Living with anyone is no easy feat. I always thought having roommates would be like a big slumber party all of the time and for this only child, that sounded like a dream come true.
And though I've been lucky to have great roommates, living with them has involved just as much paperwork and housework as it has wine nights with viewings of "The Bachelorette."
Choosing to live with my boyfriend was similar: I thought every night would be like those we spent in each others' college apartments, eating dollar slices and making out. Don't get me wrong: We still love to order takeout, but living with your partner can be challenging and we definitely slipped up quite a few times along the way.
If I could do it all again, there'd be a few things I'd do differently:
MISTAKE #1: I didn't let him have a say in the home decor.
My boyfriend moved into the apartment I already shared with my best friend and while all three of us were (and are still) close, she and I had our own girl cave going on — complete with sassy signs about wine and lots of fairy lights.
When my partner and I moved into an apartment with another friend of ours, he meekly asked if maybe we could leave some of our glittery signs behind with our friend who could appreciate them more.
I felt so awful that I didn't take his feelings into account when it came to decorating our living space. Now, our shared room and apartment are filled with art and mementos that mean something to each of us, and my lone sassy wine plaque has been relegated to the kitchen where it belongs.
MISTAKE #2: We didn't take stock of what we both had.
Does anyone in the history of the world need five bottle openers? No, but we sure had them.
Cramming all of our crap in a U-haul was hard enough, but after lugging dozens of boxes up the stairs to our new apartment, we were frustrated to find that we had multiples of a ton of stuff.
By making a simple list of what we both had, we could have saved our relatives the headache of taking back our duplicate coffeemakers, irons, blenders, and more. Plus, we could have saved room for all of the other cool stuff we bought along the way.
MISTAKE #3: We didn't come up with a good system for splitting up money.
When you're dating without living together, it's pretty easy to split expenses: You can go Dutch on dinner, Venmo your partner for your movie ticket, and pay them back as you go along.
Cohabitating throws some bigger and more frequent expenses your way. While we used to rely on an "I'll get you back" policy, it's become harder and harder because of all the new, big bills we need to factor in.
Not keeping track of who paid what lead to a lot of miscommunication and frustration at first. While we tried to employ lots of different apps, we found that being strict about how we kept track of our finances lead to a lot of headaches, too.
Our advice? Keep an electronic record (of any kind) to show who owes what, and get the bill settled as soon as possible.
And don't forget to treat each other every once in a while, too.
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