Fuck, yes. My biological clock suddenly turned on one random day when I was about 29 or 30. I’m 33 now, and there literally hasn’t been a day since then that I haven’t thought about how much I want to have a child right now. The cold biological reality is that no matter how society has changed and technology has helped some older and older women have a child, 35 is still “advanced maternal age”. And our bodies know that.
obgyns actually refer to pregnancies in women over 35 as “geriatric pregnancies.” Yeahhhhhh.
What are you really on the fence about? Living with her, or just her? If you continue dating her, she’s going to want to live with you eventually, and after 7 1/2 months, you’ve got a pretty good idea of if you want to be with her or not. And as msmith says, if it doesn’t work out, you move out. It’s more complicated than breaking up if you don’t live together, but it’s not the end of the world, either.
Like Kolga says, having your own room can be critical for introverts living with other people. My husband and I both have our own rooms in the house, and it’s our own private space. Talk to your girlfriend - she might be having the same fears as you.
I can tell you that the WRONG time to move in with someone is when you think that’s going to improve a relationship that hasn’t been that great for a while. I just do not understand how people think moving in together is going to fix anything. It never does.
I moved in with my SO by default, pretty much the day we met. We kept going to his place - nicer place, better location.
Granted, I still kept my apartment for about a year (really, really cheap rent in Berlin back in the day) so had my option door open, but I voted for “do it now”.
I don’t think you should move in together unless you are planning on getting married, You don’t have to be engaged already, but the eventual engagement should be a fait accompli.
(The thing I’ll never wrap my head around here in Portland is how many nonmarried couples not only move in together, but BUY HOUSES together when they’ve only been dating for a few months.)
No timeframe, it’s just when you both feel ready and excited by the prospect. I moved in with my SO after three months together, we’re still together 14 years later.
I don’t think it should be motivated by the fact that you both have roommates you dislike. It should be because you want to make a bigger commitment to each other. I don’t mean marriage necessarily, but moving in together is a bigger commitment than living apart.
Keep seperate bedrooms and make a rule that bedrooms are invite-only, so you can have your own space if/when you need it.
Good luck with whatever you decide!
You should at least be considering it. Chances are she thinks the move-in is an audition for the role of “wife”.
My (now) husband and I move in right about at 4 months. (It may have been a week sooner, or a week later, but right around there). We got engaged about 9 months later. Part of the reason why we moved in together at 4 months was because he was a chef and I was working in banking and we never saw each other. He’d work nights and weekends; I’d work weekdays. We both wanted that hour of face time each night before I went to bed and after he got done with work. Sometimes, we’d go weeks without seeing each other, and we didn’t want that.
I definately also think marriage should be on the table. Not necessarily next week, but it should be something you both want, since that’s the natural progression from living together.
Ack. The stories I could write. I’m really REALLY curious why people move in before seriously discussing/having a timeframe for “forever” or marriage. It’s bugging the hell out of me, since it seems like every single one of my rational friends in a relationship has taken or is on the brink of taking the plunge of moving in WITHOUT discussing a future together. And the results aren’t good. It wouldn’t be a problem if they kept separate finances, separate stuff, didn’t buy dogs or houses, etc, but that’s not the case. I think after this thread dies down I’ll post a new one, asking dopers why they or their friends did so, because I’m at a total loss.
Check to see if your state has the policy of “common law marriage”. If so, be wary that if you live together for the requisite time period, you are then “de-facto” married in the eyes of the state. As such, you have legal responsibilities if you were ever to split up.
If you have black heads on your back and she volunteers to dig them out for you, its time.
This is absolutely not true. A common law marriage would require that you “openly and notoriously” represent yourselves as husband and wife. I’m assuming you wouldn’t do this if you were just cohabitation.
hahaha wow gravitycrash, the SO made the same offer to me a few weeks ago. Just cemented what we already knew!
In some states, sleeping together, having a joint checking account, both names on the lease, holding hands in public, having a kid together, would constitute representing yourselves as married. Crazy but true.
We’ll need an actual expert for this one, I think. But my understanding is that all of the states have at this point removed the ability to form new common law marriages in that way. (Existing ones still count, of course.)
I’m not entirely sure you should go into living together assuming you’ll get married. Some people are serial monogamists, and as long as both people are on the same page, I don’t see anything wrong with that. Just keep enough of your stuff separate so the eventual break-up doesn’t have to involve lawyers.