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'When somebody feels like home, you want your home and the person to be one and the same.'
Here are a few big must-discuss topics before cohabitating:Your excitement over sleeping next to your partner every night might make you miss the ways they can hinder your sleep. Lewis says talk about what comes naturally to you and where you think there might be tension points — bedtimes, temperatures, screens in bed.
"Sleep, to me, is the most important thing that happens throughout our days," they say. So talking about wind-down routines and wake-up times can save you a fight in the future.When it comes to chores, talk about your expectations of each other and yourselves. A good practice, Lewis says, is"divvying up chores based on people's strengths and not their weaknesses. So I don't think everything has to be equal 50/50, or 33/33/33 if you're living with three different people."Talking about money can be can bring out a lot of feelings, but it's also crucial to sharing a home. The hard part isn't just sharing how much money each person makes."I think people should talk about the elephant in the room, which is their insecurities about money," says Lewis. "Knowing how you feel about this thing that runs all of our lives is really important." And if one person makes more money, it's okay for that person to pay for more things."There's nothing that is inherently unhealthy about that," she says. Just make sure it doesn't dictate the power dynamic in the relationship.As great as it is not to have to commute back and forth to one another's respective abodes, having such easy access to your partner poses its own challenges. Figure out a plan for getting away from each other every once in a while. Maybe spend time in different parts of your home or leave the house separately for a few hours."It's inevitable that your intimacy will change living together, and I don't think that is a good, bad or anything," says Lewis. Broadening what you consider intimacy and sex can help you both communicate with your partner and mitigate some of the emotions that can arise when desires change. Just make sure you're prepared for that change and you can still have honest conversations about it.awayAs helpful as it is to discuss your expectations beforehand, those conversations can't prevent all future conflicts. Moving in together can be an intense experience, which can act like a pressure cooker and accelerate some fights., a licensed marriage and family therapist and co-owner of BFF Therapy, says,"the goal for any of us is not to have a relationship that you don't fight ... the goal is really to be able to fight well and effectively and to feel like you're moving forward and there's progress." Dancing, says DeGeare, actually provides a useful analogy for learning to fight well. Each couple gets into fights that probably feel pretty familiar to the couple — these fights are the same moves over and over again, even if it's about different stuff. It's like you're dancing the same dance even if the song changes.fighting. DeGeare says to ask yourselves: When are we getting stuck? What are those repetitive patterns? Can we talk about them?fighting and you're in your feelings, take a breather, and try being vulnerable. DeGeare says to ask yourself: What am I feeling? What's happening for me? And instead of pointing out what the other person did wrong, say things like,"I'm feeling really lonely and scared. I'm feeling very disconnected from you. I miss you." That's the type of fighting that builds intimacy — when you and your partner can move out of that fighting spiral because you both understand why the other person is bothered.Because moving in together can stir up lots of challenging conversations, especially in the beginning, it's sometimes difficult to assess whether you've made the right decision early on. DeGeare says to wait six months, then ask yourself,"Do I still feel safe with this person? Can I still talk to them about anything?" If the answer is yes, then that's success. Even if you're annoyed that they leave floss on the bathroom sink. ;) The audio portion of this episode was produced by Clare Marie Schneider, with engineering support from Neil Tevault. We'd love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at LifeKit@npr.org.
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