My fiance and I moved in together two years ago and let me tell you — it was an interesting experience. Cohabiting is an interesting time in a relationship, whether it's a significant other or even just a friend. There are things we can do to be prepared for merging households.
• Talk: Seems simple, but it's seriously overlooked. Make sure you're on the same page about your expectations. You'll need to know what each other are planning on bringing &mdash especially the big stuff such as furniture.
• Plan: Make a plan. Sit down together and figure out a layout for each room (communal areas for roommates, each room for significant others). If you figure out where things will be placed ahead of time, it will save a lot of arguing and headaches. It'll also help save your wallet because you might not run out to purchase something if you know you already have a full room.
• Expect the Unexpected: You may be surprised by the extensive troll collection your significant other had tucked away before you decided to move in together. That new built-in shelving in the living room seems like the perfect place to them. Know how to roll with the punches and handle the situation accordingly.
• Compromise: There will be the few things that you will not see eye-to-eye on and that's okay. My fiance and I had a few things we didn't agree on, but, he let me have my way on many things because he knew setting up the home meant a lot to me. However, I compromised on the placement of certain items because I knew he really loved them and I learned to live with them!
• Mix & Match: Maybe your roommate moved in with some really great curtains, but you have a set as well. Switch them out periodically to let each voice be heard in the communal spaces! This also works really well for throw pillows and blankets &mdash just throw them all on the couch and see what works and what doesn't.
What advice do you have for merging two households?
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It takes work, time, assertiveness, fairness, patience, mutual respect, and shared values and goals to make a home. Each adult needs private space, if only a drawer, preferably more. Otherwise a place feels institutional rather than like home. If an adult wants to keep an item, then it stays until she or he reconsiders. Don't destroy or discard another adult's things without her or his consent. I specify adults since I haven't lived with kids since I was one.
My boyfriend looooves his small collection of framed pictures. One is a collage of NBA players with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in the center. One is a print of a kitty in a basket, wearing glasses. Another is a poster-size picture of Frank Zappa on the toilet. I am already trying to figure out how to live with these things when we move in together... I'm guessing all they really need are some new frames so they don't look so dingy, and then I'll pass it all off as silly.
I would strongly recommend actually moving into a new place together - that way both people are forced to pack and go through their things and purge instead of whomever's moving in with the other feeling like they should be getting rid of most of their items.
ugg. worst experience ever. He insisted on saving his empty boxes, so we had to find room for them. Found room for the other stuff he needs, but he has basically dorm-room quality stuff, and sees no need to upgrade it.
My boyfriend loves saving empty boxes too... :(
Kristen -
I don't know what exactly causes it, but you nearly always have "&mdash" throughout your posts - probably signifying that you're typing some sort of symbol that doesn't translate into the format of a blog post.
Can you please do whatever it takes to make it stop?
Thanks.
Wow, I'm going through this right now. We have moved half our stuff in already and the rest goes in on Saturday. So far, no crazy arguments have erupted as we try to stay pretty mellow and flexible about stuff like where this or that goes.
One thing I have noticed is that my boyfriend really wants his big bean bag to go in the living room but I have been very firm about it not going in there. I compromised and told him it could go in the spare bedroom and we could bring it out to the living room whenever there was a lot of company. The fact that I didn't say he had to throw it out seems to really be the trick and he was okay with my suggestion about the bedroom. We've also been fairly lucky with having similar tastes... we picked the new couches out together and we agreed on the type of bed frame we wanted. He let me choose the color of the bed frame and the new dresser and he either likes what I picked or he just decided to go with it. He pretty much is letting me pick whatever (within reason, although I'm not a pink kind of girl), as long as we put the tv and speakers in a format he likes, which is totally fine with me as I have no idea what is "good" or not for a tv/speaker system. And the speakers are small, thank god.
So yeah, I agree that talking, compromising and planning...those are 3 major things my bf and I did and so far, so good.
~ bepsf, I used to notice the "&mdash" all the time too and it drove me crazy. I recently started using Chrome and it actually shows up as a real dash. But "&mdash" shows up in both IE6 and IE7. I can't remember how it looks in Firefox and I'm not sure what browser you are using.
Unfortunately I don't know enough to blame Microsoft or bad code. ;)
"&mdash" shows up in Firefox. But it always entices me to visit the website instead of continuing the post in my reader.
'&mdash' shows up with Microsoft also, and not just this blogger. I see it in several others, also.
My fiance and I moved in together last year, and so far it's been a fairly good transition. But for the first few weeks, I kept thinking of items as "my things" as opposed to "his things." He got a bit of a lecture when I found him using regular tap water in my awesome coffeemaker (the manual says cold, filtered water is best). Even though it's something we laugh about now, my best advice is to stop thinking in terms of "mine" and "yours" and think of "ours" instead.
Pack things by quality. When I moved in with my roommate, I did this to some extent, packing all of my newer, quality pots and pans together, grouping the older, cheaper ones in different boxes, and throwing out everything that was broken or worn beyond use. When we unpacked the kitchen, we started with the nice things, and set aside duplicates that we wouldn't need. (Two frying pans can be useful; two garlic presses are a waste of space.) When we had found a place for all the nice things, we assessed what we would need from the other items. Since we had space and didn't know exactly how long we'd be living together, we packed up the rest for storage.
We are going through this now. We are trying to each have a room that we design 100%, but I am having a hard time containing my ideas to only my room. Help!
I have never had to do this with major stuff since my SO and I moved in together straight from Uni and had to buy everything we needed at the time. She does still have some random things which I would love to lose but...
@jennipenni, Reading my story may help. We'd been desperate for years for the freedom to control our lives by having our own home. After earning our associates degrees in one year from our parents' houses, my husband and I rented a state university apartment.
We then had shocking arguments about arrangement and decor details that really were territory, dominance, autonomy, and power conflicts. We learned to take time out to cool off when a fight became unfair, i.e., insults, ultimatims, threats, and nonconsensual physical contact (my shamefully shoving and hitting him). Many times a disagreement evaporated with a snack and a walk or a nap.
We continued to help each other to grow, and learned to trust, to share, and to respect each other's dignity, autonomy and space at home. Learning to resolve conflict during the first years of living together strengthened us and our relationship. Since falling in love in senior high, we've been devoted to each other the entire 35 years.