When Is The Right Time To Move In Together?

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you, I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence, first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we'll be talking about moving in together in relationships. Oh, yes. Yes. This relates to confidence in a big way and it's significant. So whether you're currently already living with someone, this is going to be relevant. If you are dating someone and wondering about moving in together at some point, or even if you're single, you haven't done that in a while or you don't plan on doing that sometime soon, it doesn't matter because it's to happen at some point in your life. Right. You're going to be at a stage in a relationship where that's going to be a potential. Do we live together? How does that work? And so I want to give you some tips in this episode that are going to set you up to win in that way. And it really does come back to core confidence and some of the skills that you can develop with confidence. So I'm very excited to share these with you today. I think they'll be different than stuff you've heard and will really help you on that path. And speaking of dating and relationships, that is the next live event that's coming up. It's actually called Unlimited Dating and Relationships Confidence, and that is in October in Portland, Oregon. And I would love to see you there to experience that with you. We just had our event in June here called the Ultimate Confidence Breakthrough, and it was amazing. It. And I want you to experience it like nothing. If you've been, if you're a listener and you've been, then you'll know what I'm talking about. Nothing that we can do here in this format, as much as I can share and as engaged as you can be, no matter, you know, even if we're both giving it our all, it cannot compare to being together for three days and nights and just going into this with our full focus, energy, attention, heart, mind, everything and what comes out of it. Is truly extraordinary. So if you're wanting to reach the next level in confidence in your love life, in dating, and this not a bunch of pickup artist maneuvers or quick fixes, it's how do we get in there and fundamentally change your sense of yourself when it comes to love and connection, your feeling of attractiveness and worthiness to be desirable to others. That's what we're going for. Because I'm about not just a little change on the outside. I want radical and rapid transformation for you, for me, for all of us. And we don't do that by getting a new pickup line. We do that by fundamentally changing the way that you relate to yourself and others because you think you're more attractive or you feel more worthwhile and attractive. So we do a lot to shed a lot of the stories you might have about why you're not worthy. And whether it's a physical thing or a behavioral thing or a personality thing, maybe you don't even know. You're just like, they're out of my league. I'm not good enough. So we heal that in a deep way. And then have a lot of fun in breaking through fear, making yourself more playful, learning how to flirt, Just be more you, more magnetic. All kinds of fun stuff. So if you go to shrinkforthshyguy.com shrinkforthshyguy.com, we'll have a link right there on the side of that page that'll take you right to the event page. You can book your seat now. We do a variety of early bird stuff before the event, so go check there to see what the discounts are on tickets. But I cannot wait to see you there. If this speaks to you, then take the leap. I'd encourage you to do that. Speaking of taking the leap, taking the leap to move in together. How do you know when it's the right time to do that? Do I really want to do it? I don't know. And so let's get some clarity on this. Let's shed some light on this, and it will help you make the decision the next time you're in that position, or even if you're already living with someone, you can use some of these tips to improve that circumstance. So there's two big considerations we're going to be looking at today. One is time. And the other one I'll get to in a minute. I'll keep it as a secret. But time, let's look at time. So that's the first thing that people look at, right? It's like, well, how long have we been dating? Therefore, if it's been X amount of time, maybe we'll consider moving in together. Now that is one consideration. But it's not for the reason people think most people have. Most people are living their lives according to what other people have told them they should do. It's sort of a subjugated kind of just follow what we're taught kind of thing. Conformity that we may or may not be aware of depends on how many psychedelics you've taken. But so how that shows up in dating and relationships is, well, you're supposed to date someone for X. You have a template in your head. You're supposed to date someone for X amount of time. And you in this way, looking like this. And then that means that you get together in this other way and then you're gonna live together for X amount of time. Or not maybe you're not supposed to live together cause you're supposed to get married first or you're not supposed to have sex until this and then this and that. And it's sort of this internal rulebook that you have that's laid out by your culture, your religion, the family you grew up in, your parents, your peers, your relatives, your social group. It all comes together and you're like, must follow set plan. And so therefore you have a lot of people who are like play acting the relationship. Like, well, it's been X amount of time, so now let's move in together and let's do this and now we're going to get married and blah blah, blah. And people carry out that, play that act until eventually their emotional reactivity becomes so strong that it all falls apart. And then people will divorce. And even though they're trying to do the quote right thing, they're just like inside some part of them can't