Dear Prudence,
I’ve been with my boyfriend for over two years. He’s several years older than me and is eager to move our relationship to the next level. He has been pressuring me to move in for a year and wants to get married. I love him, but I’ve always had a few conditions: He needs to address his moderate hoarding problem and declutter his apartment so I have a place to put my stuff, he has to start taking better care of himself (he hadn’t seen a dentist in seven years), and we need to fight in a healthier manner. We tend to get into one or two big fights a year in public with a smattering of smaller spats in between: It’s mostly him being moody and lashing out and me not responding well to that. Since we had this conversation, he has decluttered some 25 percent of his apartment, spent a few thousand on furniture that better accommodates his stuff, and has even seen the dentist a few times. We also have been fighting less. This is definitely great progress, and I’m proud of him, but there is still a lot to do. He expects me to move in April.
We regularly discuss our goals, but I’ve been flustered this past year, feeling like I have to constantly monitor, manage, and assist him so we meet my expectations by a deadline he is comfortable with. When I express these feelings to him, he gets upset and says he’s bending over backward for me and I’m not seeing everything he does for me in our relationship (buy most dinners, help with my coding class homework, offer to financially support me if I want to quit my lousy job). But I can’t help but see that after a year of decluttering, his 2,000-square-foot apartment still can’t accommodate my stuff that currently fits into a 150-square-foot bedroom. That’s the thing that worries me most about moving in! I’m also worried that we’re only fighting less because I’ve been busy with coding boot camp and we haven’t been in any situations which tend to provoke him (socializing in big groups, hot weather, being tired). It took a year of pestering for him to get to a dentist. I realize the changes I am looking for are big for him, but I also don’t feel like I am totally irrational for having these expectations of a 38-year-old. He has admitted to feeling some pressure to get married as he nears 40. I am afraid come April that not only will his apartment still not have room for my stuff, but he will get upset if I don’t move in anyway. Worse, I am afraid that once summer hits, he will become easily irritated again and we’ll get into another big fight. How do I handle all this? I dragged him to couples therapy after our last big public spat last summer, but there were a zillion reasons it didn’t work out for him, and he refuses to try again.
—To Move or Not to Move