Excellent advice from everyone so far. The only thing I would add is: be prepared for there to be a period of adjustment when you first move in together and try not to let that freak you out. You might feel awkward or crowded for a little while, but don’t let this lead you into second-guessing your decision.
And enjoy your life together. Congrats.
LOL - the bed is a sore point. We got a two-bedroom apartment because we have two beds and it’ll be nice to have a guest room/computer room. However, his mattress absolutely sucks. It’s lumpy and way too soft - and every time I stay at his place, my back ends up hurting the next morning. My mattress, on the other hand, is one of those perfect mattresses:D - not too hard, not too soft, and you sleep like a baby on it. So we’re using my mattress and bed, but we’re keeping his in the guest room. So I’ll let him pick a side of the bed since I got to pick the bed.
CrazyCatLady, that’s a good point. I have lots and lots of books, so I’m hoping we can get a few nice bookshelves - otherwise, we’re going to have about thirty boxes of books laying around the apartment. He tends to keep things neat and organized (he alphabetizes his CDs, for pete’s sake - I’m lucky if I can find the cases), so I may let him have the living room and I’ll take the second bedroom for my stuff. My big mess right now comes from all of my wedding planning stuff - contracts and books and paperwork from vendors.
Thanks again for the advice. It will work because we love each other and we do plan on marriage, but we’re both accepting that it’s probably going to be rough for awhile. Of course, the best part is that we get to have sex more than once a month:D. I’m definitely looking forward to that!
Ava
It has been said, but I’m gonna echo the idea of chores being about doing what each person hates the least. Fair doesn’t have to mean equal. Chores don’t have to be exactly 50/50, I do the dishes tonight, you do 'em tomorrow. That way lies madness.
What it should be about is both parties should feel like they are doing what comes easiest and that the house is being kept to a standard both feel comfortable living in.
My husband hasn’t done laundry in 4 years, not one load, because it is my job, I don’t mind doing it and I get major points for it! In turn I’ve not emptied a garbage can in 4 years. I’m a mom-at-home now so I do the lions share of the other housework too, becuase I don’t want to waste a weekend on cleaning when we could be out having fun. When my husband was a dad-at-home for most of this year, he did all the housework (except the aformentioned laundry).
Remember that chores, like everything else, should be always up for renegotiation as circumstances change.
Mmmm. The other thing that I’d add is don’t expect him to read your mind. If you want him to give you flowers, ask for them. If you want him to notice you had a crappy day and you need hugs, tell him. If he neads to scrub the freaking toilet, tell him. There is a lot to be said for finding a mate who just mystically knows your innermost desires, but if you live in the real world with the rest of us, a heavy hint will work wonders at getting you what you need.
Oh and speaking of scrubbing the toilet. I have a little mantra that I repeat to my self while cleaning the toilet of all the accumliated yuck my husband our kid and I leave: “This all came from my body, or came from someone who came from my body, or came from someone who came in my body.” Helps me not be so disgusted.
Twiddle
Don’t do anything now that you don’t want to be doing for the next 60 years.
Decide before snarking at your SO if the energy required to complain is greater than the energy required to rectify the situation yourself and then act accordingly.
Decide what will work as far as combined finances. Keep some money individually. You both need guilt free spending cash.
Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Learn to discuss your differences… volume does not make your point any clearer.
Hubby and I had very different house keeping habits. Through time we’ve each merged towards the other and this works for us. Kids have lowered our standards through bombardment and sleep deprivation though.
Good luck. September weddings are the best 
So I’ve heard:). I hope ours is as loving as yours seems to be.
(By the way, I really wish you guys were closer - I’d love to have you do our cake!).
Ava
Having moved in with fizzy this past January (well, officially then), lemme see …
Your quirks, if they are not already incredibly apparent to your SO, will become so. This includes things that happen when you grocery shop (she drags me through the lunchmeat section because she knows I am as weak there as she is in the cookie aisle), things you do when you’re asleep (sleepytime cuddles are a nightly event), as well as the things that can be annoying: I am a slob. She is not so much.
Bathroom space. I have little inthe bathroom. She has more. I don’t need that much room, I don’t get that much room, and that’s fine. If I were more vain this would be an issue. We keep all our bathroom stuff in the bathroom.
