Living Together After a Long-Distance Relationship

Living Together After a Long-Distance Relationship

When you are ready to move in with your partner, consider that living together after a long-distance relationship will affect your relationship in many ways.

Living together after a long-distance relationship changes the dynamic of your relationship. Living with someone is very different from having a relationship online. In a long-distance relationship, you have more personal space, and time to do the things you enjoy. When you live with someone, you have to consider the other person in everything you say and do.

Before living together after a long-distance relationship, it is worth making a plan of how it will work.

After you’ve got to know someone in a long-distance relationship, it’s time to move in together. You can prepare for moving in and living together by talking about it and making a plan on how you will make it work. 

How Long Should a Couple Date Before Living Together?

When you start a long-distance relationship online, you should give yourself a couple of months to get to know each other.

Long-distance dating is different from regular dating and that you don’t get to be physically intimate with your long-distance partner. It’s hard to judge their character and them as a person when you don’t see them in front of you.

When you’re talking to a person face-to-face, you get a certain feeling about who they are and what it’s like being with them. In a long-distance relationship, until you meet a person, or you can do create an image of what that person is like from the information they give you.

Once you’ve got to know about each other over the Internet, it’s a good idea to meet a couple of times. Until you meet your long-distance birthday in real life, they will remain an image in your mind.

You can spend several months visiting each other and going on trips to different places together. After that, you should have a good idea if your long-distance relationship is serious and whether or not you’d like to take it to the next stage.

You don’t need to rush towards a serious relationship and to live together.

The best thing to do is to take your time and get to know each other. Let your long-distance relationship develop naturally. You will know if this is the right person and when is the right time to move in together.

To help you get to know each other, navigate your relationship and resolve the issues take a look at this guide to improve your communication.

Can Living Together Ruin a Relationship?

Living together after a long-distance relationship can ruin the relationship you’ve built so far.

You might find that you get on well in the long-distance relationship. You may also have a lot of fun travelling together. But living together brings a whole new dimension to a relationship.

When you live together, you share your space with another person. This is something you didn’t have to do while in a long-distance relationship. If you are serious about your relationship, living together is a natural step towards having a real romantic relationship.

Here is an article on how the distance affects a relationship.

In some cases, couples enjoy being in a long-distance relationship because of all the benefits it gives them. If your relationship works very well over long-distance, it doesn’t mean it will work just as well when you live together.

Suppose you and your long-distance partner are serious about having a real romantic relationship. In that case, you should talk about living together. 

Suppose you do it properly and prepare for your life together. In that case, you can significantly increase your chances of your relationship working out. However, if you jump into it or rush your moving in together, it could be quite a difficult transition. Moving in together, unprepared could ruin your relationship.

How to Go from a Long-Distance Relationship to Living Together?

Before living together, you should have a healthy and enjoyable long-distance relationship. Try to avoid blaming the distance for your relationship issues and expect that living together will solve everything that is hard.

Click here to learn how to make a long-distance relationship work.

Effective communication throughout your long-distance relationship and once you move in together is the one thing that can save your relationship.

Here are some tips on how to go from a long-distance relationship to living together:

  • Talk to your long-distance partner about things you like and don’t like.
  • Talk about things that are very important to you, and others you are more flexible about.
  • Ask your partner what do they like and don’t like.
  • Try to create a hypothetic environment where the two of you will be living together.
  • Discuss all things, however small they may seem.
  • If you come across things that might become an issue, write them down and spend more time thinking about how it will work.

To help you out, we have a workbook that will guide you through all the essential topics and will facilitate your self expression, listening and understanding.

How Do You Transition from Long-Distance to Living Together?

You should take time and take care when you transition from a long-distance relationship to living together.

Living together after a long-distance relationship changes not only the dynamic of the relationship but the state of mind of sharing space with someone and living in the new place.

The person moving, leaves behind their friends, family, work and their home. It can be tough to adjust to the new environment with new people, and sometimes a different culture.

The person who is moving for a long-distance relationship will be relying on their partner for safety and guidance. In turn, for another partner, it can be a lot of responsibility to take care of another person in every aspect of their life.

