We’ve been engaged nearly 1 year.
We’ve been living together in a house, our first home together, for 1 month.
Help!
Previously I was living in a one bedroom flat which I bought around a year and a half/two years into our relationship. My fiancé used to stay over quite a lot but we didn’t actually live together.
We’ve been wanting to live together properly for years, but various reasons have meant financially that wasn’t an option.
Our search began in February this year and rather naively it didn’t hit me until literally the week before we moved in that this was it, we were actually going to be living as a proper couple. Still, I didn’t expect much to be different, after all we’ve been together years.
Wow, was I wrong.
It feels so so different. Where my fiancé does shifts we don’t see each other as much as other couples do anyway, but most mornings he gets up and says goodbye to me at the door which is such a lovely feeling. On those days he’s not working it’s lovely to have him here, particularly to come home to after work.
One slight issue, we are so different in character. Clearly this is something we’ve discovered way before now, but certain elements haven’t mattered as the flat before was my home and my property, now we’re in it together.
If I have things to do I like to crack on and just get them done. My fiancé likes to do things within his timeframe.
I like to keep things quite tidy and my fiancé often teases me I am ‘Monica’ from Friends. My fiancé isn’t messy as such, but is much more relaxed about tidying everything up.
I like to get help and guidance from our parents who have more life experience on things than us. My fiancé is keen we do things ourselves and stop involving others.
I could go on. Nothing here is horrendous, but as you can imagine we have bickered quite a bit in the last month.
I’ve also been learning a lot about myself (perhaps it’s being an only child), but I am quite selfish at times. I didn’t realise until we started looking at items for our home.
My fiancé describes my taste as ‘Essex’ and some pieces I’ve seen he feels are ‘chavvy’. I on the other hand think what I like is modern and looks good of course!
When we walk round I will see something I like and he’ll tend to not like it but look to compromise and see the good and bad in the item. He suggests something? My response mostly is ‘No’ and walking on. Awful, I know.
Until our wardrobes are fitted and complete my partner still has near enough all his items (clothes etc) at his parent’s house. His parents live really close to his base at work too so he’s still getting food for work from his Mum and picking up his clothes from home (as well as his washing). This also means we’re still not quite experiencing living together properly and it’s making things awkward around meal times and the like.
I really didn’t realise how even after so many years together we’d need to learn each other’s ways like this and need to adapt again and learn to compromise and take on each other’s ways.
Most people I know live with their partners already and have done for years, so I guess they’ve been through the same. I’ve had people at work giving me tips on how to ‘get things done’ by your other half and similar! But how about you guys? How have you found it when moving in with your other half? How long did it take you to get used to each other and settle?
Overall, I’m so pleased to be living together finally and be able to move forward in our relationship after so many years. I must admit though it’s not easy learning things about yourself (and your partner), particularly for someone who’s stubborn and of course ‘always right’ like me!
