Things you should probably talk about before you move in together…
- Money (bills, food shop, date nights): Are you sharing a bank account or are you using an app (Splitwise is fab!) to balance costs?
- Expectations/standards of what constitutes ‘clean’ and ‘tidy’. It’s much more stressful for a tidy person to live with a messy person; minimise arguments by trying to keep the house as clean as the tidy person wants it. Can you do this with minimal effort so the messier of your couple doesn’t go stir-crazy with cleaning?
- Sleeping habits: if you’re moving in together, you’re bound to have slept in the same bed on more than one occasion. But it’s worth bearing in mind the detrimental effects to your sleep if one of you is a restless sleeper and keeps the other awake all night.
- Meal-times: is one of you the more natural cook? Work out a system that suits you both. By all means, if one person is happy to cook every evening, fine – but maybe the other person washes up or once a week, they cook. When living together, it’s easy to have the TV on each night; see if you can do without the TV during dinner and make time for conversations with one another.
Photo by Mihai Surdu on Unsplash