All these things can work out just fine, but they can also create problems. If you are to talk about living together before you move in together, you can discuss your habits and preferences.

Every person has individual preferences in the way they like to do things as well as their environment.

For example, some people may like to keep things very tidy and organised, while others are quite happy to leave the mess. When you talk about your preferences to your partner while in a long-distance relationship, these things seem trivial. Then things don’t appear to be a big problem, and it’s easier to talk about them.

When you start living together after a long-distance relationship, every little preference that you or your long-distance partner have can be important to you. And if you don’t find a way to for everyone to have things that are important to them, it may result in conflict.

Adjusting After a Long-Distance Relationship

Adjusting after a long-distance relationship to living together can take some time. When you move for a long-distance relationship, you are leaving the world you know and entering a new one.

You will have to learn a different way of living, different people, their norms and maybe their culture. In some cases, even the laws may be different.

If you lived at home all your life, moving to a different country can be a lot to process. It’s a good idea to move to a place for a little while and to see how you feel about it. Meet some people, do some things to see if this is the environment that you want to be in.

You may find that while you are getting on well with your long-distance partner, you don’t want to live in that place. If that’s the case maybe consider moving to a different place or another country together.

Some people adjust to new environments without any problem, while others take time to get used to a new place.

When you move for a long-distance relationship, things can go either way. You might be in love, but you may also struggle to live with this person, or you may not like the place. Having a plan to move to a different place or to go back home could help you in such situation.

Whenever you don’t like something, you must share it with your partner. The sooner they know, the more time you both will have to find a solution. If you try to suppress it, after some time, you will be unhappy, and it will ruin your relationship.

Moving to live with someone in a different country is a huge commitment. Some couples stay together even if they don’t like it because they invested too much time or don’t see a way out.

Some people stay together out of obligation, others for fear of being alone, and others because they don’t see any other option.

Conclusion

Living together after a new long-distance relationship is a big change. While your relationship may work great over long-distance, it doesn’t guarantee that you will be able to make it work living together.

To have a successful relationship living together, you should talk about it before you move in. You can discuss things you like and don’t like, and make a plan to handle any issues or problems that you may face were living together.

A key part of making this big decision is to make sure that you have a healthy long-distance relationship.

So it is really worth going through every aspect of your relationship to identify and iron out any issues you may have. This will help you avoid carrying the problems into the next step of your relationship.

To make sure you do not leave any stone unturned in preparation to living together, you and your partner can use this workbook to guide you through every step.

Another thing you can do is move in together for a short while, a couple of weeks, to see what it’s like living together.

How Healthy Is Your Long-Distance Relationship?

If you are having doubts about your long-distance relationship and are not sure if you should try to fix it or let it go, here is our step by step guide to help you and your partner reassess your relationship and make an educated decision that works for both of you.

Relationship Coaching for Long-Distance Couples

Long-distance relationships are hard to maintain without knowing exactly what they involve.

However, once you understand what long-distance relationships are, what they are not and how to navigate them, you are a lot more likely to make it work.

We specialise in helping long-distance couples create and maintain a healthy relationship by building intimacy, trust and effective communication.

If you are starting a long-distance relationship or are already in one, send us a message to book an individual coaching session for yourself or a couples coaching session for you and your partner.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should a couple date before living together?

It would help if you spent a few months getting to know each other online. If you are having fun talking, you can visit each other or go on trips together. If you enjoy each other’s company, move in together for a few weeks or a few months to see what it’s like living together.

How to go from a long-distance relationship to living together?

To help you decide, answer these three questions:
1. Do you know each other well enough?
2. Are both of you ready to make this change?
3. Is it realistic? Practically, financially, socially.

How do you transition from a long-distance to living together?

To transition from a long-distance to living together, try living together for a short period to see if you can make it work. Avoid moving completely, cutting all ties with your home. If something doesn’t work the way you plan, at least you’ll have a way out.

Can living together ruin a relationship?

Living together is very different from a long-distance relationship. Before you settle together, you should get to know each other very well. Most importantly, you must have an understanding and open communication. Problems are bound to come up, but you can sort them out with effective communication.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Similar Posts