There is plenty of advice out there in the world on deciding if you should move in with your significant other, so I won't go through a whole checklist with you. While I think the most important thing is to make a purposeful and thoughtful decision about it, I am truly baffled by the articles that are like "lots of people move in together accidentally, you just leave your toothbrush and then you get a drawer and then you just realize you live there!" Okay first of all HOW? Who has room for another person to just gradually start living in their apartment? Who is just never going to their place and keeps paying rent on it without really thinking about it? Like 90% of my life decisions are based on being able to afford my life, and like half of affording my life is paying rent. Also who are these young adults living in big cities with no roommates to object to this arrangement? I am truly baffled. But okay. For us the hardest part of the process was the before- the decision to move in together and finding a place. Someday I will probably write about apartment hunting, but only if I can contain myself.
If you don't know them already, you will quickly learn your SO's quirks. I highly recommend knowing them beforehand. Miles and I had been together for five years before moving in, so there were not many surprises. He already knew that I snore, create tons of laundry with my daily costume changes, and am less than vigilant when it comes to washing dishes. I knew that he leaves a path of half empty glasses of water in his wake, yells at his computer, and forgets to hang up wet towels. Every day we decide to overlook these things or find them endearing, and I keep walking around the house gathering glasses, and he keeps actually washing the stacks in the sink. It works, and this familiarity has made it easy to settle into a rhythm. Some people say the annoying things get more annoying over time, but I'm not sure I agree. My irritation at his constant knee jiggling plateaued years ago. I've learned since moving in together that my reaction to his quirks has more to do with my mood at the time than anything else. If I'm cheerful, I'll barely notice, if I'm hungry/grumpy/tired I begin to wonder how he could have come to hate me so much he wants me to live in a home with used teabags in the sink. Luckily, he came to realize this ages before I did, and doesn't take it personally.
Moving in together is also a fun, flirty way to introduce Money Issues into your relationship. It's critical that this stuff be handled openly and in a way that makes everyone comfortable right from the get go. Money is my personal greatest source of anxiety (thus my obsession with personal finance) and American's most often cited reason for divorce and relationship strife. If you're thinking about a life-meld with your partner you need to get on the same page on this, stat. I won't pretend this has been a major issue for us, and I suspect it's because of our similar salaries and close enough ideas about how money should be spent and financial priorities. Another big factor here is that we live with a (lovely) roommate, which helps separate the relationship stuff from the money stuff. In our situation, we split the rent and the bills three even ways, and square up via Venmo at the end of the month. I also like the idea of a joint bank account each couple-member puts a designated amount into monthly and is used for household expenses, though I haven't tried it in practice.
In addition to money, the other big M I strongly believe should be broached when you decide to move in together is, natch, marriage. UGH, I know, I'm sorry (not sorry.) I'm not saying you need to be planning your wedding, but if one of you sees cohabitation as a step on the way to marriage and the other as an alternative to it, you ought to know that before legally entangling yourselves. If it's not on either of your horizons and you both just want to jump on in, or you have made or plan to make a lifelong commitment that isn't marriage, that's not my jam, but do your thing, as long as you're on the same page. Yeah I'm wishy washy on this, but I will take the stance that if you aren't comfortable discussing the future honestly, you should continue living separately to avoid compounding an emotional mess with a logistical one.
The best part of living together is that it's so much fun! No longer having to make plans to hang out, seeing your person all the time, impromptu dance parties, unlimited snuggles and you only have too cook dinner half as often? Yes please! There is however, a lot more available to fight about. If you're not paying attention, it's easy to start doing the thing where everything becomes about something else, like in the 30 Rock episode where they go to IKEA. Maybe you find yourself saying great stuff like "Are we going to hang up the curtains this weekend? Or should we just tell the windows they can sit and WAIT and let allll the heat out while the curtains take their SWEET TIME meanwhile time is marching on and the WINDOWS ARE NOT GETTING ANY YOUNGER." I've never had that argument, but I did struggle to hang some curtains and end up crying on the floor because "I can't even hang up one thing" and Miles had to gesture around the room and say "look at all the stuff you hung up, it's way more than one thing" and then he hung up the curtains while I ate dinner on the couch and looked pathetic.
The moral of the story is, I suppose, that living together can be great and wonderful and fun. Don't let the convenience factor throw you off, you'll need to put more effort into your relationship, not less.
In my opinion, it's the good kind, and is more than worth it.
