He needs his own

The little things you have to get used to about living with someone would be the things you’d laugh at if you were an outsider watching as the scenarios play out.

I was at CVS yesterday where a couple was walking down the travel aisle where you can get anything you need, miniaturized. The girl picked up a tiny tube of toothpaste and placed it in the basket she held. Her boyfriend did the same. She told him she had already picked up toothpaste, thinking he did not see her. He said he knew, but he needed his own. She said, what he probably already knew, that they were only going away for a short time and one toothpaste would be enough for both of them. He agreed but said he needed his own. She called him crazy and he laughed. They kept discussing it. To him it was simple. He needed his own.

Why though?

To her, it was impossible to understand—why spend more when we have what we need? And why don't you want to share with me? Perhaps she, the woman, was acting as the more practical and rational one this time.

Less independence

When you're 30 and you move in with your boyfriend, after living on your own for many years, it's much different than if you acquire the boyfriend roommate when you're 22 or 23. You have to get used to letting someone know what time you'll be home and where you're going. You have to comply with their standards of cleanliness and neatness, share in the regular household chores and agree on how to decorate with your stuff and his stuff. You have to accept that my furniture is much newer and nicer than yours, so we'll keep it and get rid of yours.

The longer you've lived on your own, the more selfish you become. I don't mean to say all people who live on their own are extremely selfish or think the world revolves around them. I just believe it is more likely that they have to pay extra attention and work extra hard to realize their actions or inactions are much more important in the new “living together partnership.” My parents were 19 and 24 when they married and did most things in sync at the beginning of their marriage. I think, at 30, we'll start out less in sync and grow to be more the same in the future.

If you moved in with your boyfriend at a younger age you may not have had the chance to do only for yourself over the course of years. You and your boyfriend will learn together how to live on your own away from the parents. You will buy furniture and decorations together and not have to throw away the things you've collected on your own while living without him.

So when we're 30 and moving in together, he agrees his furniture is crap and we can keep mine, even though it's white shabby chic. He agrees that I have more clothes then him and the bigger closet is in the bedroom so I get the bedroom closet. Lying on his bed makes us sea sick, so we keep my bed and trash his. Everything in the bedroom is mine and now he doesn't feel like it's his bedroom. He has to make a major adjustment because not only is he used to having his own room, but now he will have one that looks nothing like the way he'd decorate his own room. The two smaller closets in the hallway are his. He says his bedroom is the hallway. I tell him to buy pictures or anything he can to add to make it more “our bedroom” and I really mean it.

It was so easy to enjoy his company and fall in love with him, but compromise and sacrifice are harder when you're older. You've lead more of your own life for you. I'd never regret first moving in with someone at 30 because I think the experiences I've had on my own were amazing whether good or bad...just because they were my own. Living together is so different, and even while there may always be some small bumps in our merged paths, partly because we have developed independently for many years, we will be so much happier that we are together now.