Family involvement
According to Yuan, another reason divorced couples find it hard to split their homes is that parents on both sides used a large proportion of their savings to help the newlyweds buy a home to show their support for the marriage.
"So, six people from two families emptied their pockets for this apartment, and each person's contribution was different," he said.
"The parents also believe that an apartment in Shanghai is a long-term investment for us to live a better life. If we split it, they'll suffer a hard blow for sure."
Beijing resident Shen Ye, 36, and his 32-year-old wife divorced last year, but they are still living together.
When they married, they chose to buy a 55-square-meter apartment in Haidian district rather than one in a remote area that would offer double the space for the same price.
That was because Haidian boasts probably the best education resources in the capital and they wanted to secure a place at a good school for their child, who is 20 months old.
"If we split the apartment, we could only afford one-bedroom apartments outside the Fifth Ring Road. We came to an agreement that our breakup would not affect our daughter's upbringing," said Shen, from Shijiangzhuang, capital of Hebei province, who is still hiding his martial breakdown from his parents.
He said post-divorce life is not much different from before, except that he and his former wife sleep in separate bedrooms and have separate finances, although they share bills for their child.
Some judges said courts will not allow a couple to divorce if the parties cannot agree how to deal with their property.
"Housing is a guarantee for everybody's basic lifestyle. We usually don't grant a divorce that may leave one party homeless. From the legal perspective, the right to a place to live takes precedence over relationship problems," said Guo Haiyun, chief judge at the tribunal of juvenile and family lawsuits at Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People's Court.
"So, for those who want to end their marriages, sharing their home has become a new way to deal with their jointly owned property when housing prices are sky-high," he said.
Pros and cons
Some lawyers said that continuing to live together after divorce can trigger a raft of problems, including friction over shared living costs, and may lead to some people believing that they are still in a marriage, which may prevent them from opening a new chapter in their lives.
Cao Ziyan, head lawyer for the Jiali Law Firm in Beijing, which specializes in divorce cases, said that if former spouses live together it is hard for the parent who has custody of the child to win support in the courts for claims against the other party for childraising funds.
"The absent parent is required to pay the cost of the child's upbringing. But if the parents live together, it's hard to prove that the former spouse does not take care of the child or pay its living and education costs," she said.
Cao said people should consider carefully before they get married, but they must be decisive if they decide to split up.
Relationship counselor Zhou Xiaopeng said she believes former couples who choose to live together after they divorce usually still have an emotional attachment to each other. She said some people who visited her for advice had later remarried.
"After they divorced, they lowered their expectations for each other and were no longer in a strained relationship, which helped them to see each other in a more sensible light," said Zhou, who founded the Love Us Institute, a relationship counseling agency in Beijing, in 2017.
"Such former couples can usually afford to each rent an apartment, even though their new home may be small and far from the downtown. The true reason they choose to keep living together is that their relationship has not completely withered away," she said.
