Moving in together.
Greg and I had been together a little over a year when we we decided to shack up. It was 2 years ago this week that we moved into our little home together, and it was some major firsts for both of us. Neither of us had ever lived with a bf / gf before, but since we were already spending most of our days and nights together, we were sure there’d be no surprises when we made our roommate status official.
Hahahahahaha…oh man, we were SO wrong.
Not wrong in a bad way, but it’s amazing the stuff you discover about your SO when you live with them…and vice versa. Each time, I’d scratch my head, stare at him and wonder, “Wow, that was weird.” And then I’d catch him eyeing me suspiciously like I was some doppelganger. No doubt, it’s a whole new world when you have nowhere to hide.
Most of the revelations? Small, quirky stuff. Here are a few of my favorites:
1.He wears puffy huge slippers all the time. You know when you were in grade 3 and you had slippers with 3D Disney characters on them. They look like those, but with golf balls.
2. He likes to fall asleep on the couch while watching late night TV. But, he denies being asleep if I call him out on it.
3.He likes to sit down and eat proper meals together. Especially Sunday dinner.
A few of Mr. T’s roomie discoveries about me:
1. I'm definitely not a morning person. Basically, don't to wait to tell me anything important until after 9 a.m. or else it goes in one ear and out the other.
2. I have an abnormally large collection of bobby pins that he finds throughout the house. It drives him bananas.
3. I use a ridiculous not-good-for-mother-earth amount of hot water. I can empty our hot water tank like its nobody's business. Hurray for multiple hot baths a day!
And then there were the bigger hurdles.
The first one? How to interact after a loooooong day at work. Most days we hang out and chat when we get home. But on those especially rough days, all I want to do is be silent, for 30 minutes or so, and decompress in the bath, on the bed, the couch, wherever. For me, silence is sometimes as good as gold. When I have a hard day, I just need some me time. But did that make me a bad partner? I felt just like Carrie when Aidan first moved in…remember that?
And then one day…after an exceptionally brutal day at the office, G turned to me and said, “Is it OK if I just relax for a bit on the computer?” It turned out we both needed some me time after work and I let out the biggest, longest sigh of relief. “Go for it. I’ll be in the bedroom drinking wine and reading Us Weekly.” And you know what? Comfortable silences are just as good as great conversations, and helped us become a better duo.
The second big hurdle? This one was the uglier one. The, “What in the heck do you do-slash-where in the heck do you go when you have an epic, OMG-this-is-it-the-world-is-ending argument”. Or if I’m being less dramatic, “How do you deal when one of you is in a bad mood?” Oh yeah, just that.
When we weren’t living together, these were the times where we’d end the argument by announcing, “I’m going home,” and *POOF* we’d have salvation, calm down and realize we were being ridiculous and talk it out a few hours later. But uhhh, now, we WERE home. And while these crappy situations were few and far between, they still happened and we needed to figure out how to deal.
And you know what? There’s no right answer or one way of dealing with an argument or a bad mood. It just depends. Sometimes, if one of us is cranky or having a bad day, one of us will get out of the house for a bit, go to the gym or yoga or take Nap so the other has time to diffuse. And for the arguments, sometimes going into separate rooms for a bit to watch TV or listen to music is enough for us to simmer down. But for those rare, gnarly, ugly crying fights, usually one of us will need to get out of the house and cool off…. And that’s OK, because leaving the house after a fight doesn’t always mean you’re running away. Sometimes people need to look at a problem from a different angle to figure out how to fix it…you know?
Two years later we are still growing, but G and I have learned the art of living together. Sure, we have dark and twisty days…but we get through them and have way more bright and shiny ones—and it makes us better every time.
What are some of the quirky things you learned about each other when you first moved in together? And how do you deal with the hurdles in your relationship when you share the same roof?
