Remarriage, Unmarried Cohabitation, Living Apart Together: Partner Relationships Following Bereavement or Divorce

Substantial proportions of people enter into new partner relationships after bereavement or divorce. Nowadays in Europe, unmarried cohabitation and living-apart-together relationships are frequently opted for at repartnering. Drawing on the Netherlands' Living Arrangements and Social Networks survey of men and women aged 55 to 89 years (N = 4,494), this article explicates the determinants that lead widowed or divorced people to enter into old and new types of partner relationships. Cox proportional hazard regression analyses revealed that age at most recent union dissolution, the number of partner dissolutions, working during and after the most recent union dissolution, and other demographic variables are important in weighing the pros and cons of different types of living arrangements. Key Words: cohabitation, coresidence, older adults, remarriage. For those still in first marriage, the increase in life expectancy results in a longer duration of the partner bond through aging together. A growing percentage of divorced adults (Wu & Penning, 1997) face the possibility of long periods of living alone. Some divorced and widowed people remarry, but unmarried cohabitation, and so-called living-apart-together relationships-where partners maintain separate households and finances and share living quarters on an intermittent or temporary basis-are becoming more common in Northern and Western Europe (Bumpass, Sweet, & Martin, 1990; Chevan, 1996; Davidson, 2002; de Jong Gierveld & Peelers, 2003; Karllson & Borell, 2002; Stevens, 2002; Waite, 1995; Wu & Balakrishnan, 1994). Elderly people's strategies to maintain an optimal level of social well-being are addressed in socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen, 1992). In this theory, the primacy of social goals is expected to be related to time constraints. When time is perceived to be limited, as is the case for many older adults, emotional goals assume primacy over the acquisition of knowledge. Empirical research has shown that older adults prefer familiar social relationships, and "older couples regulate emotion in a way that should help preserve what is a very important late-life relationship-marriage" (Carstensen, 1995, p. 155). The theory emphasizes preserving familiar close relationships (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999). Until now, however, the formation of new emotionally close relationships among older adults has not been widely examined within the theory (Lang, 2001). In this article, I investigate the incidence of repartnering and the determinants that lead adults to enter into a new partner relationship. In doing so, I differentiate between those who remarry, start a consensual union, or begin a living-apart-together relationship. BACKGROUND New Partner Relationships in Later Life: Goals, Opportunities, and Restrictions Living alone in later life after widowhood or divorce increases the risks of loneliness, but living with a partner might be helpful in increasing well-being (de Jong Gierveld, 1998; van Baarsen & Broese van Groenou, 2001). Men in particular appear to adapt less easily to the loss of their partners (Lee, Willets, & Seccombe, 1998), and benefit more than women from partner relationships (Antonucci, 1994; Bograd & Spilka, 1996; Cooney & Dunne, 2001). Finding a new partner may be an attractive option for older adults, especially men (Dykstra, 1990) who feel deprived of the taken-for-granted attentive activities that were carried out for them by their former wives (Mason, 1996). Others, particularly widows, might hesitate to give up the freedom and independence they enjoyed after coming to terms with bereavement (Lopata, 1996; Pyke, 1994). In opting for either living alone or sharing a household with a new partner, one has to weigh the pros and cons of both options. Sharing a household-that is to say, living as a couplemay provide people with personal care, reciprocal attention and support, companionship, and the division of household tasks. …