My boyfriend and I made the decision to move in together for the upcoming semester. There are quite a few things that I have already learned about living with a significant other, without even living with him.
You probably have different wish-lists.
You know how on House hHunters the couple usually has outlandish demands for their house like high ceilings or they won't buy the house? Well, that's kind of how I was feeling when he told me he wanted an extra room. My thought process was if we are living together it should be more about spending time together and there is other space in the apartment to go to if you for some reason get annoyed with me. I felt as if it was just nonsense, but we compromised, and got a place with an office instead of a third bedroom. I still don't love that I'm paying for a space I won't necessarily use but at least he got what he wanted.
You might have different standards of living.
My philosophy with moving off campus for the time is that I would save a significant amount of money, even with utilities and commuter costs. Housing on campus is ridiculous, but some of the places we were looking at were way out of my budget and in my opinion were not worth the cost. We decided to take on another roommate- one of his friends- in order to help him out and save us money. This seemed like a great idea until we were looking at three bedroom apartments and we weren't saving any money. So the real key is to just be honest with your budget and what you are expecting. I was expecting to save some money and leave the shoe-box of a room I have at school, and upgrade to a different style of living, but with him and his friend, they already live in apartments and don't want to downgrade.
You might cry.
I did. We were arguing over something we eventually worked out, but I went into my bathroom and left him in my room to call my mom. I was between sobs telling her I didn't think it was going to work out because I can't afford the places we were looking at and I felt like I was making all the sacrifices (yeah, a little selfish, but it happens). When I came back into my room he heard me wailing on the phone and tried to comfort me, but it was two in the morning and I was not completely sober. We decided to just figure out something later, and we did, everything worked out.
It's possible you'll have to compromise a little more than you wanted to.
He wanted a 15 minute or less commute to work (understandable in that Boston traffic), and I wanted a commute under an hour from the suburb. This wasn't exactly what I got, but we found a wonderful place to live in a great area with a 15 minute or less commute for him. Though, I thought the commute would have been shorter, he is compromising a drive to the nearest T station so mine doesn't have to be as long, which is really generous. I also compromised on having some extras included that I didn't feel I needed. I felt like we didn't need an in-unit washer and dryer or a dishwasher, but the guys wanted it and it was in a nice place, so I figured why not.
But I know it will be worth.
All the struggling of finding an apartment and adding a roommate and trying to figure out what utilities needed to be paid for will make it worth it because I get to live with someone I love.