Furniture shopping. If you can survive this with your SO, along with talk about babies (and baby names) and who gets the remote and when, you can last through nuclear holocaust. I’m convinced there’s a Couple Triathlon, and it involves some pillowtalk about babies, a week of remote fights at night and a trip through a big honkin’ furniture store. fizzy wanted something nice and decently expensive, I wanted something cheap and cheap that’d last us a few years until we could actually afford something nice, etc. In the end we didn’t move out as we’d been quasi-planning, so we dodged that bullet for now.
Try unconventional solutions to problems.
For example: My husband and I had many bad mornings, disagreements about who got to do what when, and no compromise seemed to work. As soon as we agreed to do one thing, he would forget what we agreed and do the same thing that ticked me off the day before. He was both cheerful and thoughtless when he got up. He would do things such as natter on about inane stuff and demand engaging conversation while blocking my way to the toilet. I don’t deal well with cheerful first thing, I don’t do well with anything when I badly need to pee. It seemed simple enough to me, I wanted a few minutes relative quiet and a clear path to the toilet.
We started getting up at different times. He sets two alarms for us and gets up 20 minutes before I do now. He gets his shower done before I wake up. By the time I am out of bed he is awake enough to remember to be considerate and let me wake up slowly. He gets the bathroom to himself when he gets up and doesn’t have to put up with me needing to pee halfway through his shower (that always ticked him off something fierce.)
It took us years to come up with this simple solution.
I cannot emphasize having your own friends and interests enough. Too many couples get caught up in the honeymoon phase and let their old interests and friendships slide. In this way, they become much duller people, not nearly so nice to live with. If nothing else, go to the library alone one night a week for an hour or so. The only cost for that is carfare.
No matter how you do your finances, each person should get an allowance. At first, it probably won’t be much, but having to ask for and justify money for sodas, snacks, etc. is really aggravating. I’d suggest working out a budget NOW. This includes housing, saving up for a house if you want to buy one, transportation, and saving up for your next vehicles, wardrobe and maintenance, etc. You also need to set financial goals. For instance, what sort of retirement plans are both of you making? What sort of furniture do you want to eventually buy? (Your first furniture will probably be American Eclectic Cast-Off, unless one or both of you are quite comfortable.) How many vehicles will the two of you need for your daily living? Will one or both of you want additional sport or hobby vehicles? (ATVs, boats, etc.)
Each person needs to establish a territory. NOTHING in that territory should be touched by the other person. NOTHING. Unless there’s a fire and the other person is gathering stuff up.
The cats will decide which human is theirs, and to what extent. There’s no telling what they’ll decide, and you’ll pretty much just have to live with it. For instance, I am owned by a spayed Siamese female…but every now and then, she decides that she wants to Make Kittens with my husband. So I try not to be too jealous when she snuggles up to him and flirts outrageously. Anyway, it’s kind of funny to watch. Ummmmm, also, the cats might feel threatened by the new living arrangements, so make sure that they have a VERY clean litter box. You might have to confine them to a single room.
Everyone here has given some great advice. I’m simply going to state which ones I feel are most important.
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Compromise and communication are key. As was siad earlier, if you don’t compromise on things and you don’t communicate honestly, you will breed resentment which will kill the relationship. If something upsets you, talk about it and don’t sulk. He doesn’t know it is a problem unless you tell him.
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Each person should keep a small discretionary fund. That will be your coffee money, and small gifts fund.
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Keep your own interests and lives. Curiously enough, my wife and I both work out, but we don’t do it together. We’ve tried, but it became obvious that it felt weird because we both use it as private time. Also since we do different things, it would cause one person to have to wait for the other, and one person to have a rushed feeling.
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Divide up the tasks that need to be done for the house accordingly. For us it is, my wife cleans for better than I do. It will take me four hours to do what generally takes her one hour, and she will do a better job than I will.
I do the dishes since I can’t stand to see a dirty dish. They gross me out.
Well, the following is what works for The Cody and I. I don’t know if it’d work with everyone else.
