30 questions to ask before you move in together

Most couples who move in together discuss rent, the commute, and whose sofa is better. Then they discover the actual variables three weeks later: what time the house goes quiet, whether the door is locked during the day, how often someone else's family is in the kitchen.

None of these are dealbreakers. They are just much easier to agree on before the boxes arrive than during the first bad week.

Money, in specifics

How do we split the rent, and does the split change if one of us starts earning much more? What happens to the split if one of us loses work? Who holds the lease, and what does that mean if we separate? What is the largest amount either of us can spend without mentioning it? Do we want a joint account for shared costs, and what goes into it? What debt is either of us carrying that the other has not seen the number for?

That last one is the most commonly skipped question on this page, and the most commonly regretted.

The house, day to day

What time does the home go quiet on a weeknight? Who cooks, and is that a rota or a preference? What is the standard of clean that each of us would describe as normal, and which of us is going to find the other's standard difficult? Where do shoes go? Is the bedroom for sleeping only? How do we handle the washing up on the night neither of us wants to do it?

These sound trivial written down. They are the substance of living together, and the couples who argue about them at month four are arguing because nobody said their answer out loud at month zero.

Guests, family and the door

How much notice does an overnight guest need? Can either of our parents arrive without being invited? How many nights a month is it normal to have someone else in the house? Does either of us need time in the flat completely alone, and how do we ask for it without it being an insult?

The alone-time question is worth real attention. A person who has always lived alone will need hours that a person who grew up in a full house will read as rejection.

Time and each other

How many evenings a week do we expect to spend together, and how many apart? What does an ordinary Saturday look like for each of us? Is it normal to go to bed at different times? What does either of us do to recover after a hard day, and does it require the other person to be present or absent?

Living together does not create closeness. It creates proximity. The closeness still has to be built on purpose.

The invisible expectations

These are the ones nobody thinks to say, because they feel like facts rather than preferences. What did home feel like where you grew up? What noise level is normal? Was the television always on? Did people knock? What does a good Sunday morning look like, exactly, hour by hour?

Then three that touch the future: what would make either of us want to move again, how long do we expect to be in this place, and what would we do if one of us got an offer in another city?

Write these ones separately

Six questions here work far better in writing, because reading your partner's answer first quietly changes yours.

What is your partner most looking forward to about living together? What is the thing your partner is quietly worried about? What habit of yours does your partner expect to find difficult? How much time alone does your partner actually need in a week? What would your partner miss most about living where they live now? What would tell your partner that this is not working, before either of you said it out loud?

Answering blind is the point. Both write, neither reads until both have finished. Duoheart does this automatically for a daily question, and for a decision this size it is worth doing deliberately even on paper.

One thing to agree before you sign

Agree how you will raise a problem. Not what the problems will be, since neither of you knows yet, but the mechanism: a standing time each week where either of you can say something about the flat without it becoming a conversation about the relationship.

Couples who have that mechanism report the first year as unremarkable. Couples who do not tend to store things up until a Sunday in February.