2 much time together
3/13/2011 1:50:06 AM
My boyfriend and I started talking about moving in together about 4 months into the relationship and officially moved in together 3 months later (he wanted to give a fair amount of notice to his roommate and I hadn't moved in 5 years so I needed time plus I was traveling a lot for work). It'll be a year next month so here's some advice. - I am a horrible sharer when it comes to food. I had lived alone for 6 years and it's still tough for me sometimes but I am getting better. You have to be willing to share and compromise and realize when you're not. - what helped with the above statement is that I moved into his place. We both own places but since mine is smaller and downtown we thought it would be better to rent and move into his. - talk about finances before hand!!!! How much you make, what you pay in bills, if you have any credit card debt. It's important to figure how much you spend now versus how much you'll spend together. This really helped when we told our parents. They knew that we were serious because we took the initiative to discuss finances before making a solid decision. - telling the parents wasn't bad. I went and had dinner with my dad and approached it as "I'm not needing your approval but your opinion does matter to us and I want you to be okay with this." he was elated. Mark's parents were also happy and told us that as long as things are "fair" they think it's a good idea. - when you first move in, establish who does what around the house. Does he clean, you cook? Who takes out the trash? Who cleans the toilet seats? Very important. I'm a neat freak - Mark is much more laid back. I end up doing most of the house work because I pretty much prefer it. I also cook because I can have dinner ready by the time he gets home. Plus I enjoy it.
3/13/2011 7:24:12 AM
chris and i started kinda living together after a year maybe. we were still in the dorms & would take turns going back & forth between mine & his. neither of us had roommates. i moved into an apartment with another girl who didn't care if he stayed over. i think he was there most nights until he graduated (a semester before me). he got a job in my hometown & i went to work for my dad when i graduated. my parents & grandparents are old fashioned so he lived in an apartment until we got married 5 years later. he stayed over on the weekends though. we got married after dating for 7.5 years. i'd say the biggest challenge if you can call it that was who's going to do what around the house. since i bought the house & lived here by myself for 5 years i was used to doing everything. we're both kinda messy people, but him more so than i. so that's been a little bit of a sticking point, but we work through it.
3/13/2011 8:24:52 AM
I always said I would never live with an so before marriage. To me it seemed like if you are willing to live together then you should me willing to get married. However, circumstances change and I had to make a choice. I knew my family would not approve but I had to make sure I got my mothers blessing before proceeding. She is a smart lady and I take her opinons to heart. After calling her and saying peter got his dream job in locust, she knew what was coming next. She thought it was a good idea and is really happy for me. I didn't care as much about my dads decision, but knew he thought peter was the bees knees. When I told him it was kind of slid into the convo somewhere between talking about ncsu football and my bday. He didn't comment much about it, but didn't freak out either. And we were still invited to christmas so all was well. I still have my apartment is raleigh and wasn't trying very hard to sublease at first because I wanted an escape plan just in case. If we were engaged I probably wouldn't be so inclined to have an escape plan, but we aren't so I do. After living together for 6 months and still being very happy I would gladly give up my escape plan, but finding a subleaser is a bitch. As far as finances, peter gets paid more so he picks up more of the bills. I also have more debt that I want to pay off. He agreed to this beforehand, especially with me still paying rent at my old apt.Sometimes I get annoyed when he hogs the tv playing xbox with friends. I should probably talk with my friends more,s because I sometimes get lonely and need my girlfriends. I think that has more to do with moving to a new town though. I think you know best if you're ready for that steo, but its always good to get an honest outsiders viewpoint. Ask someone that has spent a lot of time with you and him and make sure they'll be straight up with you.
3/13/2011 11:28:58 AM
Not a big problem- depends on your emotional and financial maturity. My partner and I had lived as roommates for 6 months before falling into bed together. We had compatible values, and I knew as soon as I met him it was going to happen eventually, whether I did it with a clean break from my last bf or not. I fortunately held out long enough to finish up all break-up business with my ex, and then got with the roomie about 5 weeks later. We're still together 3 years later and in the same house. Stuff I can recommend to keep the peace:1) Determine a compatible "5 year plan". This doesn't need to be a marriage-house-kids arc, but it does need to include your future goals and plans. Will one of you go back to school? Will you be willing to move for someone's job? What kind of place with you live? 2) Finances- any investments or savings? How will bills be split? Rent? Joint accounts or separate? Will you tolerate roommates for financial help? 3) Cleanliness- Who is dirtier? Cleaner? What can you compromise on? Do you need a chore wheel? 4) Food- Does anyone have any strict dietary requirements, can you live with these adjustments, how will you handle your grocery/going out budget?5) Hobbies- I guess this goes back to compatibility. Are you going to give each other space to do hobbies, or are you going to be a banshee if the other isn't paying attention 24/7?
