Are you thinking of moving in with your squeeze? Maybe ask yourselves these questions before deciding to share a shoebox together.
- Are you someone that enjoys their own space and time alone from your partner? Merging two lives into one is going to create a lot of chaos and also confusion.
- Discuss your expectations of one another. Is one person going to be responsible for the cooking if they’re home earlier than the other? Will the other person do the vacuuming and washing on the weekend to balance out the household chores? If one of you isn’t willing to share the load or deceive you and say they will, things need to change.
- Are you able to be brutally honest and discuss each other’s pros and cons?
- Have you travelled together previously? It doesn’t count if you’ve slept over at each others houses. I mean, have you done a big trip together to Europe or somewhere exotic for a week to even a few months? You begin to notice one another’s weird and wonderful habits. Did they grate on you and you slowly bottled them up til they exploded? Or was it a more harmonious way of dealing with each others differences?
- Who’s the one pushing to move in? Do you feel like it’s the natural progression of the relationship or a crescendo as you might call it? If it’s a one sided idea, maybe you should ask whether you’re ready for this. If you feel like it’s the time but there are barriers or excuses being put up, think back over your relationship. Has your partner been non-committal, using the relationship more as a crash pad till they find something better? If so, run now!
If you’re uncertain, you should trial living together. You could rent a place at Airbnb and make a holiday of it. Or you could rent an apartment together for a month as a test run. You’ll be able to test your compatibility without the complication of leases and legality.