handle anymore. So let's not do that. Let's not live a life of just robotically following what we've been taught regardless of whether it's right for you. And that's why in my book, not nice, which is not about being a jerk, being the opposite of nice, is to be authentically you. And that's why the MVP question of that book, the most valuable question of that book, is what do I want? And really becoming clear on a deep level, what do I truly want? And I don't mean just like the surface level stuff, although that's maybe where you start. I mean, deep down, what matters to me? What do I really want with this relationship? How do I really want things to go and sometimes that takes some, some digging and some self reflection. The answers are not immediately right there. So when you're with someone, you want to be the selector. You want to be choosing like, do I want to go further with this person from the very beginning, do I want to go out with this person? Do I want to have a second date with this person? And if you fall into like, oh man, they're better than me, I hope they'll choose me, then what's going to happen is you're going to lose your ability to say what you want and don't want because now it's about catching them and getting them and a fear of losing them. And so really it's about you choosing them and of course they choose you back. Right? It's a two way street. But you are the selector from your perspective and that just doesn't go from the very beginning of the relationship. That also means when you're deciding how much time do I want to spend with this person, how do we want to pace the relationship? This is something I talk a lot about in the Dating Mastery course Inside of Confidence University, which is the pacing. And this is something that often people don't even realize it's a thing. They're just doing it unconsciously. But the pace of the relationship, how quickly do we go, how quickly do we go deep in terms of what we talk about, what we share, how much time we spend together, spending the night together, sleeping together, sort of becoming a couple, all these things you choose with the other person, but you get to. It takes two people, right? So it's not like, well, they wanted it so I had to, right? Or I don't even know what I want. Whatever you want, don't leave me. Then you're not choosing the pace. So part of that pacing though is going to be when do we move in together? And you want to really look inward. And so if partner is like we should, we should, what timeline are they operating on? Is it your timeline? Is it their parents timeline, what's going on? So time is so important for you to decide what feels right to you, what's going to work for you and to be able to communicate that, say, I want more time or this feels too fast for me being able to start conversations like that, which is a foreshadowing of the next key aspect of moving in together. But we'll get into that in a minute. Let's keep talking about time because here's why time is important and why I would not recommend moving in with someone within the first few weeks or even few months of dating them because, well, let me preface that by saying, look, if you're just like having fun and hanging out and let's shack up together for a couple months or whatever, and then I'm going to move on. And that's sort of the arrangement when you're moving in together, that's fine, whatever. Then you're just kind of spending, spending more time, more quickly together. But I'm talking about like if you're wanting to build a long lasting relationship maybe for the rest of your life, the reason you might want to pause and slow down the pace of moving in together so rapidly is for a couple of things. One is you want to have spent enough time with this person to know them more. Now you can. I'm continuing to get to know my wife and we've been together for eight years. So you don't just. There's no end to that. Right? But you know, after a certain chunk of time you get a good sense of that person. And Even if you spent 247 together for two weeks at the beginning of your relationship, you don't really know them fully. Because to know someone, you have to know them through different cycles or seasons in their life. Because maybe that person's having a great couple weeks, maybe they're just high on a bunch of love chemicals that you guys are sharing with each other, right? So how do they handle setbacks in their life? What happens when they have a downturn? What happens if they have a bad day at work? What happens if whatever they get sick or something occurs in their life? How do they deal with that? How do they treat you? This is often the case in relationships that go south. Is that person, they, the person's great when they're great and then all of a sudden, oh man, when they get upset or they're in a bad emotional state, look out. They don't handle that well at all. So you're going to want to date the person and find that out over time. So that's a reason to really spend that time together. And then you can also spend time not just over a period of months together, but you can spend larger chunks of time together straight, like go on a trip together, spend three days and a weekend together, or travel together somewhere for a week. Because when you do that, it's very hard to keep up the Persona for extended days in a row. So you're going to start to see them. You're going to start to see, are they grumpy at Times. How do they deal with their own irritability? Do they get restless? Do they blame you for things? Where does their stuff come out? Where does your stuff come out? And that doesn't mean, oh, I can't be with this person. They have issues. It's like, well, join the club. We all got issues, right? But it's for you to get a sense of, does this work for me? How mature is this person? How self aware is this person? How loving is this person? Is this person able to be loving even when they're hurting or even when they're upset? That's a big one, right? Because