3/13/2011 11:49:58 PM
gah this thread couldn't have come at a much better time.
3/14/2011 8:36:01 AM
^ about to ask the gf to move in? Or already in early stages of move-in?
3/14/2011 8:39:16 AM
early stages...her roommate dipped out on her last month (to move in with her bf, but really she's been staying with him since christmas) and we were already staying together 24/7. It feels right, so we're hopefully signing a lease to a new place this week and moving in a couple weeks. I am glad it's a new place, because even though it's just been her and i at her place it doesn't really feel like hers, mine, or ours since she sublet from another friend for a year. So this will be a nice new start and let us make it feel the way we want it to.
3/14/2011 8:53:25 AM
This thread makes me on a few things and on a few as well I guess that makes me :|
3/14/2011 9:23:41 AM
here's some more stuff i thought of.- we will not have a joint checking account until we're married. but we go with the philosophy that my money is your money and vice versa. we've both been in a situation in the last year where we've helped the other out. we established early on how we would handle the situation and stuck with it. - this might just me, but we keep separate phone plans too. we recently discussed adding me to his plan since we both have AT&T and have u-verse, internet, etc with them already - you know the more you bundle, the more you save. - we toyed with the idea of getting on each other's insurance (both of our companies honor domestic partnership and we qualify) but my boyfriend gets his insurance paid 100% and i like the options my insurance has so we've decided to keep that separate until we decide we want to be on one insurance. - take an inventory of what you each have - furniture, kitchenware, random items. i ended up getting rid of quite a bit of stuff (living room furniture, an armoir, kitchen plates) which i offered to do because my stuff was older and it was less for me to move (which is fine by me). there's still some stuff of mine we need to hang up - that's been a much slower process. like i said earlier, i have issues sharing, mostly because i lived on my own for so long beforehand but it really helped that i moved into my bf's place because i entered his home and made it ours. i think i would have had a much harder time if he had moved into mine. but overall, the move was fluid. when i got all my stuff in, it felt like that's where i should have been the whole time. there was no real adjustment except that i found living out near the burbs means i'm a lot closer to shopping centers than when i lived downtown
3/14/2011 9:24:33 AM
3/14/2011 9:48:25 AM
3/14/2011 10:09:34 AM
3/14/2011 10:37:43 AM
3/14/2011 10:42:24 AM
I have lived with 3 women. The first two, the relationship got worse when we started living together and went downhill from there. The current one the relationship grew much stronger and I could never see being with anyone else. It all boils down to compatibility I think. At the end of the day, if you aren't compatible then it won't work. The whole "I need my own space" philosophy is just a way of saying "I don't care about you enough to be around you this much".
3/14/2011 10:42:42 AM
3/14/2011 11:01:29 AM
I do think it's important, though, to not fall into the mindset that you have to do everything together. That isn't directly tied to living together, but it certainly makes it harder to avoid. At first you're excited to spend all your time together, then you feel bad that you would be going somewhere and not inviting your SO and they might be sitting at home alone, then it just becomes what is expected. I mean I love spending time with my boyfriend and have never felt that I needed to "have my own space" or do something specifically without him to get away from him, but I do think you need to miss each other a little bit to keep you from taking things for granted, and it's hard to do that when you spend 100 percent of your free time doing things together. I do care for him enough to be around him all the time, but honestly I think it's better if that doesn't happen.
