In China's major cities, a new lifestyle - "semi-honeyed couples"- is being actively tried out by certain white couple husbands and wives.

"Semi-honeyed couples" mean married people living apart in the same city: two persons married to each other but not living together and only cohabiting during the weekends. On weekdays, they will occasionally date like lovers, have dinner, see a movie, but afterwards they will say warm goodbyes like friends and each goes his or her way.

Some couples choose this lifestyle because objectively they have no other choice. For example, one spouse may work at an office far away from their home. Others, however, do it because they want their relationship to maintain a degree of freshness and give each other sufficient freedom, hoping the "absence makes the heart grow fonder" effect to sustain "marital vitality".

Di Xiaolan, chief doctor and sex psychologist of Beijing Huilongguan Hospital, said that one phase of this "semi-honeyed" lifestyle, for a short time, may help couples who have been leading too dull a life and trying to use appropriate distance to restore that sweet and fresh spousal feelings. However, too long a period of "separation" may make some people gradually find single lifestyle comfortable and tend towards staying "alone". Furthermore, there is the possibility that too big a distance removes restraints on both parties and lead to extra-marital affairs. In Dr. Di's clinic, for quite a few couples, because of "carelessness" when they enjoyed the freedom of living apart from each other, the separation became for real and ended in divorce.
 
Editor: Yan