Real break-ups? Not so funny

When couples who live together call it quits, it's not just the end of a relationship.

"Every part of your life is going to be affected by it: financially, socially, psychologically, emotionally," says Kate Wachs, a Chicago psychologist. "In the context of your world, it's a shake-up of your entire life."

The scenario depicted in the new movie The Break-Up is increasingly common, say relationship experts who work with cohabiting couples such as Gary and Brooke, played by Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston.

A growing number of couples now live together. Almost 4.9 million unmarried, opposite-sex couples lived under the same roof in 2005, according to U.S. Census data released last month.

Some see marriage ahead, relationship experts say. Others view cohabiting as temporary. Some move in together to save on housing costs. Others want to make a statement and don't intend to wed.

In the movie, Gary and Brooke have lived together for two years -- one of the common relationship stress points, relationship experts say. The couple have bought a condo together, without a living-together contract dividing assets. When their romance implodes, neither wants to move out.

Ann Rosen Spector, a clinical psychologist in Philadelphia, says cohabiting relationships often dissolve later than they should because the partners have a hard time letting go, knowing they have to start over and rebuild their lives.

"They have a huge sense of loss, not only of the relationship but the dream of what might have been," she says.

In the movie, "it becomes a turf war," Spector says.

Screenwriters Jay Lavender, 31, and Jeremy Garelick, 30, say the premise was Vaughn's idea.

The "anti-romantic comedy" illustrates a relationship unraveling as the couple becomes embroiled in arguments that sometimes lead to outlandish behavior.

Part of the couple's troubles stem from Brooke's desire to have Gary help out at home, a fairly typical situation, according to Charles Hill, a psychology professor at Whittier College in Whittier, Calif.

"If you're not living together, it's a lot easier to be equal," he says. "But if you're living together, you're faced with certain tasks and decisions -- the laundry, the dishes, scrubbing toilets and how to decide these things.

"Even when people have liberal attitudes, women do the lion's share of housework," he says. "Even with a career, she does less but he doesn't do more."

So, at the point when breaking up is inevitable, that joint property ownership, as the movie shows, is the tie most difficult to undo, says Sharyn Sooho, an attorney in Newton, Mass., who has practiced family law for 30 years.

"Living together is not the big issue," she says. "It's acquiring property together and maybe one party giving up a career to be a stay-at-home partner. If you're just moving into an apartment and signing a lease together -- while there are some serious consequences -- it's not as difficult to untangle.

"But if you're buying a condominium or a house or promising to support someone else, you may want to think about calling a lawyer."

Plenty of websites offer one-size-fits-all contracts and legal agreements for cohabiting couples, which Sooho says work fine in some situations.

But Los Angeles attorney Mark Barondess, who handles plenty of cohabiting break-ups, says such "boilerplate agreements" often don't work.

Live-in situations are so different from one another that a lawyer is often needed to get through the rough spots, he says.

Still, Barondess says, unmarried couples who split have fewer problems than divorcing couples do.

"The emotional investment of a marriage is far greater than the emotional investment of living together," he says. "When you say 'I do,' all the rules change."

To see more of USAToday.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.usatoday.com

© Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.