfilment, so essential, notes psychoanalyst Sophie Cadalen: “A life as a couple goes all the better when each of the spouses has the possibility of having their own psychic space. Living in different places can precisely allow this to be better preserved.” For five years, Virginie and Thierry, 42 and 43 years old, have lived their love half an hour apart. Virginie, a painter, explains that she needs solitude, space to devote herself to her creativity. “We don’t have the same daily responsibilities, nor the same concerns,” she confides. When I’m at home, I lead a bohemian life. I don’t have children, unlike Thierry who has his in joint custody.”
How can these couples reconcile distance and love? How do they manage to think of themselves as both an autonomous individual without constraints, and a partner concerned with the well-being and desires of the other? According to Serge Chaumier, autonomy does not lead to fragmentation but, on the contrary, to the regeneration of bonds. “When we are together, Thierry and I, we are totally available for each other,” Virginie rejoices. “We see each other every other evening, at my place or his. We live from day to day, like students. If we haven’t seen each other the day before, he sometimes joins me during the day, between two appointments. When he opens the door, we often have only one desire: to make love.”
The surprise and the unexpected linked to this way of being together can constantly revive desire. The simple fact of wondering when and at whose house they will meet is enough to create an erotic dynamic. Intermittence also allows one to devote oneself fully to the other. The relationship is “depolluted” from domestic, material or family constraints. Distance softens the “return to earth”, after the passionate phase of the beginnings. It protects against daily irritations that end up wearing down many couples. ” The absence of the other, the lack encourages the imagination, a fundamental element for nourishing desire.” Each-at-home can also allow one to live without feeling too much torn between one’s role as a parent and one’s life as a lover. Distinguishing the marital project from the family project comes down to “coddling a love that only concerns oneself”, explains psychoanalyst Sophie Cadalen.
Delicate for joint projects
The risk is that one of the two will stop finding what they are looking for in this model. An ideal situation at the start can become, over time, difficult to live with: exhaustion in the face of managing schedules, homes, and outings together, frustration at not sharing the little joys of the day, disappointment in the face of the long-awaited meeting that does not live up to expectations. Thus, Mélanie, 38, after two years of choosing not to live together, recognizes a constant lack of the other, a heavy separation of accounts, a feeling of sometimes carrying one’s life alone and the absence of a common project. “Freedom is an illusion,” laments José, 50, who is suffering from this situation.