Contemporary Family Structure of “Living Apart Together”: Challenges and Prospects

Family arrangements have become increasingly complex in the past years, with normal norms changing and new types of families emerging. The new trend among couple involves “Living Apart Together”. This study therefore investigated the challenges and prospects of contemporary family structure of Living Apart Together. Three research objectives guided the study. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The population consisted of 400 academic and non-academic staff of FCT College of Education Zuba-Abuja with a sample size of 250 married teaching and non-teaching staff. A structured questionnaire titled “Contemporary Family Structure of Living Apart Together Questionnaire (CFSLATQ)” was used as the instrument for data collection. Test-retest method of reliability was used to obtain the internal consistency, showing an index 0.78. Data collected were statistically analysed, using the frequency and percentages. It was discovered that unemployment and marital crisis constitute the major reasons married couple live in different locations (35.6%), followed by workers transfer (34.3%). High cost of maintaining more than one home (39.4%) and problem of infidelity (30.9%) are the major challenges of Living Apart Together by married couple. Living Apart Together by married couple makes couples to be prudent in spending (37.3%) and it prevents women from being exploited by husbands (35.2%). The researchers recommended among others that couples “Living Apart Together” should have mutual trust, make every effort to keep their communication lines open and intact and be prudent in their financial spending. The conclusion is that family institution is dynamic and the idea of “Living Apart Together is a product of change from traditional family values. The recommendations are based on the need for mutual trust, family enhanced communication and family counseling.