3/14/2011 11:28:21 AM
wife and i moved in together after 6 months of dating and we haven't really had any negative consequences. everyone's different though
3/14/2011 11:46:04 AM
3/14/2011 11:47:16 AM
Other than it taking my fiancée about 12 months to realize we do not have a disposal in our sink there have not been major issues. I had taken mine out some years back because people kept grinding up shot glasses and shit in it. She thought it was totally unorthodox not to have one, I hated the thing and don't plan on putting it back. The other thing I noticed about living together is its not worth fighting about stupid shit, if you have some blowout you cant get pissed off and go home.....you are already at home, and unless you have a friend living nearby who just loves it when you drop by unannounced you best be working that shit out with your SO. After living together for a while we argue virtually never. I think after a period of time you learn each others hot buttons, and that some things you do aggravate the ever living shit out of the other person, and that since neither of you are perfect its OK to accept some things the way they are.
3/14/2011 12:02:30 PM
We don't have a garbage disposal either. When I first moved out here it took some getting used to, but now I would never have one again. Pretty much for the same reason as you, it was constantly getting clogged up with stupid shit.
3/14/2011 12:04:35 PM
Another point of advice is you do not have to combine everything in your lives all at once.For instance she hated some most of my furniture, but I did not start getting rid of my crap furniture until I was sure we would be living together for a while. An ugly couch is better than no couch, and I have had too many friends end up with nothing to sleep on to fall in that trap. Same thing with the cell phone bill, car insurance, health insurance, utilities, and all the other things you have to sign up and pay for. Combine these things when it makes sense but don't rush them. I know people who are on the way out of relationships but waiting because of being on a lease together, they cant stop sharing a phone bill because of a contract...seems kind of silly for two unmarried people to have to go through that level of bureaucracy to part ways. Move in to one persons place or the other while still testing the water, that way its not like a full blown divorce if it does not work out. Also moving in can make you evaluate your relationship, with my ex her wanting to live together kind of made me realize there is no way I could stay/live with her...that relationship could have continued to go nowhere for a long period of time had I not had to consider that.
3/14/2011 12:23:27 PM
My SO moved in about 2 months ago after dating for a year. Her place was pretty shitty and her lease was approaching in 4 months. We had casually discussed moving in together prior, but after a conversation with her mom he asked how I felt about it. I generally go on gut feelings, and when she brought it up I didnt immediately say no so I thought that counted for something. Was a big decision as I have lived by myself for 7 years, and owned a house. My co-worker needed a temporary place so took over lease, and moved in within a week. It happened a lot faster that either expected so we didnt get a chance to hammer out details.We discussed finances ahead of time that she would pay me a certain amount in "rent" and split the bills. After moving in we decided it would be easiest if she would buy the groceries and i would pay all the bills (power, cable, and water). It has worked out more or less.We butted heads often when she first moved in as she had all these ideas to redecorate my place. I spent a lot of money remodeling my house before she moved in and had it just the way I wanted, so I told her to please be patient with redecorating and to give it time. She felt that it didnt feel like home since she couldnt personalize the place right away, after 2 weeks of moving in. That resulted in a long conversation about how i said to give it time, and everything doesnt have to be done right away. Im open to change, but just to do it over time. Another issue was that we both have a ton of stuff. However, since Im older and have my own house I had purchased new furniture, and hers was still from college so some of it wasnt the nicest stuff. Another argument occurred that I didnt want to keep any of her stuff, etc I tried to look at it from her perspective, but the way i see it was if i moved into her nicer place I would gladly put 95% of my ish in storage or get rid of it, but she doesnt see it that way. If/when we get a new place together, i would get rid of my ish and get new stuff together. It took time but we have incorporated each others stuff into 1 place.As far as chores, Im def the neater person and prefer to keep stuff put away. After all, I spent a lot of $$$ on the house and want to take care of it. She prefers to leave clothes everywhere and pick up on the weekends. She moved her bedroom into my guest room, so now she can leave her clothes everywhere in that room and we sleep in my master. So as long as its not in the master or living room it doesnt bother me as much.Her parents didnt care at all, and supported it. My parents are more traditional, so I told my mom and she was surprisingly supportive. I think the difference is we are older and not in college or fresh out, and had been dating for a year. Not their ideal situation but were generally supportive.Main thing as already mentioned on here, dont fight over the little things. We have gotten better about it as time has passed and are all moved in, so its mainly just learning about the little things that piss each other off and avoiding them. All in all has worked out for the better. Took a lot of stress off deciding which persons' place we were staying at that night and going back and forth. IMO its important to live together to see if it will work for marriage, but only recommend it if you could really see yourself with this person forever.
