Marital Quality of Living Apart Together Couples and Proximal Couples: Differences and Similarities

In the recent years, concept of marriage has changed drastically because of the revolution in society’s economic, political, social and cultural spheres. Relationships in which intimate partners do not share a household (living apart together) are on high rise which makes it imperative to study differences in marital quality of living apart together or proximal couples. Seven Dimensions of Exceptional Relationships tool was administered on 75 living apart together couples and proximal couples each, drawn through snowball sampling from Distt. U.S. Nagar of Uttarakhand. Both, husband and wife’s responses were recorded on structured tools to define their marital quality. Mixed methods of data collection were used in the present study namely mail questionnaire, face to face and telephonic interviews. Spouses’ revelation depicted that commitment, passion and team work were significantly higher among living apart together couples than proximal couples. However, intimacy, individuality, communication, growth and spirituality were seen to be statistically similar between living apart together couples and proximal couples. Hence, married couple can live apart or together under the same roof and maintain a healthy relationship. This depends upon the couple.