How soon is too soon to move in?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I started dating someone a couple of months ago. We REALLY hit it off. Like, went from date 3 to spending every day together and are madly in love. We’ve both danced around the topic of future living situations, although we both realize it’s too soon to jump into that next step. The whole situation has got me thinking, though, how soon is too soon?

What are your experiences with moving in with a SO? Has anyone moved in quickly and had the whole thing blow up? Has anyone waited an “appropriate” time, just to have it blow up anyway? Has anyone moved in right away and lived happily ever after?

Do tell!

2

I was 19 and she was 18 when Lady Chance and I started dating. Within a month we’d begun sharing a dorm room in college (against the rules. I got gigged for it once. I’m sure it’s in my record somewhere.).

Been 23 years now and it seems to have worked out. We roomed together, illicitly on campus and then off campus and then got our own place out of school right away.

Not that I recommend it for everyone. All folks are gonna have their own comfort zones.

3

Been with Mr. Levins for 2 and a half years; we’ve lived together for 2 of those years and are planning marriage.

He asked me to move in with him 2 months after we started dating; I said no, it was too soon. I ended up saying yes 4 months later.

I should add that I had known him, prior to dating him, for a couple of years. (Actually I wanted him to be a casual fling; I had been single for almost a year at that point and didn’t want a serious relationship yet. But you never can plan these things, eh? :p)

So apparently I have a 6 month rule?

I don’t think there’s any hard and fast rules about it, actually; I don’t see any problem with waiting at least a few more months though. 2 months, even the world’s greatest 2 months, isn’t a lot of time. And if it is really that great, waiting a bit isn’t going to spoil anything.

Now would be a good time to analyze your living situation and his or hers…your lifestyles, your habits, what compromises would be involved (are you tidy? Are they? Do you have to empty the dishwasher the moment it’s done, or do you wait two days? Do they? That type of thing) and also how you would arrange financial stuff. For a lot of couples, it’s the mundane daily BS that creates the most problems in relationships, sadly enough.

There’s no right or wrong answer, but it’s always helpful to have given these things some serious consideration, because they will most definitely come up. And loving someone and living with them are two separate things, regardless of how much you love them.

I’m a bit of a slob, and Mr. Levins is an OCD neat freak; we agreed beforehand that I would raise my standards, and he would lower his. 99% of the time we meet in the middle.

It’s that type of stuff you have to consider, as boring and unromantic as it is.

Glad to hear you’ve found someone who makes you happy. I hope you’ve found a happily ever after. :slight_smile:

4

My SO moved in at just after 6 months as a trial situation. His lease had ended but I still had a couple of months on mine so if we drove each other nuts we’d find him a new lease elsewhere and I would renew mine where I was and that would be that. Luckily we were made for each other and we moved to a new place that wasn’t his or mine but is now ours and we are loving every minute of it and getting married in August of next year.

There was a doper (I can’t remember his name) who moved in with a woman at 2 months and she freaked out on him and tried to trick him into knocking her up and stuff. Be sure you really know the person you are going to live with if they are going to be more than just a roommate.

5

We dated for about 6 weeks before the move in, he was on the opposite side of town from me and initially he wasn’t interested in moving in but practically, it just happened and one day I just casually mentioned he might help with the rent ;). Shortly after that, he moved in “for real” and although we both had reservations about it, it worked out ok and we’ve been together for 5 1/2 years now and the relationship is better every year.

6

I’d never shacked up with anyone until 3 months after I first met Tom Scud in person. We were living 800 miles away from each other, but 2 months after we started dating, we loaded all his earthly belongings into a U-Haul and moved him cross-country and in with me on a week’s notice. That was a little over 2 years ago, and we got married 6 weeks ago. :cool:

Not that I recommend that kind of haste in all cases, of course…

7

Thanks for the replies. I always had the 6 month marker as a “reasonable” amount of time, for some reason, I don’t even know how I came to that number. It just seems so HARD to wait, when we both want to jump in, but want to be cautious at the same time!