look, we all have fights. We all say things we don't mean. We all are not perfect. And there are ways that someone can treat you that are outside of the bounds of whatever you would stand for. So, yeah, maybe someone says something impatient or their voice tone is a little frustrated with you, okay, that's fine. But maybe them, like attacking your character or calling you harsh names or yelling at you, maybe that's like unacceptable to you. And that's great to find out before you're living together. Spend the night with each other, sort of try it. Don't spend a couple days together at their house or at your house. These are ways to really get a sense of that person in a much deeper way before you take the plunge to move in together. And there's going to be another thing that we're going to talk about that you want to factor in. But I'll say one more thing about timing, which is, you know, there's events in life that sometimes spur people to move in together. It's not always like, okay, in two more months we'll move in together and here's the countdown, and we have it all mapped out. Sometimes that happens, but sometimes it's like, oh, my landlord wants me to leave. I need to move. Well, why don't you just move in with me? It's like, because you've already been together and it seems like a good fit. And so sometimes those things get a little accelerated. And that's okay. It's okay to roll the dice a little bit and get a sense. So all these things that I'm saying about timing is not that you need to have it all perfectly mapped out. It's just give yourself enough of a space to get a sense of that person. And of course, be very aware of your own pacing and your own preferences around that. Having said that, if you have a more avoidant attachment style, which you can learn about in a great book Called Attached. I forget the authors, but you can just look it up on Amazon. Attached. The New Science of Human Bonding or something. I forget what it's called the subtitle. But if you have an avoidant attachment style, you may be very, very scared of moving in with somebody, even though you've got to know them really well and they're a really good fit. You're just like my things I don't even know. And I have a more avoidant attachment style. And that just means that you tend to be afraid to open up because you're afraid of losing that person. And the way you deal with that is by trying to keep distance. Not all the time. I mean, it could be all the time, but maybe you sometimes move towards them and then you kind of get want to create more space. And that's kind of an unconscious pattern to keep yourself safe. But if that's the case, then in my experience there was some stuff I needed to work through in order to open up to living with someone. And often part of that is figuring out what arrangement's gonna work and that's gonna lead us to the next thing to talk about, which is. So in addition to timing, the other big factor that you want to look at before you move in together and as you move in together is communication. So absolutely important, it's communication. How well do you communicate with each other? Have you had conflict with this person before, before you're moving in together? If the answer is no, then go have some before you move in together. And conflict looks like a lot of different things. Sometimes people hear the word conflict, like what comes to your mind when you hear me say conflict in relationship? People will think maybe fighting, yelling, throwing a plate against the wall, hitting someone with a frying pan, I don't know, whatever silly memes we get from tv. But conflict doesn't have to look like that. In fact, oftentimes conflict doesn't look like that. That's very dramatic. And it might in certain situations, but usually conflict is just harsh words, tense energy, passive aggression, stonewalling, not making eye contact, getting defensive, saying things like, well, then how come you're always telling me to do that? You know, it's just not yelling and it's not super intense, but it is very emotionally and energetically like rejecting. And it hurts, it doesn't matter. And this is what I discovered with my wife. We don't have yelling fights. We're both very self aware, self contained people. So we'll have conflict and we'll be talking. And whether it's yelling or more reasonable volume and listening and slower conflict still has the same feelings inside, which is the other person is not hearing me. I'm hurting. They're not doing something right. They need to be different. I'm angry at them. I want something different. They made me do this. Whatever it is, some version of blame and hurt inside and wanting something from them that they're not giving, whether it's a specific thing or listening to you or hearing you or agreeing with you or whatever it is. And you want to have that. You're going to have that in any relationship, and you want to be able to navigate that. You want to be able to talk about that with them and see how they handle it and how you handle it. Because when you move in together, there will be more of that because you're spending more time together. There's a lot more things to navigate from the big things, like how you're going to organize your life together now because you're in the spaces of the house and how you're going to coexist together, which filters all the way down to the most mundane little things like fridge space and cupboard usage and cleanliness in the kitchen and whatever. And then it's going to also ripple out into, like. It's going to affect everything, like your love life and making love and sleeping together and all that stuff is going to be affected by living together. And it requires the ability to communicate and to work through conflict or even just sharing more openly about what you want or what you don't want. Because you would be amazed. I've seen this before. You'd be amazed at how people are living together. And there's just an inability or a fear, I should