Moving in together prior to marriage, a.k.a. cohabiting, is more and more common these days. If you live in a fairly expensive city, it can be particularly tempting to combine forces with your significant other. Better to live with your girlfriend or boyfriend than some random roommate, right? The problem is, that isn’t necessarily true. Though it may seem more fun at first, if things start to go sour, breaking up with someone you live with can be extra disastrous. That means that this is a fairly weighty decision. Living with your boyfriend or girlfriend is effectively like being married, minus the marriage license and the shared bank account. Keep that in mind, and you’re more apt to give this decision the consideration it deserves.
Questions To Ask Before Asking Your Partner To Move In
If you are thinking about asking your S.O. to move in, what questions should you be asking yourself? First and foremost, do you really love this person? If you’re not at the point in your relationship where you can say, “I love you,” you’re not ready to live together. That doesn’t mean that you need to wait a year before you call the moving company. It just means that you need to know that you have strong feelings for each other. Secondly, you need to consider your compatibility with them. Imagine that they’re a stranger. What criteria would you want in a roommate that wasn’t your significant other? If your S.O. wouldn’t live up to any of them, you may need to question the logic of living together. If you wouldn’t reside with a roommate who was sloppy and made erratic rent payments, just being able to sleep with your S.O. probably won’t smooth over those problems.
Thinking About Situations That May Come Up When Living Together
Yet another major point to consider is how you’d handle bad situations together as cohabiters. The economy is rough out there. If one of you loses your job, will the other person be able to shoulder the rent for two for a while? That can be a high pressure situation, but if you love someone you’ll make it work. If you feel that you would, you’re probably ready to live together. If you disagree about levels of cleanliness or the balance of chore handling, will that ruin your relationship? If you think you’d be able to compromise and work around it, you’re golden. If you think you’d blow a gasket, then you probably shouldn’t sign the lease just yet. If any of the pressures of living together would likely ruin the relationship that you two have going, hold off for the time being.
What Happens If You Break Up?
The final point to consider is a biggie. If you eventually break up, are you prepared to deal with how much harder living together will make it? If you care about your significant other so much that you’d rather risk a more complex future breakup than live alone without them, then you’re ready to go. However, if the thought of divvying up your books and furniture in the future makes you cringe, think twice. That means that you better know that you intend on marrying or staying with this person forever before you move in with them.
Living together can be a really wonderful thing, or it can turn out to be surprisingly bad. That’s why it is important to treat it with an appropriate level of gravitas. If you wouldn’t rush into marrying someone, you shouldn’t rush into signing a lease with them. Just because it isn’t the ultimate form of commitment, doesn’t mean it’s not a big form of it. Keep that in mind, and ponder the aforementioned points before you make your decision. Taking a moment to clearly think things through will pay off in the end.