8

Hum, maybe I’m the odd one out, but the closest I’ve ever come was living adjacent to a SO (and that only temporarily). I think of moving in as something that happens at maybe the two or three year mark. Maybe part of it is that I’ve always lived with roommates, so having someone move in has never been a possibility, and it’s not like I’m lonely at home. Also, I tend to be a bit pessimistic about relationships, such that I wouldn’t really want to move in with someone until I was reasonably sure that things would be stable for quite some time. I hate moving, too, so ‘quite some time’ is on the order of years.

9

Wow, 2 or 3 years is not even an option. That’s about the time I’d want to marry and I plan on living together for at least a year before I take that plunge. I guess I don’t see the point in waiting THAT long. If you’re not sure about just living with someone after 2 years, I’m not sure you ever will be and if that’s the case, well, I probably wouldn’t be with the person.

10

I’d feel more comfortable moving in with someone I’d casually dated for two months and know I get along well with as a friend and potential roommate than moving in with someone I’d been “madly in love with” for six.

Limerance does weird thing to judgement and to what one finds comfortable in a living situation, but it doesn’t last forever, and can exacerbate conflicts that saner people might be able to work out. If I was really, really giddy on someone, I’d actually force myself to be more cautious out of desire not to destroy our chances of forming a strong unit down the line.

11

I’m just going to play the devil’s advocate here. I’m one of the few people in the world, I guess, that’s not real gung-ho on the idea of cohabitation. When I was in my late teens and early 20’s. my father used to harp on his opinion that i should not move in with any guys without being married first. I thought, yeah whatever old man, what do you know? But later on I realized that he was actually onto something. I figured he was basing that opinion on his fundamental Christian values, but now I agree with him and it’s definitely not of that basis, me being an atheist and very liberal with regards to lifestyles and personal choices.

When people live together, it sets both of them, more especially the women in general, and the relationship up for failure. Living together conveys all of the responsibilities of being married, but none of the legal rights. As far as legal protection, both parties are hanging in the wind. I may be skeptical and jaded, but I’m not okay with not being secure. Also, studies show that divorce is more common among couples who cohabitated than those who did not. AFAIK, they have not identified the reason for that, but it very well could be that those that live together first take the marriage contract less seriously.

Now, I really do not care what other people do. I don’t look down on people that live together, but just putting that out there for your consideration. Please think hard about whether this is right for you, and her, and the relationship, and think very, very hard about the timing.

12

I moved in with Marcie after about six weeks; we lived together for a year and then married. Our 14th anniversary was last month but we are now separated as she has filed for a divorce.

There are no rules in this game except that living together is a lot of work.

I wish you the best of luck with your situation.

13

I moved in with my wife about a month after we officially started dating. But in our case, the circumstances were just right: I was getting tired of living with my parents, and she held the lease to her apartment and couldn’t stand her roommate. It just made sense.

14

You have to differentiate between spending all of your time at Residence X on the one hand versus giving up your lease and having Residence X be your only living option. You can start treating the place as your de facto residence much earlier on, but you must keep a separate apartment–even if you spend little to no time there–for at least one year.

15

Voice of reason: Let your “Love High” wear off befor you make any decisions like that.

16

Met online in October, in person in February, were living together in April, engaged by May and married in December. Sometimes, you just know.

17

Wait until the hormone rush of new love wears off.

18

What is it you think living together will change that makes the wait so hard?

19

Dated and lived separately through college and grad school (grad school was long-distance so it had to be separate), so that’s 6 years of dating, moved in immediately after I got out of grad school, and lived together for about 3 years before we finally caved in to family nagging and said oh what the hell, we’ll get married. And we’ve been married well over a decade by now. :smiley:

If it works for you, it works for you, but generally waiting at least a few months is a good idea. And have some kind of ‘exit strategy’ option available. I know a couple who moved in together in college after dating a year or so. They had an ugly breakup and had to live together until the end of that year’s lease, which was at least a few months remaining. (And she brought home at least one guy to sleep over during that time. Ouch.)

20

My (now) fiance moved in about 3 months after we started dating. He was working nights, I was working days, so we only saw each other for an hour or two every day, then for a full afternoon/evening maybe once or twice a week. We were barely seeing each other before moving in together, and even after moving in, we spent more time asleep next to each other than than awake actually spending time together.

It was a kind of odd, but very good way to “ease” into the whole living together thing. And now we’re getting married… it worked out well in our world!