Moving in with your sweetie is considered an essential step in escalating the seriousness of a relationship. It’s important to recognize the signs that your partnership is ready for this new level of commitment. Moving in together too soon can jeopardize a blossoming relationship, adding pressures to a bond which hasn’t fully formed yet. Here are some signs that you both are ready to share not just your hearts, but the laundry and the groceries too!
1. You’re Great Friends
Taking a step like this will add a different kind of pressure to your relationship than you have been accustomed to. Respecting one another’s comfort levels, needs, personal space, and idiosyncrasies is a necessity for happy cohabitation. When you really know one another, truly enjoy each other’s company, your shared living quarters will not seem confining, but rather exciting as you celebrate this next step in your partnership. Building trust and commitment takes time, and if you genuinely like each other, the challenges you two will face will be easily met through the strength of your friendship and solid connection.
2. You Share Most Nights Together
If you find that you’re spending most nights sleeping over at your partner’s place, this is a crucial sign of how deeply you’ve immersed yourselves in each other’s lives. You’ve found a level of compatibility and comfortability with one another, which has you going through the motions as though you were already cohabitating. So, you may as well stop beating around the bush and make it official.
3. You Both Keep Things at the Other’s Place
This is another sign that you two have been testing the waters of cohabitation, whether or not you realize it. If you’re storing toothbrushes, changes of clothing, reading materials, your favorite DVD’s, etc. at one another’s homes, you are in essence already living together. You’ve developed a rhythm and comfort level with each other that says you’re sufficiently compatible to be sharing space together.
4. You’ve Compromised Through Heavy Arguments
A great test of a relationship’s strength is in how well or how therapeutically a couple argues and compromises. When there is no conflict, a partnership can seem all bright lights and roses, but real life is far from perfection, and even the most promising matches are bound to have plenty of disagreements. Sharing the same living space will only increase the potential for frustrations, differences of opinion, or trigger a negative response to any pet peeves provoked by your close proximity to your partner. If you two can weather all of the ups and downs with respectful and clear communication, you’ve got a great chance of making cohabitation work. If you can resolve your differences fairly and swiftly, with neither of you needing to “win,” then you have the right attitude for an amicable life together under the same roof.
5. You’ve Talked It Through
Presuming that things will just work out solely based on having interests similar to your partner’s isn’t enough. As two separate people with different personalities, habits and personal tastes, a thorough and honest discussion about your moving-in adjustments will save you a load of trouble later. Agreeing on where you want to live and how to decorate the space is just part of it. Things like personal space, alone time, even cleanliness habits will play a major role in whether or not you two will make it. Understanding each other’s needs in this arena, and talking through your expectations and concerns before your big move, will set the stage for truly harmonious living.
