Moving in together can be a glorious and stressful experience. The prospect of sharing space, bills, meals, conversation and a bed can be incredibly exciting.
Early in the pandemic, I ended up working with several couples who had just started dating before the pandemic, and decided moving in together to have someone to quarantine with sounded better than being alone. I mean, we had no idea how long we were going to be quarantining, so why not? I recognize how funny this sounds, but, why not? Couples have been thrown together into arranged marriages for millennium after first meeting each other. It is not like this is a new process.
I really enjoyed the experience of working with new couples just after moving in together, being around each other 24/7 while working or going to school remotely, or not having any work or school, just staying home all day together. In case you are curious, many succeeded. In fact, two got married the following year and started families together!
Moving in together is not a straightforward process. Patience and flexibility are required while figuring out how to mesh two complete lives together. I hope you enjoy this article as much as I did on moving in together.
What I Wish I’d Known Before Moving in Together
By Anna Goldfarb
When my boyfriend, Mike DiPasquale, asked me to move in with him after two years of dating, I was thrilled. Even though I wasn’t sure exactly what I was signing up for.
Just the prospect of no longer needing to keep two bottles of contact lens solution, two toothbrushes and two sticks of deodorant in two separate homes was enough to have me jumping for joy. Visions of plush rugs, soft lighting and cuddling in front of a fireplace filled my head.
Friends and family didn’t give me much practical advice before I moved into Mike’s condo, a third-floor studio inside a former South Philadelphia Catholic elementary school. His mother attended school here in the early 1960s; we boil pasta, play video games and take showers in what was once her seventh-grade classroom.
My mother gave us a $100 gift certificate to Crate and Barrel, but she didn’t tell me what to anticipate.
I Googled “Moving in with your boyfriend,” but the search results landed with a thud. The advice was dry and didn’t speak to my concerns: How do I know if I’m picking a compatible person to move in with? What if he’s annoyed by my hourlong phone calls with my sister, the sweatpants I wear around the house, or the insane amount of hair I shed on every available surface?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more Americans than ever are choosing to live together before marriage. And the Pew Research Center says more than half of all women aged 19 to 44 who marry for the first time have lived with their husbands before walking down the aisle. Unmarried millennials are more likely to live with their partners than any previous generation at this stage in their lives.
It’s clear why couples find cohabitation so appealing. Aside from the convenience it affords, the prospect of splitting rent and utility bills is too seductive to pass up. Add in a desire to shed roommates and a reluctance to renew a pricey lease, and you can see why plenty of couples choose cohabitation, even if they aren’t exactly sure what comes next.
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