Day 28: It’s All Fun & Games Until You Start Staying Together!

‘Kuchaya Mapoto translation Cohabiting”

Dating can be a really fun experience.  From the dates, the gifts,the getting to know each other phase.  Your partner seems perfect, too perfect sometimes you start thinking they might be too good to be true.  In my opinion it’s like that because you don’t get to spend ALL your time with them.  I think the one time you truly get to find out who you are dating is when you start living together.  I once tried out cohabiting and the first few months were bliss.  Nothing can compare to waking up next to the person who makes your heart go pitter-patter.  Lovely as it may seem, there are a few issues that come with living together, let me list a few of them.  This was my experience…

Sleeping Patterns

I sleep really early.  On a good day I am lights out anytime before 9:30pm.  When I go to sleep I want complete darkness in the room and no background noise.  That wasn’t the same for my partner.  He loved watching TV in bed and he used to wake up at ungodly hours to watch NFL games.  You can imagine how annoyed I got because that meant I would be wide awake and most times I had work the next day and that just made me very cranky come morning.  He was happy he got to watch the game, I was pissed off because I didn’t have enough sleep.  Drama, drama!

Bad Habits

We all have our little bad habits that are magnified once we start spending all our time with someone. Things like:

• not putting the toilet seat back down when you finish using the loo.
• not flushing after you finishing doing whatever business you choose to partake in in the loo.
• farting in the presence of your partner. I know this one becomes inevitable after staying together for a long time BUT personally, it’s a no no.
• not picking up after yourself.
• not making the bed, in my world if you are the last one to leave the bed it’s your job to sure you make it, sounds fair to me.

Household Chores

This can be a real train smash if one of you is lazy.  You might end up feeling taken for granted because all the household chores will be on your list of things to do.  From experience I have concluded that everyone has something that they don’t mind doing housework wise and something they absolutely can’t stand!  For example, I don’t mind doing laundry, it’s the ironing part I can’t deal with.  I used to do all the laundry and once it was dry I would fold it and pack it away and iron as I go.  My partner found it absolutely ridiculous.  He believed once laundry was done it had to be ironed there and then. For the sake of peace and progress we split that chore and made sure I washed and he ironed, everyone is happy.  However, the other chores around the house were a real mission because he was lazy and I ended up doing everything else and resented him as each day passed by.

Finances

I like saving for a rainy day.  I am that one person who probably has some money stashed away somewhere for emergencies.  I don’t believe in spending all my money and then worrying about how I am going to get to my next pay cheque.  My partner on the other hand loved blowing his money.  We would sit down, draw up a budget and agreed that come end of the month we would do a,b,c,d.  You don’t know what frustration is until you get home and find out that your partner has bought a $50 shirt that wasn’t a part of the budget and now you have to forgo important things that month.  It’s at that point that you realise that people clearly have different priorities.  Don’t get me wrong, getting yourself new things is all fine and dandy but when you have talked about things beforehand it would be important to communicate such decisions for the sake of peace and progress.

Sex

This blog would be incomplete without mentioning  sex.  Trust me when I tell you, the sex will be amazing.  Well, it was for me.  Sex at any time of day, no need to send a message asking “Sweetiepie how long are you going to take to get here?” when you are feeling hot and bothered because you have your partner with you.  You can explore, experiment and get enough the orgasms because there is no rush to go anywhere.  BUT there is obviously a big but in this; when things are not going well between a couple especially due to some of the issues I have mentioned above sex might not even happen.  Couples that are usually unhappy end up not having sex and just become room mates who happen to share a bed.  Thankfully we didn’t experience this because maybe we were just sex addicts (if sex saved relationships we would probably still be together) but for some I have heard that you can go a pretty long time without sex when your partner is mad at you.

Depression

This is an actual thing!  When you stay with someone chances of feeling depressed are actually very high especially when things are not going well between the two of you.  I remember we used to have cases where after a verbal fight he would walk out of the house and not come back.  Sometimes he would go for a whole weekend and I would be worried sick to my stomach not knowing if him walking away meant we had broken up, if he was alive, if he still wanted to talk to me…I had a million questions going through my head and him not picking up my calls or replying my messages made me all the more miserable.  I ended up feeling depressed and even after he came back and we talked things through in my heart I was never settled because I kept thinking one day he is going to walk away and never come back.  I had no hold on him, after all we were cohabiting and not legally married…

To be honest, if you are thinking of cohabiting I say give it a try knowing that it might actually work out for you and if marriage is the end goal for both of you it might happen.  They say compromise is key right?  If you find that special someone you can gladly compromise then by all means don’t let my experience stop you.

Personally I won’t try it again, I have crossed out my bucket list in that department.  It was beautiful while it lasted but I love my space too much to have anyone else all up in it.  All that freedom to just be myself and do absolutely nothing all day in peace is priceless.  Then again I can’t exactly be alone for the rest of my life it would be nice to have someone to share all my highs and lows.  What would probably work would be staying in different apartments in the same building but we are still a couple(such wishful thinking!)or just getting married and buying a big house where you can always retreat to a different room when you are feeling upset and reconcile when you have cooled down…

My favourite ladies discussed the cohabiting topic sometime this year on the talk show, The Real and you should watch it and hear out their thoughts on the subject matter. 

After all is said and done, what matters the most is how you feel about each other and how far you are willing to go to make your relationship work.  Do what works for you and for the betterment of your living arrangement because at the end of the day what’s important is your happiness.  When you decide to stay with your partner get in it with open eyes and an open heart.

Today is Day 28 of the #30DayAfriBlogger Challenge we are supposed to state ONLY the advantages or disadvantages of cohabiting but did you see just how overzealous I got??!!

Have you been in a cohabiting scenario before.  How did it work for you?  Are you still together with your cohabiting partner?  Are there any tips you would want to share on how to make living together more manageable?  Are you pro or anti cohabiting?

©MaKupsy 2016