Cohabitation

Storage Solutions To Make Cohabitation Easier
First and foremost, cohabitation means figuring out how to organize your shared space and store your personal belongings.

First and foremost, cohabitation means figuring out how to organize your shared space and store your personal belongings.

The decision to move in with your partner is a big one. Outside of what this means for the next step of your relationship, cohabitation can also create a number of new and unusual obstacles that need to be overcome. Above all, you need to figure out what to do with all of your stuff. These days, it is more common for couples to rent a space together than purchase a home. If you’re in this situation, it means you’ll need to be both practical and creative when it comes to finding sensible storage solutions. Consider these tips to develop your own strategy.

Cohabitation 101: Eliminate in Advance

There is no getting around the need to condense and get rid of a lot of stuff before you and your partner share a space. Whether you’re moving into a new spot or you’re making room for your partner’s arrival, you definitely want to eliminate a lot of clutter in advance. Take a look at your possessions and ask yourself what items will serve a purpose in the future. Should you be holding onto old mementos or photos of exes now that your space is shared with someone new?

Getting rid of items from your past can be both painful and liberating. While you don’t have to completely erase what has come before to make the transition to cohabitation, you’ll find that tossing out the junk frees and invigorates your spirit in exciting ways.

Include Personal Space

Personal space is vital to the health and longevity of a relationship. It doesn’t matter that you live in a shoebox apartment in Manhattan, you need to learn how to divide the space in an even way. While most of your home will be shared spaces, you can easily find spots to dedicate to personal pursuits. If you like to read and write, put a desk in the corner of the bedroom where you can go to engage in your passions. When your partner prefers using her Saturday morning for meditation, try and give her time and distance.

There will be some trial and error involved in this part of cohabitation. Don’t be surprised if you both feel restricted in some ways at first. As you learn each other’s rhythms, it will become much easier to figure out how to best give personal space when needed.

Consider Decor Before You Store

Helping a partner feel welcomed in a new space can also be challenging. If you’ve lived in your apartment for years, it is going to undoubtedly feel like “your” space. To change this, work on the decor before you start packing things away. Take down whatever you have hanging on the walls and discuss what you both think would look best moving forward. This will help your partner feel a sense of ownership over the space and offer a few practical places to store items in the open before you pack them away.

Tackle a Project Together

Every home is unique when it comes to storage. Maybe your apartment is lacking in closets or your house doesn’t have an attic, basement, or garage. A great way to discover sensible storage solutions is by tackling an improvement project together after your partner moves in. Dedicate a weekend to building shelves or expanding an existing closet. This can offer you an array of new options for where to place items and bring you closer together in the home you will now be sharing.

Cohabitation can be scary and exhilarating. Though you probably have a number of concerns about the future, it is best to remember you can accomplish great things when you approach the tasks as a team. With time and patience, you’ll both learn how you can make a shared space feel like a home you are building together.

Your Wedding Is Just the Beginning
Your wedding is simply the starting point of your new life.

People tend to think of a wedding as an end, however is should be viewed as a beginning of a new life with your partner.

Getting hitched to your significant other can be a fantastic move to make. While you may have been dating your partner for several years at this point, it is important for you to keep in mind that your wedding is the start of a completely different chapter of your lives together. Of course, a wedding can also add a ton of stress to your shoulders. You and your significant other are likely to bump heads once or twice throughout the process. How you handle these encounters will set the stage for your future as a married couple.

Since planning for your wedding can bring forth some tense situations, it is helpful to use this process as a way of working through your own relationship issues. If you do not address problems in the relationship before the wedding, then they are only going to get worse as the years go on. Take a look at a couple of these simple ways to use your wedding planning as a form of couples therapy and see how you can strengthen your bond while getting ready for your big day.

After the Wedding: Cohabitation

Times have changed. Once, it was common for a couple to live separate lives until the day where they joined in matrimony. The wedding would mark the first time the bride and groom would sleep in the same bed. Of course, this is a trend that has changed greatly. Nowadays, most couples live together for years before deciding to get married. Whether to live with your partner can be a big thing to consider before you go about the process of planning for your wedding.

Learning how to cohabitate in advance is very important. You do not want to marry someone and discover that he or she is a completely different person at home. Easing yourselves into domestic life together before the wedding can help you to learn about each other in new ways. Have discussions about things like household chores, bills, owning versus renting, and anything else that is important to you about your home. Having these conversations and trying your hand at cohabitation early can help you to see what you are in store for with your partner.

Disagreements Are Good 

You and your significant other are going to disagree a lot while planning for your wedding. There are very few instances where a couple comes to agreement on every little detail. While you might feel uncomfortable with disagreeing with your partner, it is very healthy to learn how to handle altercations. Your knee-jerk reaction might be to fight your partner on something as simple as the color palette of the reception, but there are much bigger issues in life that you are going to have to face together.

Learning to disagree early in the relationship can help you to build a strong foundation for your future. The moments that matter are going to be the ones that appear out of the blue and blindside you both. When the time comes to make an important and difficult decision, you want to be sure that you can turn to your partner and work through the problem without it devolving into an argument. Use your wedding planning as a chance to grow better at dealing with disagreements.

Many Years Ahead

A wedding marks a very big day for you and your partner. After you have tied the knot, you will be together for the foreseeable future. If you want your marriage to go well, be sure to get off on the right foot by learning as you go. Use your wedding planning as a way to handle disagreements, and you will discover new ways to work through your problems as a couple.