Unpack Your Troubles ; Moving in Together Should Consolidate a Relationship, so Why Does It so Often Result in Conflicts and Problems? Marital Counsellor Andrew G Marshall Investigates

Summary

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You have successfully negotiated 'seeing each other' into boyfriend and girlfriend, so moving in together should be straightforward. But, as a relationships counsellor, I've noticed an increasing number of couples who've found that living together has thrown them into crisis. And these aren't couples who have just met and blindly leapt into a shared mortgage. Over the previous three or four years, sometimes more, they have spent most weekends and several weeknights at each other's flats. After all that time, you'd have thought that they knew each other well enough to have ironed out any problems.

So what has turned the consolidation of their relationship into a minefield of squabbles and neuroses? It's partly that we are generally waiting until we're in our late 20s or early 30s before we start a serious relationship which means we're not used to having to consider other people, and find it harder to compromise. 'I had been looking forward to coming home to someone,' says Sarah, 32, 'so I can't believe how annoyed I get when Anthony uses the same chopping board for meat and vegetables.' Before they moved in together, Sarah and Anthony had seldom cooked in each other's flats. 'When I did use her kitchen, I would respect her rules but I don't want to spend the rest of my life obsessing about salmonella,' he explains.

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Unpack Your Troubles ; Moving in Together Should Consolidate a Relationship, so Why Does It so Often Result in Conflicts and Problems? Marital Counsellor Andrew G Marshall Investigates

Even when we do finally meet Mr Right, these days we insist on hanging on to our separate homes for longer because, in an age of anxiety, the accepted wisdom is to keep your independence until you are 100 per cent sure of each other. But this extended dating upsets the natural cycle of relationships.

Long-term tracking by the University of Texas has found that an 18-month to three-year courtship is the optimum period before s...

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