You have been dating this girl for a few months, years, or maybe just a few days and you are sure this might be the best woman that you have ever met in your entire life. The stress of being away from her even for a few days has gotten too much, or you just find yourself unable to imagine not having her at your house or in your life. So, you want to know if you should move in with your girlfriend or have her move in with you.
You should move in with your girlfriend only if you are both on the same level, having tested the waters with living at each other’s houses for at least a week or more. If you are both comfortable with the negatives as well as the positives of each other as individuals then you should definitely move in together. However, if either of you is unable to handle seeing each other for longer than a few hours, then you are not yet ready to live together.
Knowing when to move in with a girlfriend can be the difference between a long-lasting relationship that lasts a lifetime, or one that ends in a flash of anger and flying plates. There are recommended lengths that you should be waiting before talking about moving in together, things that need to be understood, and negotiations that need to be completed.
How long should you be dating before moving in together?
It can be difficult to answer this question, as your age will greatly determine how long you should be dating before moving in together. According to a Stanford University Study, younger couples ranging from the age of 18 to 23 can comfortably live together after only a few months of dating. This is because at this age you are more likely to have lived with roommates or family recently making you prepared to live with someone else.
However, if you have lived alone for a few years, usually as you start working, suddenly living with someone else can be a big challenge. Anything above the age of 23 you should date for several months, if not a few years before seriously considering moving in with your girlfriend. This is not because of not being ready or not even really being in love, it is about the habits that have formed from living alone.
Most couples experience friction because both partners are accustomed to having a complete space to call their own. The older you are, the longer you may have lived on your own, meaning you are much more likely to have built up habits that your girlfriend may not appreciate.
What kind of stress does moving in with your girlfriend cause?
When you do decide to move in with your girlfriend, whether you are 18 or 50, there will be significant stresses that you are both going to have to face. Understanding what each of these is will greatly increase the total amount of joy you will both have during the experience. Ironically, this stress is faced by every couple, and many of these situations may resolve thmselves long before people ever move in together.
Each of these is problem that relationships face and when moving in together they will all become stresses that you will need to face when living together. Resolving these in a manner that satisfies both of you will be important, as many people make the mistake of assuming they will be sorted out on their own. Learning how to control and overcome these stressors will ensure that you can functionally live with your girlfriend according to Psychology Today.
- Power Issues: If you have a stronger personality, or your girlfriend has a leading one, you may find that both of you are trying to take a powerful role in the relationship. However, if you want to live together in peace and safety, you both need to share power in the home and the relationship, or else you will both constantly be stressed.
- Autonomy: Living together as a couple does not mean that you are both becoming one person. The autonomy to be yourself, to not lose who you are and what you love is important in a relationship. Giving your girlfriend space and freedom to do this when living with you is vital to making the relationship last.
- Safe Spaces and Places: If you feel unsafe with your girlfriend once she is intoxicated, or when she is in a particular mood, then your home is no longer a safe space. Moving in together will not make this behavior stop and if it does not stop before you move in together, then it won’t magically stop when you do.
- You: Your messages, signals, and mood are the most dangerous thing when moving in with your girlfriend and are the start of what can cause a lot of damage in a relationship. Telling your girlfriend what to do, or her telling you what to do can start a downward trend. Instead, focus on using I messages and rethoric, explaining your view on a subject, or asking about your girlfriend’s views.
- Emotional Loss of control: This happens with a slow burn instead of a triumphant fight, losing control of your emotions as your girlfriend is stressed beyond measure, or you are overworked. Anger, and the loss of control with it, is the biggest cause of a relationship fizzling out as neither partner feels safe around the other.
- Staying Silent: As much as anger can cause issues, so too can staying silent about challenges, problems, or just slight discomforts. When you and your girlfriend move in together you need to start talking, sharing your issues, but as well explaining why you need some things to be done in certain ways.
What can you do to minimize these stresses?
No matter how much you may be prepared to move in with your girlfriend you may very well still have to face several challenges as you continue to grow. The only way to minimize the stress in both of you is to continually learn new skills, helping each other to overcome these new challenges. If neither of you has ever lived with a significant other, then you might both have to learn how to sit quietly and talk.
Other times you may find that you are both accustomed to only shopping for one, learning to reach out the other before making a shopping run is imperative. These are small skills that many take for granted, but if you have never learned to use them you may very well not have them at all. Couples living together for the first time will usually find themselves having to work a great deal on new skills.
As you increase your skills and become comfortable with each other you will soon learn that not only are you both growing closer to each other, but you have a lot less stress overall as well. This is why you will find that couples that work together have a large range of skills for living together, purely because they had to learn these skills while living with each other.
How big of a step is moving in together?
Moving in together is one of the biggest steps that you can take with your girlfriend, especially as this means that many are getting closer to the next step. Whether this is marriage or not depends on you and your relationship, but living together means that both partners in the relationship have started to make much longer and larger commitments to each other.
This is why you need to be sure that the person you are moving into a house with is someone you can comfortably live with for many years. Usually, people find themselves with their life partners the longer they are living with someone. This is because two people living with each other for a long time genuinely learn to strongly depend on the other.
Moving in with your girlfriend may come after weeks of testing and consideration, or it may be the whim that you both have after a week of comfortably being with each other. However, it will always be a big step for your relationship and will put a lot of stress on not just each other, but the relationship as a whole.
Conclusion
If you are both comfortable being in each other’s presence for hours on end, not saying a word for hours, or unable to stop sharing, then you should seriously consider moving in together. However, if you are not yet at this level it may be a problem and cause the relationship to end long before it would have, even ending some that may have ultimately lasted a lifetime.
Whatever you do, don’t show up with your bags at your girlfriend’s place without at least talking about it at length!