The motivation for this article was stirred by the reader Vanessa Dayrell in the article “Loneliness in Pares.” Her commentary: “Carlos, nowadays I notice that upper-scale middle class people in the big cities undoubtedly prefer to live alone. They say it’s an older custom in the big cities, and that this is catching on in the smaller towns. What is the cause of this? Are we facing a new kind of family, the polyamorous family?”
Vanessa, you reminded me of a story I read in a national magazine several years ago about people who live alone. It said that in several northern European countries, 40% of Nordic people live alone. Latinos are more gregarious, preferring to live in groups. I don’t know if you’re married, or ever have been, but living together with someone in a marriage is the hardest relationship there is. It is not without reason there are so many separations and unhappy marriages. To the extent that our day and age has pushed aside the ties of old customs and religious prohibitions, people find themselves free to experiment new kinds of human relationships. I’m sure you’ve noticed how people are often happier during the dating period than after they marry. I’ve heard innumerous cases like these. The more we spend time with someone, the more interests and tasks we share with this person; the more their character flaws pop up, the more friction increases, increasing suffering and disappointments as well. Those who have yet to marry have no way of knowing just what lies before them. They have only to experiment to find out for themselves.
But among those who have experimented and suffered greatly from the experience, some become very cautious before sharing the same living space again with someone who they are emotionally and erotically involved with. The probationary period of dating can go on for many years or may even become chronic. As in, ‘I think we go well together as lovers and as boyfriend and girlfriend, but I have strong doubts as to whether we would be happy living together under the same roof.’
A few decades ago, people who had a sex life before marriage tried their hardest to be discrete, as this weighed negatively on the reputation of women at that time. The requirement of female virginity for marriage held strong for several previous decades. Today, sex life is free and easy for boyfriends and girlfriends, fiancés, ‘casual’ daters or for those who seek sexual relations outside the principle relationship. The prize that men and women traditionally sought in marriage, namely society’s permission for an intense and easy sex life, is now available to anyone, married or single. This incentive to marriage no longer exists. Married people can have their sex lives, if they wish, living in separate houses even, and nobody is stigmatized for this –in the big cities at least. Men are generally more afraid of marriage than women are. The issue of freedom to come and go as they please is much more intense in masculine nature than in most women. When a man lives alone and also has an intense erotic affective bond with a woman, he may have very little incentive to marriage, because it means that he will lose part of his freedom and be more closely watched, having to account for his activities more rigorously than if he continued living alone. If he already had a previous marriage in which he felt stifled, this gives him all the more reason to feel that way. Of course this option is preferred by more experienced men who are not terribly jealous, because of the freedom it affords, plus the difficulty to monitor and control will be reciprocal.
I believe that, for those who have children with their current mate, marriage generally will be a better option for the well-being of their children and their education. But we cannot make this the rule of thumb. There are traditional marriages where one spouse, often the man, works abroad and is away for long periods of time. In a way, this is a modified version of a couple living in separate houses, because if one of the two is travelling to other cities most of the time or on the road for professional reasons, the result is very similar to living in the same town but in separate houses.
I am aware that this topic is very bothersome for most women, even if they have been very unhappy in a previous marriage, because almost every woman wants to live in the same living space as the man she loves, even though they cautiously take their time in assessing him before reaching that point. Often women are more fusional than men, and there is nothing wrong with that. There are important differences between men and women and which should be reconciled as much as possible by two people who love each other erotically. Each couple has to discover the recipe that works for both, without either getting too intensely frustrated. Although, in practice this is not always that easy…
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