by ASHE DAVENPORT
After a false start in ‘11 my boyfriend and I have settled back into de facto bliss…. Two bedrooms, a tomato vine with actual tomatoes growing on it, parking permit, a motley crew of 30 hand me down towels (thanks mum) and enough cupboard space to store the entire range at Greensborough Savers.Truth be told it’s a small slice of heaven.
But I’m curious as to why it’s working out for us this time round and not the last – a fateful 12-month lease in Carlton North that ended in segregated book boxes and broken dreams. Not to mention a lengthy solo mission to Berlin on my boyfriend’s part. But like a couple of lovesick Adélie penguins we found our way back to the nest. And are currently feeling our way through round two, armed with better communication skills and slightly nicer crockery.
I’m a huge fan of living with partners. It’s the greatest. Tough at times but mostly just one long pyjama party giggle fest. Here’s what I’ve learned so far…
1. Make it your own.
Any good love shack worth its bath of rose petals looks and feels like the people in it. Blend your parents’ life saving furniture donations with stuff you’re both really into. Try and keep an open mind when it comes to clashes in taste – although it’s perfectly okay to suggest his collection of glass-framed insects be displayed in the spare room.
2. Keep IKEA trips to a minimum.
3. Break the rules
Hang out your laundry in the dining room. Make a bed of pillows and blankets on the living room floor. Make love in the kitchen. Sleep in the garden. Riverdance down the hallway. You get the picture. Free yourself from the confined courtesies of share house living and tap into the anarchy of your new private playground paradise.
4. Cook
As a recent convert to the world of buying fresh produce and cooking stuff with it, I can safely tell all you stoveaphobes out there the water is fiiiiiine. Do it together, for each other, whatever! It feels fruit salad kind of wholesome.
5. Have friends over
With all those living room floor nests and fridges full of meat & veg, it’s easy to forget about the outside world. However this is a one-way ticket to co-dependent creepville. Keep it healthy with a steady flow of social activity through your shack’s front door.
6. Find your other couple
Discover the Fred and Ethel to your Lucy and Ricky, the Rubble to your Flinstone. Double dates are the biz. Find a couple who speak your language and put in the time. Because fourway holidays and movie nights are FUN.
7. Break the sex-chedule
Anyone who works full time knows that Saturday mornings were invented for sex. But if you find yourself in a repetitive routine rut try busting some moves mid-week. Too tired? TIP: Go to bed earlier instead of watching that third episode of Parks and Recreation.
8. Build a luxury tree house that’s yours alone
Failing that, find one metaphorically in your heart. Failing that, claim a room or nook in the house that’s just yours. While you’re sharing a bed, bedroom, wardrobe space and car key, it’s important to stake out your own territory from time to time.
9. Boundaries
Pee with the door open, close for everything else.
10. Be your own person
Relationships in general are a soft-shoe shuffle between exercising your independence and being joined at the hip to another person – a dance which only intensifies when you live together. My advice? Hang onto a keen sense of who you are as an individual… And make sure you’ve got some cool shit going on outside the love nest.
Ashe Davenport is a Melbourne based writer and dedicated student at the school of Beyoncé’s dance moves. For more of her tic tacs of wisdom head to http://streisandsuperman.tumblr.com/ and follow her on twitter here.
Do you have any advice on how to make live-in relationships work? Would you try any of these tips?
Top Comments
my tip: two laundry baskets. you survived perfectly well doing your own laundry until now, so just keep doing it that way. No passive agressive arguments about who's going to do it, no pink work shirts, no destroyed delicates.
my husband does his laundry once a week because he needs his shirts for work, and he throws ALL THE COLOURS in together. and knitted jumpers and suit pants!
I have so many clothes and underwear (a $10 3-pack of undies is SO worth it to put off doing washing for another three days) that I can hold out up to a month before I do a mammoth laundry day. separate white, black and coloured loads as well as a big batch of handwashing in the sink. then there's the fun task of fitting it all on the clothesline.
Of course we both think the other person is wrong and our own way is better, but we're happy.
If it cannot survive being washed with everything else, it's not welcome ("weddings and funerals" best-wear excepted). This was also a sneaky way to make the kids (the two clothes horses at least) do washing -- if it needed to be washed separately/by hand/not washed with Solvol and bricks, keep it out of Dad's way!
Stuffed if I know what my wives have done whenever they did/do washing.
I'm currently six months into my own cohabiting experiment. There are times when it has been the most amazing thing I've ever done and times when it has been incredibly hard. Living with another couple does not make things any easier!
My own tip would be - if you can't afford to live alone together, get a single housemate, not another couple. Keep your couple friends for visits only!