Moving in together can be a beautiful life event
"When somebody feels like home, you want your home and the person to be one and the same."
If you've decided to step up your relationship, you're definitely not alone. Among adults ages 18 to 44, 59% have lived with an unmarried partner at some point in their lives.
Making a home together can be joyful, but cohabitating with your partner can also bring challenges and induce anxieties.
How do you know if it's the right decision? What sort of things should you and your partner be talking about? What should you expect? Do you really know what you're doing? Did you think this through enough?
Only you can know if moving in is the right decision, but here are some tips to give you a better chance of a successful cohabitating experience.
1. Ask yourself why you want to live together
Before signing a new lease or making sets of extra keys, clarify why you're doing this. Ask yourself, "Why do I think this is beneficial or necessary to my relationship?" says sex educator and pleasure mentor Kiana Lewis.
Many couples skip over this because they’re caught up in practical matters like saving money — which hey — is a most salient point.
Lewis says we are taught to believe that relationships move in a linear fashion: dating > defining the relationship > moving in together > and the end game of marriage. It's not as socially acceptable to backtrack or pause. "A lot of people assume that moving in together is necessary for a relationship to be successful."
The reality is that there are so many different directions and shapes relationships can take. Lewis says that folks who practice non-traditional ways of being in a relationship (e.g., nonmonogamy) often have to do the work of asking themselves, 'is this step actually good for my life?' But, Lewis says, "those who just so happen to follow a pretty normative timeline don't necessarily have to engage in that questioning."
Regardless of the type of relationship you're in, take time to examine the traditional trajectory and think through what you find beneficial and edifying about living with a partner.
2. Discuss logistics and routines
You and your partner probably have different living standards and routines, so it can be helpful to make a list of all the topics you want to cover and then figure out how to navigate them together.
Qs to answer before moving in together
To get started, take this survey created by Life Kit and Kiana Lewis, and share your results with your partner. Think of it as a guide to make sure you're truly ready to move in together.
The biggest must-discuss topics before cohabitating:
Sleep
Excitement about sleeping next to your partner every night might cause you to overlook all the ways they can also hinder your sleep, so it is important to talk about your natural sleep expectations and identify potential tension points – things like bedtimes, temperature, and device screens in bed. "Sleep, to me, is the most important thing that happens throughout our days," Lewis says. Discussing wind-down routines and wake-up times can save you from future fights.
Chores
Chores are a fact of life, so be sure to talk about expectations of each other and yourselves.
“Divvy up chores based on people’s strengths and not their weaknesses.
I don’t think everything has to be equal 50/50, or 33/33/33 if you’re living with three different people.”
Money
Money can be a highly emotional topic, but it's extremely crucial when sharing a home. The hard part isn't just sharing how much money each person makes. "I think people should talk about the elephant in the room, which is their insecurities about money," says Lewis. "Knowing how you feel about the thing driving all of our lives is really important." And if one person makes more money, it's okay for that person to pay for more things. "There's nothing inherently unhealthy about that," she says. Just don’t allow it to dictate the power dynamic in the relationship.
Alone time
While you may no longer have the back-and-forth commute to each other’s abodes, having continual access to your partner presents challenges. Figure out plans for honoring personal space every once in a while. This can include spending time in different parts of your home or regularly leaving the house for a few hours.
Sex and intimacy
"It's inevitable that your intimacy will change living together, and I don't think that is a good, bad or anything," says Lewis. Broadening what you consider intimacy and sex can help you both communicate with your partner and mitigate some of the emotions that can arise when desires change. Just make sure you're prepared for that change and you can still have honest conversations about it.
Pro Tip from Lewis: Have these conversations about sex fully clothed, and away from the bed.
MORAYA SEEGER DEGEARE, MA, LMFT
3. Learn the "dance" of your fights
Although discussing your expectations ahead of moving in together can be helpful and insightful, these conversations can't prevent all future issues. Cohabitating can be an intense experience, sometimes feeling like a pressure cooker and accelerating fights.
Moraya Seeger DeGeare, a licensed marriage and family therapist and co-owner of BFF Therapy says, "the goal for any of us is not to have a relationship that you don't fight ... the goal is really to be able to fight well and effectively and to feel like you're moving forward and there's progress."
DeGeare says dancing provides a useful analogy for learning to fight well since every couple gets into fights that start to feel familiar to the couple — fights that are the same moves over and over again, even if it's about different stuff — in other words, you keep dancing the same dance even when the song changes.
So to fight well you need to learn the steps of your "dance" when you're not fighting. Ask yourselves:
When are we getting stuck?
What are our repetitive patterns?
Can we talk about them?
When you are arguing and deep in your feelings, take a breath, and try being vulnerable. DeGeare says to ask yourself:
What am I feeling?
What's happening for me?
Now, instead of pointing out what the other person did wrong, say things like, "I'm feeling really lonely and scared. I'm feeling very disconnected from you. I miss you."
That style of fighting builds intimacy – when you and your partner can move out of the combative spiral — because now you both understand why the other person is bothered.
Give it time. Then measure your success.
Moving in together (especially in the beginning) can instigate so many challenging conversations, it can be hard to know for certain whether you've made the right decision early on.
DeGeare advises waiting six months and then asking yourself, "Do I still feel safe with this person? Can I still talk to them about anything?" If you can honestly answer yes, then you can consider that a success.
And yes — you can still be annoyed when they leave that toothpaste on the bathroom sink.
