Living Together

Source

Right now, Mr. B and I don’t live together. We grew up in the same town, and we’re still at home with our parents.

I’m still here for a lot of reasons: my job is local, I love where I live, I hate change, and I’m not big on New York either. Plus, I’m kind of old fashioned. So I stayed put. And Mr. B stayed put too, and that’s how things have been for the past three years since we graduated college.

I always planned to wait until marriage to live together. I thought it attached a lot of symbolism to our wedding, as only after it will we get to begin our lives together. I liked the idea of having a genuine honeymoon period, rather than experiencing our first few happy months together before we’re married, only to come back from the wedding and feel like nothing was different.

Plus, I didn’t have complaints about living at home. It’s been great for our finances and nice to spend time with our families. I felt pretty content with everything.

But it turned out I had to wrestle with the decision earlier than planned. My job was transferred to Maryland recently, and I was lucky enough to get a transfer to an office in North Jersey. It's too far to commute from where I live currently so...we’ve decided to begin looking for apartments together!

Given my stubbornness about not living together, I did struggle with this decision a lot. I was afraid it might take away the meaningfulness of our wedding. I worried that it wasn’t traditional or respectable to move in together. Plus, I wasn’t sure if it was hypocritical: I have some friends with a ‘boyfriend-won’t-propose/will moving in make that happen faster’ situations going on. I always advised them not to move in, and I wonder if my moving in earlier sent some kind of bad message. (I’ve decided no, we're engaged with major wedding plans underway, it is not the same thing as settling for living together because he refuses to propose. Besides they’re grownups and I doubt they care what I do!)

I’m really excited about this new development, and I’m surprised by how right it feels. As our relationship and engagement progresses, I am feeling the pain of not living together more often than I used to. I’m tired of waking up at 2 am from hanging out at his house and driving home. I miss him when he isn’t there. I’m sick of going to his house to see him and having to spend an hour chatting with the fam, petting the dog, etc. Our lives are beginning to change, and we can’t hold those off just because the party is 11 and a half months away. As much as I don’t mind being home, I am really ready to be on my own (I mean, come on, I am kind of old for it at this point!) I look forward to all of the little things that come along with us taking this step, and while it is not at the timing I had always planned or expected, I am really, really excited and hope that soon I have some concrete job and apartment news!

Did anyone else obsess about moving in together or is everyone else normal and just went with it? Anyone have any advice? I feel like Monica on Friends- "I have to live with a boy!"