After dating for six months and spending every weekend together, my girlfriend and I decided that we wanted to live together. I didn't KNOW that we would be happy together the rest of our lives but no one ever knows with any real certainty when they have found The One. We both thought that we would have a good chance of staying together and being happy so we decided to give it our best effort.
I rented a house for us to live in. I didn't want to move in to her apartment and she couldn't move in with me. I wanted it to be OUR place and not her place or my place. I rented a modest house which is well within our budget. We could have rented a more expensive house but I wanted it to be affordable for her to pay a share of the expenses and I wanted us to be able to save money while we are living in our first home.
I absolutely hate moving and the weekend of August 3-5 was absolutely awful . . . but for the fact that we were finally moving into our own home together. I rented a truck and paid two young friends to do the heavy lifting and we moved everything that I had in storage, and everything from her apartment, into our new home . . . all in one day. Some stuff is still in boxes but we are much closer to being settled in now.
If you have never previously lived with a member of the opposite sex, living together is much more complicated than you imagine it will be. Of course, you can imagine going to sleep with each other and waking up with each other. You can daydream about having meals together at home, watching your favorite TV shows together, and maybe taking a shower together, all in the privacy of your own home. How great all of that would be!
What you don’t think about is the fact that you come in, put your car keys down somewhere, and then she sees them. “He’s not going to remember that he left his keys there,” she thinks, “so I’ll just put them in my key safe.” You remember exactly where you left them, but they aren’t there, and you don't even realize that she has a key safe. Thirty minutes after you start looking, she realizes that you are looking for your keys and very innocently says, “Oh, I put them in the key safe so you’d be able to find them easily.’
What probably happens next is you vent some frustration, she starts crying because she was only trying to help and you raised your voice, and somewhere along the line she says something like, “You don’t love me anymore!”
Here’s another example of the learning curve. You go out to an early evening meeting and she promises she will have dinner prepared when you return at 9 pm. You come in at 9 pm and she is just now beginning dinner. You are hungry and you expected to eat within two minutes of arriving at home. “What in the hell has she been doing all this time?” you wonder. Your frustration is obvious and, again, she feels unappreciated. “I didn’t want to get dinner ready and then have you come home late,” she explains. “But I said I’d be home at 9 pm!” you reply, all to no avail.
Both of these are realistic scenarios for a couple which has recently started to cohabitate. The problem is unvoiced expectations or concerns and failures in communication. Does this mean that you may have made a mistake in deciding to live together? No. It means that you have some WORK to do.
1. There are differences that you will need to learn about each other . . . even if you are the most compatible couple in the world. I am not a morning person. I am a freight train. I start out very slowly and gradually pick up steam. Do NOT try to engage me in conversation within the first thirty minutes of my morning. My girlfriend has already learned that.
Being only half awake, it would have been easy to snap at her. Instead, I looked at her and said, "I'm an impostor! I'm a miserable person in the morning. Your wonderful boyfriend will return after I've finished my second cup of coffee." She laughed . . . but she got the message.
You need to be observant about your partner. Don’t try to operate the relationship on autopilot. Be watchful, make connections, verify your conclusions with your partner, and then remember them.
2. For some reason, she does not think the same way that I do. Despite my best efforts, I have been unable to read her mind and know what she is thinking. I have discovered that asking her what she is thinking is much more effective! She doesn't always answer me when I ask, but asking is STILL more effective than mind reading!
3. We started living together expecting to have conflicts. We knew that every day would not be sweet mornings, fun evenings, and passionate nights. We weren't shocked the first time we had a disagreement.
4. Before we started living together, we both pledged to not hold on to hurt feelings, to forgive easily, and to constantly make an effort to have our relationship work. If you aren't willing to do that, why do you want to live with him - or her?
5. Whenever you encounter conflict, remind yourself that your relationship is more important than proving that you were right. It is more important to say “I love you” than it is to hear her admit that you were right. I am not suggesting that you admit that your partner is right every time there is a conflict, but it should be acceptable to say, “This isn’t important enough for us to have a fight.” And if you actually realize that you were wrong, there is an awesome power in saying, “I was wrong.”
6. Remember that there is a learning curve. Remind your partner of this fact when you have a conflict. These problems will get better with experience and mutual effort. The daily bumps won't always occur on a daily basis. Really!
7. If your ego is more important than the relationship, perhaps you aren’t ready to be in a committed relationship. I hope that is not true, but if that is your situation, the best thing that you can do for yourself and for your partner is to admit it.
BOTTOM LINE: Going to sleep every night with my arms around her makes everything worth the effort to make it work. I hope I am giving you a wonderful update report next year. And if you decide to live together, I wish you good luck, but remember: luck is not what makes relationships work. No, it is WORK that makes relationships work!
Most Helpful Opinions