There is a particular kind of romance plot doing the rounds at the moment — the one where two people who have been circling each other finally end up under the same roof, and the comedy comes from everything that happens after the keys are handed over. It lands because it is true. The falling in love part is the easy bit to dramatise. The part nobody films is the negotiation over which sofa goes and which stays, and whose morning routine wins the bathroom at half past seven.
Moving in together in your thirties, forties or fifties is a completely different project from doing it at twenty-two. You are not merging two duvets and a milk crate of books. You are merging two functioning lives, each with its own logic, its own friendships and its own way of loading a dishwasher. That is not a reason to avoid it. It is a reason to talk more before the van is booked.
Decide whose home it becomes — out loud
The single most common source of quiet resentment is one person moving into the other person's home and everyone pretending it is now neutral territory. It isn't. The walls have a history. The mugs have a history. The person who arrives with three boxes and no say in the shelving will feel like a long-term guest, and guests are always slightly on their best behaviour, which is exhausting.
If one of you is moving in, build in real ownership from the start. Not a drawer — a room, or at minimum a wall, a chair and a say in something visible. Take something out to make room for what arrives. If the home you are joining has not lost a single object to accommodate you, you have not actually moved in yet. And if you can possibly manage it, a third place that belongs to neither of you solves this problem elegantly, if expensively.
