The Experience of Familiarness and Intimacy of People Living in Cohabitation

Abstract

The article presents selected results of qualitative research concerning intimate and familiar experience of cohabitating couples. It is an attempt to distinguish operating modes of cohabitation on the basis of gender roles and subjects’ intimate life specificity. The implementation of phenomenological-biographical approach in studying cohabitation allowed for focusing on individual experience and processes of undergoing this experience. The chosen research perspective enabled us to find the answer for questions about ways of experiencing dailiness by cohabitating men and women.

In the studies carried out in the area of marital-family tasks, two – quite clearly opposing – models of cohabitation relationships have been distinguished. The first is close to the formal marriage, in which the man is the sole breadwinner, while the woman does not work, but takes care of the offspring and home. The second is characterised by a tendency to achieve independence, and the value is to achieve personal happiness