3/14/2011 1:11:47 PM
Great advice so far! Keep it coming. The merging of bills is of particular interest to me. When does it make sense to merge phone bills/insurance/gym memberships/etc? What other things get merged eventually?I'm moving into his place, which is in a gated community/country club. The paperwork just to move in is ridiculous! It's extremely safe, which is a plus ... But the process is tedious. And now I'm really dreading the rest of the paperwork. And I don't really know what all makes sense to merge initially.Another thing: he will be working in Massachusetts all summer, leaving me at home to take care of the house and his car. He asked me to drive his car a couple of times a week. How does that work from a car insurance standpoint? Should I be listed on his insurance for that car? What happens if I get in a fender bender?
3/14/2011 1:14:06 PM
When I moved in with my girlfriend all the bills were already in her name. We would sit down once a month and figure everything up and I would cut her a check. We also took turns buying groceries and other household stuff, although I probably contribute quite a bit more because I make a lot more money than she does.As contracts have come up for some of the utilities (mainly DirecTV and Internet), I have put them in my name. We split the mortgage 50/50. So just because her name is on the mortgage doesn't mean it's "Her house." It's most definitely "Our House", which I think also helps. It's not like I am just renting from her. I have done a lot of work on the house in the past 2 years, including buying all new appliances, fixing everything that was broken, and putting in a ton of work on the landscaping. It's a team effort, and I think that looking at things as "Ours" versus "Mine" really helps bring us closer together.
3/14/2011 1:20:38 PM
one thing i'm curious about is signing a lease with someone. would it make sense for me just to sign the lease and leave her off of it? She doesn't have bad credit, in fact she really doesn't have any credit because she doesn't have any bills or loans in her name since she's been subleasing for a year. Would it be better to have the lease in my name and have her pay me the difference in rent each month?
3/14/2011 1:22:13 PM
^ up to you. I signed a lease with my ex and when we split we both had to sign off on getting her name removed from it. But other than that, I don't see any real advantage/disadvantage to doing it either way.I would just put the lease in your name and have her cut you a check for her half each month
3/14/2011 1:24:22 PM
3/14/2011 1:33:25 PM
^ definitely just the Realtor. Some places may ask you to list the names of everyone that will be staying with you (along with the make/model/license plate of their vehicle), but shouldn't require that they be on the lease.[Edited on March 14, 2011 at 1:44 PM. Reason : a]
3/14/2011 1:43:09 PM
wow, i guess i'm lucky, i didn't do the whole background check and 1000 questions rigamarole.my girlfriend moved in with me, into a house i already owned, after we had been together about 16 months, coincidentally about 16 months ago. she's a grad student and therefore doesn't have a lot of time or money; i work full time.we have not had any problems that haven't been worked out very easily by a calm discussion. so i guess my only point in posting here is to say that if your personalities are compatible, it might just work without much effort.
3/14/2011 1:55:01 PM
3/14/2011 5:49:15 PM
3/14/2011 6:06:51 PM
bills_groceries_dog.xlsonline banking has made any argument over money simply illogical
3/14/2011 8:35:22 PM
3/14/2011 8:45:59 PM
as far as bills, we split the mortgage, insurance, tv/internet, utilities, etc evenly. we pay them all out of a joint checking account & put the same amount in each month. we buy most groceries & pay for meals out with that account too. we have a joint savings account also. we have our own checking & savings accounts though too. i buy what i want, he buys what he wants. when it comes to things like grass seed, flowers, mulch, or other little random household crap, i'll pick it up a lot of times bc i make more. some meals, food, supplies too.we don't have cell phone bills bc we're both still on our parents' accounts. when i changed insurance companies w/ the house & my car, we just added his car too. [Edited on March 14, 2011 at 8:55 PM. Reason : ]
3/14/2011 8:51:49 PM
3/14/2011 9:04:27 PM
I took a finance class in college and the professor said that doing the joint and also separate accounts (as people have mentioned) is best.