say, because they could technically do it, but there's a fear of being. Of communicating. And so one person will be bothered by something that someone did, something small, but they won't say it. They won't say, hey, you know, I don't like that you always leave this thing out. And then I have to put it away. I don't like that you leave this this way, or your towel is gross in the bathroom or whatever, you know, and they don't say it. And they start to accumulate these resentments and they're irritated, and then they start to, like, build this story where they're blaming the other person for being messy. They start to make an identity for that person, oh, this person's a slob. They're not the way I thought they were. And they start to feel less attracted to them romantically. They don't want to have sex with them. So they get weird and distant and avoid them when the other person tries to initiate sex with them, but they don't tell them why. And they start to build this whole story up about how, oh, man, I made a mistake. I'm just not. Either there's something wrong with me, I can't commit, or there's something wrong with them. They're too slobbish and they're not attractive anymore, and I don't like them. And then they'll start to find other things because they're resentful, right? They'll start to find other things that don't actually bother them that now do bother them. Oh, I hate their laugh. Oh, the way they comb their ha. Hair is so annoying. Oh, they talk too much about their work, and it feels so solid and so real. And then they'll break up or be in a very unhappy, dysfunctional relationship. And you know the source of all that, those little annoyances, those little grievances. And as soon as I facilitated conversations with people where they could actually talk about this stuff and address what's bothering them and clear some of the resentment, all of a sudden, like, I love this person. They're amazing. And we can get stuck in this story. So you want to be able to communicate, even like pre conflict, just like, hey, you know, just like literally the other day, my wife, we have this little granola that we make. And my wife, we have these little bowls, and we both like to eat out of the little bowls, like these little kid bowls, because then you can put some almond milk, because we make our own almond milk, too. We're hippies. Almond milk. And then we put some granola in there, and you put a little bit of granola at a time and then eat it out of the bowl. Because if you make a big bowl of granola and it sits in the milk, it gets soggy. And that's not as good as crunchy granola, as everybody knows. Unless you're one of those soggy granola people. Unless you butter your toast on the. Of the bottom side of your bread, in which case we are at war. You're a. What are they called? You ever read the Butter battle book by Dr. Seuss? You haven't. You haven't boned up on all your Dr. Seuss reading recently? I haven't read it in a while. The Zigs and zags, Zaps and zoops. There's one side of the wall people wear. Put their butter on the top of their toast. And the other side, people put butter on the bottom of their toast. And so they have this, like, big wall between them. And there's like, this cold war of building better weapons to destroy those horrible people that butter their bread on the bottom side. Very good. That's pretty accurate to what humans actually do. But anyway. Soggy granola. Hope you're not one of those soggy granola people. Both me and my wife are crunchy granola people. But anyway, she'll eat her granola and she'll eat her little bowl, and then she'll, like, leave it somewhere on one of the kitchen counters. And so it's still got a little bit of milk in it. She ate all the granola. There's a little bit of milk, and there's a spoon, and the spoon is usually in the bowl, and the bowl is very small, and the spoon is heavy. And so, like, if anyone brushes it or touches it, it tips. And then the milk spills out. So there's several instances where the bowl is sitting out. One of the kids accidentally touches it, and then it spills. And then I clean it up. And so this happened, like, twice. And then I was going to bring it up, and I was just like, hey, I noticed that when you eat and notice how I observe how I bring it up. You know, you could say, hey, can you clean up your granola bowl when you're done? Which is, you know, how is that. That's going to make everyone feel great. Instead, I might say something like, which I did. Hey, baby, I noticed that when you eat granola, you seem to leave the bowl somewhere on the kitchen counter when you're done. I was curious about that because it's easy to tip, and sometimes the boys knock it over. Do you plan on coming back later and then just forget it? Or what's happening there? That's exactly how I brought it up. And then we talked about it. Do you notice how it doesn't have to have a charge? And there's some things I'm doing there. If you want to learn more about whatever the techniques I'm using, you can check out the book Not Nice, which goes a lot more in depth. There may be a different podcast episode I have about assertiveness, but so it's just. I notice I'm pointing something out. I'm not blaming. I'm trying to understand what's happening, trying to help her understand so we can come to a better solution, which is not to leave those things around. So little things like that you want to be Able to communicate about that. And you want to be able to communicate that about. Even if you're not living together in any relationship that you're dating. But it's going to become especially important as you live together. So timing, communication. And one other thing is going to be being able to communicate challenges you're having as well in the relationship. This becomes especially important because as soon as you start living together, your relationship's gone up to the next level of intimacy. I mean, whether you were thinking that or knowing that or not, even if you're