How to Decide If Living Together Is The Next Step

If you have been together for a while and you have a healthy, solid relationship then it's reasonable to wonder, what happens next? Do you carry on as you are, do you consider marriage, or as a prelude to marriage to you consider moving in together. There are a number of things that need to be taken into consideration before you can decide if living together is the next step for you.

Probably the most important question that you need to determine is why do you want to move in together? Is it a case of you want to leave home, you want to save on bills, or because you genuinely want to live with your partner. In order for this move to work you need to make it because living together is the next natural step in your relationship. If you make it for any other reason than your commitment to each other it is not worth it, in those situations it just becomes a financial arrangement, it will have nothing to contribute to moving your relationship forward and could cause you more problems than it's worth.

Do you have similar views as to how your relationship is going to progress. Do you have a shared goal such as marriage, or do you both have separate reasons. If one of you wants to get married and the other one doesn't then you could be facing conflict down the line. Just because you are moving in together it does not mean that you will get married. It is important to have a shared vision of the future so that both of you are pulling in the right direction.

There is a negative side to living together. The vast bulk of evidence suggests that it you cohabit and marriage is your goal, then you are more likely to divorce. In a way that makes sense. By living together first you take away all the newness and excitement that you would have had if you got married first. By the time you get married you will know everything that there is to know about your partner, the only real change is that now it would be a lot more difficult to walk away from each other.

So long as living together is the next step for you then you do have the benefit of cutting down on bills. That should increase your disposable income, and if you are serious about your future together then you can start to save for a place of your own. And of course you have more time to spend with each other, if you have a place of your own then you don't waste time commuting between each others home

I strongly suggest that you rent first before you buy. If it turns out that there is no way that you can live with each other as it is a lot cheaper to leave a rented property.

Do you have similar ideas as to where you want to live, or do your ideal locations conflict. You are never going to move in together if you cannot agree on the location. It is probably better to rent a new place rather than move into one of your homes. If you move somewhere new, then it's give your lives a fresh start together.

Both of you are going to have your own wants and needs about your new place, not least of which is where do you live? You need to be happy that you can live with what your partner wants, just as they have to be happy with your wants. Which brings me nicely on to furnishing your new home. I'm assuming that you have both accumulated a lot of possessions, will they all fit into your new place or will you need to make sacrifices, and if sacrifices have to be made then who makes them. Potentially you might have to both get rid of a lot of stuff before moving in. Are you prepared to negotiate with your partner as to what gets brought into the new place?

Whose name goes down on the lease, whose name goes down on the utility bills, what happens to your property if you decide to split before the lease is up. You have to sort all the financial details out before you move in as it will save a lot of arguments on who pays which bill, and who is responsible for what.

With the finances sorted you need to divide up the chores. Like it or not there are things that have to get done around the home, and the quicker you both deal with them, the more free time you have.

One thing you need to take into consideration is do you argue a lot? If you do then you might want to think again about living together. Some of your arguments might get lively when you're not living together, but at least you have your own homes to escape to and cool of in. When you start living together you have nowhere to escape to, so unless you can learn to handle your disagreements more calmly then I strongly recommend not moving in, as your stress levels will rise and you will have a miserable existence.

In order to be certain that living together is the next step, you both have to be certain that it is the next natural step in your relationship. Don't move in with a short-term view such as we'll try it for 6 months and then decide if we get married or not. If you start living together then approach it as a long-term step rather than a trial or temporary move. If you treat it as something long-term then you won't have any time constraints on it and your relationship can develop at a natural, unforced pace.