After graduation, 24-year-old Xie Yuhan married her college classmate Liu Zhenghong in Beijing. The couple was the envy of their friends, except for one "small detail" - they have been living apart for nearly two years.

The term LAT stands for "Living Apart Together" and describes young people who get married, but live at different addresses. It comes from Britain, where one-in-ten young couples are said to live this kind of lifestyle, but in recent times it has been becoming popular in China as well.

 "We tried to live together but we didn't have enough money to pay the deposit on a 55-square-meter apartment on the edge of Beijing," Xie said.

Wang Xiaoyu, a professor at Shanghai's Tongji University who studies modern Chinese culture, told the Global Times that the pressure brought on by high house prices has pushed young couples to break the traditions that dictate that they should live together.

Facing the facts

Figures from the Shanghai Bureau of Statistics show that the average price of a commercial residential apartment was around 20,995 yuan ($3,300) per square meter in 2011.

The average price of houses inside Beijing's North Fourth Ring Road was 34,905 yuan per square meter in 2010.

This year, including Beijing and Shanghai, housing prices in 24 second- and first-tier cities increased at least 2.6 percent in June. Sales of residential apartments decreased in the first half of 2012, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

 Liu and her husband have given up on their dream of buying a house, while Zhao Yi and her husband have been struggling toward the same goal.

"If we buy a 55-square-meter flat at a price of 1.37 million yuan, we have to pay 412,500 yuan for the first down payment. To reach that, we would have to eat nothing and pay no rent every month for four years just to get a second-hand flat way out in the suburban area of Shanghai," Zhao, a saleswoman working in a shopping mall who receives a monthly payment of 5,000 yuan, told the Global Times.

Zhao and her husband are migrant workers in Shanghai and planned to buy an apartment together.

They have been looking around and consulting different real estate companies for months.

"Finally we gave up because of the high prices. We don't want to borrow money from our parents or shoulder the pressure of paying home loans. So I decided to go back to my rented flat and he went back to his dormitory at his company," Zhao said.

"With that salary, we prefer to travel around during our holidays and spend more time together," Zhao added.

Changing traditions

Like Xie and Liu, Zhao and her husband meet once a week. "We work late during weekdays, so there's not much time left to see each other," Liu said.

Last year, Liu moved to the house his wife was renting. "But it didn't work very well because I had to travel by subway and it usually took an hour and half to get to my company. Not to mention how bad the Beijing traffic is."

Liu could not stand traveling in the crowded and stuffy subways or buses after working 10-hour shifts at the office. He felt much more relaxed after he moved back to his dormitory.

This situation does have its upsides.

"It feels like I'm dating and the anticipation of our times together is special. It makes us cherish each other more," Liu added.

Zhao and her husband also feel that "living apart keeps the relationship fresh."

Li Yinhe, a sociologist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), told the Global Times that urbanization has brought many young people from different places to cities like Shanghai and Beijing.

"Unlike their parents' generation, young people aren't living in their hometown and don't have their parents' houses to live in. Nor do they want to," said Li.

"Meeting once a week was quite rare and real blessing for us," 82-year-old Wang Xingjuan, founder of the Beijing-based Maple Women's Psychological Counseling Center, said as she reminisced.

When Wang was in her 20s she married her husband, who was working in the eastern area of Beijing.

"He had to spend three hours travelling across the city to see me. Our dates involved sitting together in a park all afternoon, unlike young couples now who go shopping and watch movies together," she said.

Wang said that the LAT phenomenon isn't actually new, as most young couples in the 1950s were waiting for State-owned factories to set aside housing for them. 

As it became more common to work in the private sector, young people started to shoulder the burden of buying an apartment. "It's the 21st century, they don't want to live with their parents. Now, 50 percent of young couples choose to live by themselves rather than live with their parents," Li said, adding that "these LAT couples represent a further step, one which has been influenced by Western culture such as independence and individualism."

Xie and Liu do not plan to have a child. "I have been worrying about a sudden pregnancy, which would throw our lives into chaos. If I got pregnant, then we would have to live together and have our own place to live in," Xie said.

 "The core pursuit of a family is no longer raising the next generation. There are many other things like career pursuits, entertainment and the couple's relationship," Lu Huajie, a professor with Peking University, told the Global Times.

A survey by Horizon China, a research company based in Beijing, polled 2,180 families in 2005.

The results showed that 1.5 percent of those families did not want children. Lu said the latest numbers are almost certainly higher than that.

Wang Xingjuan said that in the 1950s, the idea of a family that would not have kids was unthinkable. "The social conventions would not accept that and our parents would be the first to say no," she said.

However, young people with their own views may no longer fear their parents' authority.

Zhao said she was able to persuade her parents when she decided to leave her hometown in Jiangsu Province.

Insecurities

"We fight like other couples living together. Sometimes I worry when I call him and hear background noises, and I ask who he is with," Liu said.

Zhou Xiaopeng, a senior marriage consultant from baihe.com, one of the biggest dating websites in China, told the Global Times that she had encountered some divorces that had been caused by long-distance marriages.

"A husband and wife should care about each other and not let distance affect their marriage. Passionate love needs to gradually change into family love, leading to a stable family, which is still the goal of most marriages," Zhou said.

Despite it's growing presence, the LAT lifestyle might not be for everyone.

A Web-based survey by ifeng.com showed that just over half the respondents would never accept this way of life, saying it was "irresponsible" and lacked security.

However, 37.1 percent respondents said that they would like to try it because it would keep their marriage fresh.