In the last few years, a guy I know has gone through a divorce and has started seeing someone new. Both have kids, but my acquaintance's child is a young adult now and will soon move out of home permanently. The new partner has a couple pre-teen children. At this stage in the relationship, nothing is certain.
This is a common scenario.
Both people own their own property (with mortgages) that they have bought out from their exes, my acquaintance has a largish house, the other a decent sized row house. The one with the row house would like to move and is considering an apartment in the city. But they have also discussed moving in together, but what if it doesn't work?
What would you do?
It is interesting in Finland, because here people who are in relatively new relationships actually move in together quite soon, even though even married couples usually keep their finances quite separate. Perhaps it is actually because of the separate finances that people are more comfortable to move in together, because then there is shared risk, but also there is the possibility to walk away without too much trouble.
Because of this, I think if I was in their shoes, I would move in together, even though the relationship is relatively new. It is not that there is the ability to walk away, but there is also the financial benefit of sharing costs.
More than that, it might be a bit of a windfall financially if they do become a long-term couple, because one could still buy an apartment in the city and rent it out, giving them a place to fall back on if things go south, and an income stream that would pay any mortgage, but also provide some extra to offset the mortgage of the shared place. If things go well, then as a couple, they can have a nice additional income stream that covers itself and also pool resources in the shared place to cover the mortgage and have it paid off a little faster.
This puts some additional strain on a young relationship, but is that a bad thing? Maybe, a strong relationship requires that strain, but it has to be the right kind of pressure. This kind of situation would give them the "in it together" setup, whilst still having the provision for either to walk away. Essentially, they would be investing into each other's lives from the get-go, rather than building an investment together as their relationship progresses and maybe, that is a good thing.
It is interesting, because there are lots of dynamics in play, where for instance, one would be moving into the home of another, and that has its own challenges. For example, my wife moved into my apartment that I had bought with my ex. And even though we had been split up for a couple years already, my wife (girlfriend at the time) felt like a guest. So, what we ended up doing was renovating a little, changing the floor surface and painting, making decisions together, to make the place "ours" - instead of mine.
From a practical sense, nothing changed, but humans are more more comfortable with emotional decision-making rather than their rational thoughts, even when we think we are being analytical. So what ends up happening is that we will make decisions that will increase our costs, or make our lives harder, just because we want to feel or avoid feeling something that we should just be able to accept and move on with.
Too soon?
Who decides when something is "too soon" to have happen in a relationship, other than the people in the relationship themselves? But even then, most of us are going to be influenced by other factors, like what others think of us - our children, our friends, our exes. If we were considering the same scenarios from a business perspective, we likely would make more rational decisions, because we are looking to make gains in some area. But in our personal lives, we tend to make decisions to protect ourselves, rather than expose ourselves to emotional risk.
Emotional risk.
And it is that, isn't it? Financially, it would be better to move in together, by the second apartment as an investment and roll the dice on the relationship from the start, rather than building from the relationship first. And perhaps, doing it this way would lead to a stronger relationship, because both would be going through it simultaneously, shared experience, growing together. Alternatively, perhaps if waiting to be completely "in love" first will mean that once the stress of moving in together and navigating the new dynamics is applied, there is more chance of falling out, and growing apart.
Thankfully, I am not in their shoes, but I have been there and done that to a lesser degree, because there were no children involved of any age at that time. However, I think that perhaps we should expose ourselves to more emotional risk than we do, because unlike monetary risk, we can keep learning how to take on more, without ever needing to go into debt.
It is a rare skill it seems in today's society.
But, as said, this scenario is pretty common these days, and there are many more pressures in the modern world. As a result, people keep looking for ways to minimize their emotional risk, yet what seems to be happening is that more people are disconnecting from each other. Rather than putting the relationships first, they find ways to avoid getting hurt under the guise of "taking it slow" instead.
It used to be,
For better or worse,
til death do us part.
But to be parted, two things need to be together first. But if people are always expecting the worst and therefore have one foot out and backups, was the connection ever really given the chance to form?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