not officially marrying or anything like that, just by virtue of living together, you're not a whole other level of intimacy. Like, you're sharing space with this person. You're with each other way more. You're probably sleeping in the same bed. So it's a big leap in intimacy. And so you want to be able to share and communicate not only the little things that bother you, but also bigger things, like around. So, for example, I was working with a client in the mastermind group who we started living with together, and. And the person he was with didn't do this as much when they were seeing each other, because they'd see each other a couple nights a week or something. And I guess she didn't do it at that time. But then once they started living together, she kind of got into her normal rhythms, which is every night before sleep, she watches tv. She's done that since she was a little kid. It was a way of maybe coping with some challenging stuff when she was younger and just what her family did. So she watches TV every night. And now that they're living together, it kind of became more of a thing, right? Because he gets home from work and then they maybe share a little meal or something, and then he wants to talk or hang out or make love or something. And she'll kind of have a couple shows she wants to watch. And it kind of became a thing where he felt like she was choosing the TV over him. He started to feel hurt, started to feel resentful. And so this is a. You got to talk about this, right? And we all know it. It's obvious from the outside. You're listening. You're like, yeah, just talk about it, dude. Come on. Right? But come on, when we're in that situation, do we. Do we put it off? Do we make comments about it? Do we get aggressive? Because that's what he did. He didn't talk about it. Didn't talk about it. And he started to make critical comments or blow up at her at random times. And we kind of got to the core of it. And it was this. It was like, this is what you need to address. You need to be able to talk about. And it's more nuanced than just going to her and say, hey, listen, if you want to be in a relationship with me, you got to choose. You want to choose the TV or me? Right. It's like, how's that going to go? Right? And we think that's being assertive, but that's just pretty ineffective. And it's being demanding. And what you really want to do is you want to just be curious. And it involves finding out about them. What's going on with her that she wants to watch the tv. What does she like about it? What would she feel if she were to not watch TV at night? And what about you? Can you share about you? Like, hey, I miss you. I feel it hurts in my heart when you watch the tv because I'm like, I'm wanting to connect with you. I'm missing you. And from my perspective, it's like you're choosing that over time together. And that's fine. I don't know a certain amount. I think there's probably a certain number of nights a week that that would feel okay to me. But every night it starts to hurt. And so I want more time with you. And maybe it's not at that, that one hour that you're going to watch TV every night. So maybe we could find a different time. But I want to keep talking about this. And now you're opening up a conversation like, how can we come closer together versus how can I make you do what I want? You owe it to me. Because when you come into a communication like that, it's over before we started. So these are the key ideas I want to share about moving in together. What is resonating with you? What are you going to take away from this? In fact, let's focus on that in your action step. Time for action. Action, action. So your action step for today may be literally to reflect on your relationship and see where you're at. Like, if timing is right and you happen to be, like, considering moving in together, you're like, no, okay, this is perfect. And if so, look at where you're at. Look at timing, look at what you really want versus what society or parents or other people are pressuring you to do. Or even pressure you feel, even if no one's saying it, pressure you feel from your partner. Really take some steps back and look inward and see what do I want? Know that you have choice around pacing. Also look at timing of how well do I know this person? Have I seen them over different seasons and cycles? Look at timing in terms of have we spent good long chunks of time together or see them day in and day out. And then of course in the communication stuff, which we've just been talking about, communicating about the small stuff, communicating about conflict, communicating about your bigger desires and things you want or need in a relationship, all that becomes very essential around moving in together. So if you're wondering is now the right time or not? Well check about do you have a good sense of that person? And have you had higher level communication yet? And if you hadn't and you're just like hanging out together and it's all light and easy and fun, you never really talked about anything between you two and what's happening in the relationship. Then have a couple of those conversations before you move in together because those are going to be really important to help that work as you move forward. So that's your action step is to have those conversations and even if you're not moving in together, have those conversations. Even if you're not in a relationship, have a conversation where you're more assertive, saying what you want more, being more direct, bringing up something that's bothering you. Because even just building that muscle of assertiveness will benefit you in all areas of your life. All relationships work, social and romantic, and it will prepare you for your dating life, your next relationship, because you'll be better off and better to be able to communicate. So thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Azeez. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to social confidencecenter.com. Sa.