Living in Sin

I wrote a post for Super Duper Fantastic that was published while I was in Las Vegas last weekend. It’s a fun look at my view on “living in sin”. Spoiler alert: I quite like it.
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Aaron and I decided to move in together on the drive home from our first big “couple trip.” We had visited San Francisco (one of my former homes) for a week, and we hadn’t wanted to strangle each other by the end! In fact, we had quite enjoyed each other’s company 24 hours a day for a full seven days – far longer than we usually had to put up with one another’s idiosyncrasies. We stopped in Santa Barbara on the drive back home and popped into a small, quaint Italian restaurant for dinner.

“You know,” Aaron said, as he twirled his pasta. “This week was fun. I didn’t want to kill you.”

“Well, thank you,” I replied dryly, somewhat annoyed at the insinuation that anyone wouldn’t relish being in my presence for every second of every day.

“No, I mean it,” he continued. “I think this is a big step. Maybe we should think about moving in together?”

I was floored. Of course, I wanted to move in together too. I had wanted to move in together as soon as I had realized how compatible we really were – which was far sooner in the relationship than Aaron had, ahem. But still, I hadn’t expected him to realize it too, and so soon. I was sure I’d have to come up with detailed propositions and spreadsheets of data analysis proving why our moving in together would be both cost effective and beneficial to his happiness quotient. And here he was – convinced of the idea’s validity without any prodding by me!

I started planning immediately. I went ahead and made those spreadsheets anyway, I combed Craigslist listings, I analyzed our salaries and created conscious spending plans which determined how much we could each reasonably spend on rent, bills, and other miscellaneous costs per month. I bought books on cohabitating before marriage (otherwise known as “living in sin”) and the best ways to prepare for such an endeavor so that it might not end in the tragedy of a failed relationship.

We ended up finding a place in West Los Angeles and moved in on February 27, 2011, with the help of some incredible friends and family – who we paid in slices of pizza and sweaty hugs. It’s been well over a year now, and as cliché as it is to say – living together has been damn near perfect. Unlike our first official “couple trip” to San Francisco almost two years ago, there are many, many times when we want to strangle one another. There are times when I think I might make him sleep in the backyard if he keeps chomping his teeth together when he eats. There are even more times when he thinks he might throw a chair at me if I continue to insist that I am always right (which I AM – but that’s neither here nor there). It’s hard work to live with another person, especially one that you expect to live with for the rest of your life (and thus, can’t get rid of) but it’s also the most rewarding experience I’ve ever known.

By becoming roommates with my boyfriend (and now fiancé), I became roomies with a partner – someone who washes the dishes because I hate doing that, while I take the laundry which he loathes; someone who massages my shoulders when he sees me working still at 10 o’clock at night; someone who acquiesces to my need for meetings and planning and spreadsheets and goals and appreciates me all the more for it; and, of course, someone who is a nice, warm body to cuddle with at the end of every day. Aaron is the other half of me, the better half, and he complements me in nearly every way. Moving in together has often been challenging, but more than that it has allowed me to see that we can do a lot more together than we did apart – and that we can do it all without murdering one another! Small victories!

There’s another move on our horizon. Within the next few years, we hope to buy our own home – another situation rife with potential relationship-ending tragedies like financing, home décor, and deciding on the best time to start filling said home with kids. But for now, I’m incredibly content where I’m at; living with the man I’ve chosen to live with for the rest of my life. I hope not to strangle him any time soon.