3/14/2011 10:15:08 PM
The gf and I will probably do the joint and separate checking accounts thing once we're married, but for the time being, it just seems to make sense to keep things separate. Not in terms of an "exit strategy" as getting married is a "when" rather than an "if" for us, but it just didn't make sense to take that step currently. We split rent roughly proportionally by income/ability to pay, I cover some bills, she covers others. When we moved in together since we were coming from separate renting situations we just decided kind of arbitrarily who would pay what, such that it would be roughly equal. The only thing we've really fought about is housework, and that's usually my fault because I'm the messy one and I just seem to keep slipping back into old slovenly habits. So whichever one of you is less of a neat freak needs to be considerate, which goes a long way. But that's really a minor thing in the long run, unless it's intruding on your life every day. Other than that it's been great not to have to spend nights apart and to always have the person I care most about right here to talk to. We're pretty good about giving each other space though and not being on each other's back all the time. The house is a 3-bedroom though, so we each have our own office/computer room which has been really nice. If it's going to be closer quarters you might want to have at least an informal understanding about what space you may claim as your own when needed.I thought it was going to be tough to tell my parents because they are very traditional--even though I was 28 I figured they might not take it well. However that couldn't have been farther from the truth--after about two sentences of lip service to "that's not the way we would have done it" they were nothing but supportive. So you may find yourself pleasantly surprised. The gf's parents tend to be more laid back, and she had lived with a previous long-term boyfriend before, so it was no big deal for them since they like me anyway.
3/15/2011 1:19:16 AM
3/15/2011 1:32:18 AM
My mom skipped out on the last of college at 20 with this 25 year old Marine she had known for like a month over the weekends, so my parents thought it was great
3/15/2011 10:04:23 AM
my brother started living with girlfriends at like 19, i think he lived with 4 of them before finally impregnating the last one and eventually marrying her. (he's 34 now)so moving in with 1 at 25 was a welcome relief to them . My dad of course gave the whole "it's a hell of a lot easier to move in with one than it is to move out" talk but I think he felt he had to since he was the dad.]
3/15/2011 10:23:14 AM
^^^ ahhhhhhh. my parents moved in together after knowing eachother for 4 days. no kidding, i couldn't make that shit up.....so they don't have much room to get mad at me and they didnt as a matter of fact they assumed it was happening before it actually did![Edited on March 15, 2011 at 10:42 AM. Reason : my grandparents and some other family members are quite different, but we dont have to tell them ]
3/15/2011 10:40:06 AM
^i bet the 4 day thing is an awesome story...
3/15/2011 11:45:24 AM
I'll let ya know after I find a girl I'm willing to date long term who is also willing to date me. So if you guys have any hot single friends looking feel free to send them my way But in all seriousness lots of good advice in this thread so far.
3/15/2011 11:51:59 AM
^^^ Cool about your folks! My former roommate's parents had a similar situation. They got married within two weeks of meeting because they fell madly in love and he was about to move somewhere further away. For whatever reason, they got married out of necessity then, but they're still happily married today.For some, when you know, you know.I'm in a somewhat similar situation ... very fast-moving relationship. Everything just felt right and made sense. But obviously I want to be smart about it and make sure I'm not forgetting something ... hence the thread.[Edited on March 15, 2011 at 12:05 PM. Reason : e]
3/15/2011 12:05:10 PM
i know it's always advice not to move in out of convenience or one person needing a place to live, but really for us it feels right. Her roommate moved out, I was already over there 7 nights a week and we both agreed that whenever it was time to move in we'd find our own place. Yeah, perhaps a few months faster than we'd originally planned, but that would have only delayed the inevitable. Honestly, it feels pretty natural to me. So if it feels that way for you, go for it. Especially considering how independent you seem to be, if you're already thinking this much about it you've made your mind up!
3/15/2011 1:08:00 PM
3/15/2011 1:11:21 PM
That must have been some first date, if you catch my drift
3/15/2011 1:13:04 PM
ahahaha i know only one think about that first date....and it's something that i feel weird telling people (not sexual or anything)but more or less my dad made a complete ass of himself (an actually my dad asked my mom out on a napkin and she accepted only because she though it was his friend asking)[Edited on March 15, 2011 at 1:24 PM. Reason : you know, im hijacking this-i will happily answer somewhere else ]
3/15/2011 1:24:14 PM
Was there first date on March 14th by any chance?
3/15/2011 1:29:29 PM