Finding the right balance: Solo-livers' considerations about the ideal living arrangement of future coupledom

Like in other countries, the number of people living in one-person households is growing in Denmark. From 1981 to 2006 solo-living increased from 16% to 23%. Studies on family life and intimate relations in (late) modernity suggest different explanations for this increase, including the historical detraditionalization of marriage and intimate relationships, increased diversity in family forms, individualization and the “pure relationship” as an ideal for late modern coupledom.

This paper is based on semi-structured interviews with 11 solo-livers aged 30-65 years. All interviewees have been living alone for at least two years, although some have a partner living apart (Living Apart Together or LAT). Drawing on the literature on family life and intimate relations, the paper analyses the interviewees’ understanding of their current situation as solo-living, their previous experiences with cohabitation and their considerations about the possibility of moving together with a partner (again). The interviews suggest a widespread ambiguity among solo-livers as they emphasize the positive qualities of living alone at the same time as they express a hope of meeting “the right one” to move together with and share their life with. This ambiguity reflects the more general condition of intimate relationships in late modernity.

The paper focuses particularly on the interviewees’ considerations in relation to the scenario of moving together with a partner later in life and how the process of moving together and the living arrangement should be in order to ensure the best possible conditions for building a lasting relationship and shared everyday life. These considerations add further details to the theoretical understanding of coupledom and modern intimacy. The interviewees particularly worry about how to maintain a degree of individual independence while at the same time sharing the daily life with their partner. In order to secure the “right balance”, they consider different “strategies” such as having “one’s own room” in the shared dwelling or living-apart-together as a permanent solution.