Keeping life EXCITING when living together! Avoiding routine, etc. (OMG, we moved in)

[blackcat777]

So! My question is, once a couple is living together, what sort of things do you do to keep life exciting? I feel like it is VERY easy to fall into routine and there will naturally be a greater deal of familiarity, but I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts about how they like to shake things up!

 

Obviously things like vacations, adventures, making time for intimacy and romance are some obvious ones that come to mind... Springing a surprise on someone while living together is significantly harder

 

***

 

And for those of you who want to read more and rant interesting thoughts to me... A quick update on Black Cat's life drama After a lot of internal debate, I decided to go ahead and move in with my boyfriend.

 

I'm PAINFULLY aware of all the admonitions about why it's bad to give your milk away for free when you're a cow, and I really didn't want to move in with anyone unless there was a ring and THAT'S IT (what I learned from my previous life mistakes and attitudes)... My boyfriend and I were originally planning to do this after he graduates (two more years), and that's when he wants to get married (he also says things like not sure if he could wait that long ), but it seemed like the best plan. My boyfriend is almost 9 years younger, and I wanted him to live on his own for long enough until he felt like he was ready to live with a partner.

 

Boyfriend and I were an hour apart in an LTR. I was stuck living at my dad's house which slowly drove me insane. I was stuck living in inbred backwater hick town where wages were impossibly low (less than 1/3 of what I was making compared to any place I lived before). I went to school to better myself, and for some reason (unbeknownst to me to this day) my dad was INSANELY unsupportive and condescending. I was pretty depressed by the end of the summer and felt trapped. I fought as hard as I could and my best efforts weren't good enough to escape the bear trap that was that horrible town. (I had some angsty threads here while losing my marbles.)

 

Boyfriend had a place near his school with a bunch of other guys. Other guys started using heroin heavily, stealing from each other and beating each other up. When boyfriend wasn't being attacked, he was breaking up fights. Boyfriend was originally appointed by the group to hand checks to landlord, and everyone was behind on their rent (but had no problem buying Grey Goose and Patron). My boyfriend ended up paying portions of else's rent in that house, utilities.

 

My boyfriend was also the only one of them that had a job and worked for his rent... mommy and daddy sent rent money on time to the others, they just blew it on booze and drugs and never gave it to my boyfriend when they were supposed to. AND my boyfriend was trying to deal with that crap while studying to be in the medical field.

 

We wanted to wait longer... but we were both in bad situations that desperately needed to change.

 

I know financials/life pressure aren't necessarily the best reasons to move in together... but on the flip side...

 

We HAVE been together for two years now

 

We were also spending 5-6 nights/week together whenever possible (summers, breaks), so we had a pretty good idea of what living together would entail.

 

This Christmas, my boyfriend sat me down and told me seriously he wants to get married when he graduates, he told me where and how he wants to do it (and the band he wants to have playing and the song he wants to play while we walk down the aisle... which is actually the exact same wedding fantasy I had in mind, but never dared to admit to him ). He's talked casually about it lots before, but this was the day he sat me down and was like this. is. how. it. is.

 

We both agree it would be very impractical to stir up a big fuss about a wedding and have a formal engagement ruckus right now, when what he needs to focus on is school, and much of the wedding wedding stuff would be more for family. Boyfriend's family is HUGE and it would be a very big deal. Bridezilla isn't my style, I'm more interested in learning how to cultivate the healthiest relationship possible... (seeing as my divorced parents are respectively on marriage #3 and #4)

 

While life sort of forced a change earlier than I would have liked in my perfect world, reality isn't perfect, and I do think the important thing is that our intentions are in the right place.

 

We've lived together for a little more than a month now, and we're still honeymooning like the biggest idiots 24/7 :love: I live near a city with CULTURE for the first time since I've moved home, I have a great job, and a lot of options to start something independently in my field with my new license.

 

So life is really good! Pardon the big silly rant about how things have been

 

For my boyfriend to be off the hook for rent at his old apartment, all the other guys had to do was allow a subletter to move in. One refuses to sign for a subletter purely out of spite and my boyfriend owes $3k in rent for a house that wasn't safe to live in. Because it was in a college town, the lease was structured so there was no way to break it. Boyfriend even saw a lawyer and the only recourse he could have had was suing his roommates. But god knows what would have happened if he stayed there, and any kind of criminal record would destroy his career, so I tell him it was a small price to pay. The biggest scumbag in that house used to say things to him like, "I'm jealous you're the only one here who wasn't been arrested." :sick:

 

I also had a strange feeling my dad would be back to being nice as pie to me once I moved out, which he has been. I'll take it. I'll never understand my dad, but, whatever. He's really all the family I have. I've been visiting him about once a week and bringing him food I cooked, which he seems to enjoy.

[basil67]

We used to work near each other, so each Friday evening (following drinks with his workmates) we'd catch whichever bus was headed in roughly the right direction home and have dinner where ever we ended up.

[CarrieT]

My husband and I have Date Night at least once a week.

 

That might involve dinner out, a movie, a concert, or a museum.

 

But it involves putting our phones away and being 100% with other and not our electronic devices or other people.

[katiegrl]

This is gonna sound completely unconventional but my ex and I (we lived together 4 years)... had separate bedrooms.

 

Oh we slept together (in the same room) most nights, but some nights I would go into my bedroom alone...and he would sneak in in the middle of the night... it kept our sex life really exciting and fun.

 

Also sometimes, we would head off to a club separately (him first), then I would walk in, sit at the other end of the bar, and he would proceed to "pick me up"... like he never met me before.

 

One time the bartender commented how well we were getting along for two people who had just met (we were basically all over each other at the bar....lol) and we ended up telling him we've been together three years (at that time it was three years) and he just cracked up!

 

We also gave each other a lot of space while we were home. Our place was big so we could do that. And as I said, I had my own room too, it was my "space" and he had his "space."

 

It really worked for us.... or RL was pretty exciting until we broke up last December after I discovered he got involved in hard drugs... and things pretty much went downhill after that.

 

But for years things were great.... super fun and exciting (although we did go through some rough patches too).

 

But it's important to be creative so as to keep things fresh.

Edited March 2, 2016 by katiegrl