“Hey Anna! Got a question for you if you have the time. Apologies if you’ve already gotten something like this already. But I’m looking to know, what requirements must be met before you decide to move in with your partner, in your opinion?
For context. I met my now boyfriend on Christmas Eve last year, so we’ve known each other for just a couple months. Mid February, we started dating and quickly began spending every night together. I’m shocked how we aren’t sick of each other yet. But at the same time not, we do love each other and this is probably just the honeymoon stage. But I’ve never seen something go 0-100 like that before. He has already asked me to move in. I said I needed to wait. He decided to give me a key a couple days ago. It’s cute how excited he is at the idea, but it’s still too fast for me. I just don’t know when it’s finally okay to say “yes”?
Thanks, and hope you have the best Saturday!! ❤️”
My Dearest Bad Biddie,
When I was twenty-five, I moved in with my then-boyfriend after less than a year of dating. He had brought it up so casually one night that I can’t even remember exactly how it all unfolded. Needless to say, it didn’t work out, because less than a year after moving in with him, I moved out. One night he came home from work and, without much of a plan or thinking through it, I told him I needed to move out and break up with him (the second part was probably a moot point, but I suppose I wanted to ensure I was clear in that I wasn’t just moving out). I wouldn’t advocate for doing it this way, as I spent the next seventy-two hours frantically running around Manhattan searching for apartments that were ready for immediate move-in. There is no greater feeling of awkward than breaking up with your boyfriend and still having to come home every night to him. By some miracle, I found an apartment that not only approved me, but allowed me to move in five days after we broke up.
I tell you this, not to scare you from moving in with your boyfriend, but to hopefully show you that moving in with your boyfriend isn’t final. Yes, it’s a big decision, but you can always move out. With that in mind, you’re not ready to move in with him, not because I’m telling you that, but because you told me that. Having a key to your boyfriend’s apartment is not nearly the same as deciding to live with him. Sure, the key opens his door, but at the end of the day, you have your own door to go back home to when you need it.
So many questions in life can only be answered with the passing of time and lived experience. I don’t know how old you are, but to some extent, it doesn’t matter. We are all so young, whether we just celebrated our 21st or 71st birthday. There is always time to live yourself into the answer, and there is always time to change your mind because you know more now than you did then. Give yourself the luxury of time to find out whether or not this relationship can go the distance, because if it’s really meant to be, moving in a year from now isn’t going to make much of a difference. There is no harm in allowing the roots of your relationship to anchor once the waves of infatuation have subsided and seeing how firmly planted your relationship truly is. Until then, use the key to open his door, but keep your own heart open to all the possibilities of what can only be known in time.
Love,
Your internet hype woman