What do you think?

polichik · October 2009

FI and I were just talking about this the other day. We've lived together for over a year, and things have definitely gotten easier as time has gone by. I'm sure that some things will change, but I think that moving in together was the bigger adjustment. We also went straight from long-distance (14-hour drive apart) to LT.

kate51485 · October 2009

By the time we get married we'll have lived together for a little over 2 years. I can say without a doubt that the first month after we moved in together was the hardest we'll probably ever have. I had never lived with a SO before, so it just took some getting used to. After a few weeks though, psshh, it was wonderful! I think that it will pretty much be the same once we get married, though I can foresee a certain little gleam in my eye when I remember, "Oh! We're married!" I do think that life's stages (buying a house, having a child) can lend stress and difficulty, but it's my hope that the joy that also accompanies those situations will overpower any negativity.

jilybeans4 · October 2009

Perhaps the first year is simply about accepting that your life has changed and you're not going back to the way it used to be. I also agree with this. I'm not too far into the first year, but its more inside my head that its changed than anything. Its the permanence, in a good and a bad way.

mmm_080809 · October 2009

[i]I can't imagine anything being harder than all these years we're spending apart.[/i] I agree with this. DH and I moved in together three months before the wedding, after a year and a half of long distance. We'd been together for a total of four years. Granted we've only been married less than three months, but the almost six months we've lived together hasn't been that much of an adjustment so far. Our biggest issue in living together is budgeting our grocery bill - for such a skinny guy, it's ridiculous how much DH eats! Living long distance really forced us to learn how to communicate with each other though (otherwise we wouldn't have made it). I think that's why we've been able to adjust so quickly to each other's living habits and why we've been able to easily get through any problems we've had. I would still rather have DH's dirty socks strewn all over our bedroom floor than have him and his dirty socks 600 miles away again.

vicmo5 · October 2009

We've been married for 45 days and so far nothing has changed except that the stress of the wedding is gone. I hope it isn't as difficult as the first year of living together. That was tough. The only thing we really ever argue about is finances and I don't see that changing for the time being because we've agreed to keep everything seperate for the time being.

TurtlesAllTheWayDown · October 2009

Yeah stage. I can see if one spouse is staying home how that would also make it harder than just supporting a "bachelor lifestyle." Plus, there's pressure to have awesome stuff when you're married vs. living in a dorm room or something.Right now, we're a little paranoid about me getting pregnant accidentally (especially him) because it would be a huge deal to his family to have a kid before marriage.Yeah, I've been lax with my birth control over this weekend (traveling means I forget my schedule). It occurred to me that if I got pregnant now, I'd have a baby before my wedding.

missy68 · October 2009

I do think it is, even for couples who've lived together. DH and I went from an LDR to living together to engaged to married. While I think living together for more than a year before we got married made the transition easier, there's still some tough moments. The biggest thing is, there's no going back and no place to "go," if that makes sense.When you're dating, you usually can escape someplace if you need some time to yourself or some space. When you're married, it's hard to get that space you might need.It DOES help, to live together for an extended period of time. It makes the adjustment period easier. DH and I were able to open a joint bank account for our house bills together, and really live as a couple before we were married. This was especially good for him, and made it easier to see that being married a second time for me would be different with the right person. If it's the wrong person, it won't make a difference.

3plus2=5 · October 2009

I think the whole first year of marriage being the hardest is kind of an antiquated thought. I could see this being true when people got married young and went straight from living with mommy and daddy to living with the new spouse. At that point not only did they have to get used to living with a new person, they had to get used to the idea of being adults with responsibilites as well.I do not anticipate anything being different for our first year than it is now. We have lived together for almost 2 years already. All the day-to-day stuff has been sorted out already. With my first marriage, though, the first year was kind of tough but not the hardest. We did not live together until we were married, although we had lived on our own for a couple of years before the wedding. We had both just left the military so we needed to adjust to being and working in the 'real' world. I also had our son just 4 months after the wedding so we had to deal with being parents as well. With all of that though, we muddled through and still ended up lasting almost 10 years together.

Soon-to-be Mrs. Vogt · October 2009

For us, the first year we lived together included me graduating from college, buying our first home, and planning the wedding (not to mention the bad stuff, like my grandfather and best friend's mom dying, and his aunt committing suicide). We didn't have a free weekend for that entire year between holidays, family obligations, trips, weddings, etc. And on top of it, we see each other about 1.5 hours a day, on a good day. But honestly, I wouldn't say that year was hard. Just really really busy

I could see this year being harder as we're trying to really pay off debt as quickly as possible so we can start TTC. I also hate my job and it's making me miserable, so I can see that affecting things at home (as much as I try to keep the two things separate.)

Catwoman708 · October 2009

I'd say the first year of living together is defintely the biggest adjustment, not necessarily the hardest. When the relationship is new and you're looking through rose colored glasses, it's often easier to overlook faults, and make compromises. I don't think it's unusual to experience some (I don't know if I have the right words) ... kind of disappointed, anti-climatic, or that "after the party" let down, bored/restless feeling. Especially if you've already lived together, even if you feel more secure, bonded, and happy in your relationship. There will be other times that are more difficult and bigger challenges to your relationship, probably long after the "new" has worn off. Hopefully, the ties that bind will have grown stronger over time. Once you've weathered a few storms, you start to figure it out.

lpstl · October 2009

The first year of us living together was a piece of cake. Buying a house and getting knocked up? That's hard. We have also had some problems with expectations, Pete changed his mind about something that was nonnegotiable for me, and we've struggled to work through that. I honestly don't know how that's going to turn out in the long run, he seems to think that I should just roll with the punches, and I feel like he broke a promise. It felt like once we got married he thought "ok, she's locked in, now I can tell her the truth", which I know isn't the case, but that was rough to get through. It's something that would be a long way off anyways, so we have about 5-7 years to come up with a compromise.

missy68 · October 2009

Some of the most difficult times DH and I face, separately, (and I'm placing words into his mouth/mind, but basing them on conversations we've had after disagreements) are based on the fact that I moved into HIS house. He vehemently states it is OUR house, but the reality is, it is his house, with mostly his things, and some of mine.I am desperately trying to put my imprint on our home, and make it a home - not a bachelor's pad. It is hard; it is frustrating. I am 1000 miles away from the nearest friends/family; that is also hard.For him, he's now seeing the moody side of me - the side that gets quiet and blue and turns inward and doesn't share the problem/let him fix it. He struggles with that and it's hard for him.We love each other and we are committed to each other, which will make a world of difference.

thesuninherhead · October 2009

H and I spoke about this the other day. Nothing has changed for us, but then, we were living together for almost two years prior to the wedding. If anything, we're a little more relaxed now that we don't have the planning, and because it's 2 months later, we're still riding high on the excitement of the whole thing and feeling very much in love (eg. getting our pictures back last night was very thrilling for both of us, and we're always looking at our rings and talking about being married). I think H was secretly paranoid that after the wedding, our sex life would be over- because so many guys were making comments like that towards him before the wedding. Recently, he made some comment about what everyone had said to him and how it hadn't happened that way for us at all, and I had to laugh because clearly there was a part of him that was concerned that for unknown reasons, the act of having a wedding would result in a sudden lack of sex.

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