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Chore percentages based on amount of money brough in. Since The Cody works, and I stay home, I do most of the chores, aside from the following: Trash, since he passes th dumpster on the way to work every night; kitty litter, since the cats are his; putting away the dishes and send out rent, just cause. I clean, do bills, cook meals, keep track of money, etc. Keeps one person from saying, “I work all day, just to come home and clean the entire apt!”
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Leave time before sleep to talk about any problems, every night. Every night before we go to sleep, I ask, “So, do you want to talk about anything?” Keeps things from building up.
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Know what REALLY pisses off the other person, and try not to do it. Not little pet peeves, like leaving the toilet seat up. For me, closing my NS windows or programs on my computer ticks me off considerably. Dunno why. I also need the volume on the TV to be an odd number. I dunno.
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Share! I’m kinda controlling, so I have to remember that if I’m on the computer, he controls the TV. He can play whatever game or watch any show he wants.
The Cody also does all the icky jobs (if a cat poops on the floor, taking care of dead animals [sometimes baby rats just die]) and manly jobs (heavy lifting, bringing the grocies upstairs), but I do what I can to balance it out (I feed/water the pets and put the groceries away, for example). I guess this would be part of the chores category. Eh.
We don’t fight over money, cause we always ask each other before we get something. Well, Cody’s really easy going, so I pretty much buy him presents whenever I want something, hehe (I’m in charge of fianances, so I know what we can afford). I do all the grocery shopping. So, he makes the money, I worry about the money. I always make sure to get him work food/drink, so he doesn’t have to ask me for that stuff.
We rarely figh cause we don’t let things build up, and The Cody’s pretty easy going. We just kinda mushed together and figured out what worked for us. Y’all will have to do the same thing.
I didn’t really see this mentioned; when the inevitable arguments erupt, do not ever “take a position”. This is a tactic best reserved for detached debating, which you will never have, due to the emotional investment.
Taking a position, if you haven’t heard the term in this context, means something similar to playing devil’s advocate. Generally it refers to taking a stance that you care about only marginally, but feel it is logically/morally/obviously correct, and so don’t want to concede on the grounds that you have a point, even though you don’t really care that much.
The amount of grief this causes can be substantial, and it yields no benefits whatsoever.
This is not directly at you so much as it is to both of you.
Avabeth, thank you for starting this thread!!! My SO and I are also moving in together this spring, in preparation for a Sept. wedding, and the similarities in our positions are staggering. Well, she is moving out from Boston to Southern California, but still…
I am printing out this thread for consultation and pondering. There is much good advice here.
If there is something that is really, really, truly important to you in your living arrangements–don’t compromise on it. Be willing to battle it out, hash it out, negotiate some sort of deal that lets you have what you truly need–but don’t bend on something that, for you, is truly vital. Even if you tell yourself that, well, it probably doesn’t matter all that much, and even if you believe that the strength of your love will make it all right, don’t do it. The resentment that builds up from seemingly little compromises on things that really mean a lot to you is enormous and ultimately very, very damaging. I learned this from bitter experience.
Oh, yeah–and I second, third, and fourth the advice for you to have your own space within your shared place and to have your own interests and friends outside of the relationship. If he tells you that you’re being selfish for wanting your own room, if he tells you that he doesn’t understand and is hurt by your need to spend time alone, if he wants you to get rid of a huge whacking lot of your stuff so that he has more room for all his things–run in the other direction.
As most others have said, Open communication is the key thing. This will allow you two to honestly discuss the Big Three (sex, kids, money) and other biggies (existing family, career, location, pets, etc.). Walking on eggshells and tiptoeing around an issue will not do the other person any favors. Even if what you have to say you know will hurt the other person, better to say it now and work it out than to let it fester into something bigger later on.
Compromise. Usually the ideal outcome of any disagreement, but don’t compromise to the point where you’ll resent the other person because of it. You need to clearly state where your boundaries are with impotant issues. Unless it makes absolutely no difference to you, let the other person know just how far you are willing to go with a compromise. If you somehow don’t meet in the middle on an issue despite a willingness to compromise, obviously more talk/debate is needed. Don’t compromise just to end the argument. Little resentments can and will build into big ones.