3 Things to Consider Before Moving in With Your Girlfriend

Thinking about moving in with your girlfriend, eh? Deciding to live with your woman can be the best, or the worst, decision you’ve ever made, depending almost entirely on how well you’ve thought it all through.

Here are a few points of consideration you need to thoroughly entertain before taking the plunge and boxing up your things.

There are some good and bad reasons for deciding to live with your girlfriend:

• You want to marry or have a long-term relationship with her.
• You’ve been together a significant amount of time and basically live together.
• You want to simplify your relationship and your lives.
• There’s a kid involved in the relationship.
• You both have your own lives outside of the relationship.

• You just met each other two weeks ago.
• One of you is short on rent and the other is helping out.
• You want to make sure she isn’t cheating on you.
• The best reason you can think up is “why not?”

Figure out which of these lists your reason for moving in together most accurately falls within, and evaluate your plans accordingly.

“No man will ever feel absolutely,

positively, 100 percent ‘ready.'”

Generally speaking, if you and your woman have been seriously dating (not just hooking up) for less than a year, then you probably aren’t ready to move in together.

In my opinion, at least one year of serious, committed dating should be required before you can even begin to think of moving in with someone. Two years offers a much better timeline, and with anything more than two years, you’re probably in the clear.

Why wait so long to move in with someone? Because it takes that long to clear through infatuation and make sure you feel strong enough about your commitment to handle living together.

Sure, you might feel ready to live with someone a month after meeting them, and you might feel like you really know someone and have a totally firm grasp on your relationship about six months to a year into it, but ultimately those feelings are deceptive at best.

Real relationships, the sort of relationships that involve successfully living together, take time to develop. There are no shortcuts.

No man will ever feel absolutely, positively, 100 percent “ready” to move in with their woman. The fact that you feel at least a little wary about giving up the total freedom of your space is a good sign. It indicates you’re probably moving in with your woman for the right reason and not due to a honeymoon phase.

Don’t worry if you fail to feel “ready” to live with your woman. That feeling will come later.

Instead, just make sure you have a substantial amount of space within your shared home that unquestionably belongs to you. Maintaining this ownership and having your own “cave” to retreat to will take care of most of the negative feelings you will associate with the loss in freedom you’ll experience when moving in with your girlfriend.