When I contemplated moving in with my boyfriend, I worried that my family would be unsupportive. So many people, especially the older generations, feel that living with your significant other before marriage only leads to sin and should be avoided.

I needn't have worried. Everyone that I talked to told me the same thing: "You learn so much about someone when you live with them. It's a good test for your relationship."

In the time leading up to moving in with my boyfriend, I felt confident. My relationship was in a really good place. I thought that living together would be like a sleepover with my best friend every night, nothing but laughter and love.

A few days before move-in, my dad warned me that living with someone isn't always fun.

"I know you think that you're going to be happy living with your boyfriend, but it isn't as easy as it sounds. It's going to be an adjustment."

I rolled my eyes. "We love each other and we're good together," I told him and that was that.

I realized a few days later how right he was.

I'm here to tell you the straight-up truth: living with your boyfriend is a lot more work than you'd think.

The first few months of living with my boyfriend were rocky. We got in fights over silly things, like how he leaves his dirty clothes scattered on the floor and likes to be asleep before 10:00 p.m. I realized that I didn't know him as well as I thought I did.

Everyone is going to be different if you're around them 24/7. Suddenly his cute quirks weren't so cute when I was exposed to them day-in and day-out. His tiny flaws that I had barely noticed before became obvious.

It took us months to finally get used to spending all of our time together. The spats began to fizzle out and we began to laugh more than we argued.

Learning to live with someone is not something for which you can prepare. The adjustment period is not something that you can avoid. No matter how well you think you know someone, you always have more to learn.

After a year and a half of living with my boyfriend, I am filled with a new sense of stability in our relationship. After surviving the tumultuous adjustment period and many stupid fights, we are in a really great place. Now, we actually know everything about each other.

We tackle everything that life throws at us together. That's the most wonderful part of moving in with your boyfriend: you are finally a real team. In many ways, it already feels like we are married. The transition into married life is going to be much smoother for us because we've already survived living with one another.

I encourage everyone to live with their significant other before getting married. You will learn things about them that you never knew before. Living together will make or break your relationship.

If you can survive moving in with your boyfriend, it's a good sign for the future of your relationship. It also might be the thing that ends your relationship, but wouldn't you rather know that before you get married?

I'm not going to sugarcoat it: it would've been easier if we had just waited until after we were married to live together, but I'm happy we didn't. That would've only postponed the difficult transition of moving in with someone.

It took time, but we're officially comfortable living together. There will undoubtedly be things thrown at us that challenge our relationship, but I'm confident that we can make it through because we're a team. Every night really feels like a sleepover with my best friend and I hope that feeling never ends.