Moving in with someone is a big deal. They say that you never fully experience a person for who they really are unless you start living with them. It is only when this happens that you are privy to their full spectrum of emotions and exposed to the face behind the mask. I am no stranger to this mask. If we ask ourselves honestly, most of us aren’t either. Without this a person is raw and their baggage is exposed. They no longer hold back the tears, the laughter, the anger and are stripped back to being completely themselves.
For some couples the process of moving in may not impact their relationship as much as others. Often we are more likely to be ourselves around our partners anyway, it’s just a matter of how far we truly let them in. In my case, I would like to think that I’ve always been fairly open however, I admit that there were instances where I held things back, thoughts that I left unspoken and frustrations which bubbled underneath the surface. Not living with my partner helped me to conceal these “glitches” as secrets locked inside of me. Those were the things that I feared my partner wouldn’t love.
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The Decision
Like so many others during this uncertain time, we were forced to make a decision totally out of the blue with little time to mull things over. I was only supposed to be staying with him for a few weeks over the Easter break before I would return to university and finish my masters. Alas, the lockdown was announced three days into my stay and a few days later my university closed and accommodation fees were refunded. Although I acknowledge the privilege of our situation as many couples are having to face a lot of time spent apart, the decision to move in was not one that I took lightly.
We had only been dating for eight months and although we had previously talked about moving in together in August, that had always felt so far away. I often romanticized it so much that it didn’t even seem real, just another thing on the bucket list that we would eventually get around to doing.
After four failed relationships all lasting just under a year, I was initially very nervous and overwhelmed. The Easter break provided us with an opportunity to practice what it was like living with each other for a few solid weeks and to have it transform into the real deal was a lot to take in.
After enduring the struggles of a long-distance relationship for the past four months, my partner and I had molded our lives together but apart. Whilst we cursed the distance we became used to it and had found coping mechanisms and support strategies that we had adapted to overcome its difficulties. The distance made us work better as a team. Without it would we work just as well? The saying “distance makes the heart grow fonder” crept into my mind like a warning. Now we would find out how much of a role distance actually played in keeping our love alive.
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Mixed emotions
For the first few days after the decision was made, I felt odd. As much as I tried to hide it, I knew that it showed. My moods were volatile and increasingly irritable. I was angry at myself for not being happy. This is what I had always wanted, right? I looked back upon the moments where I was in my partners arms whispering sweet nothings into his ear.
“I wish we could never be apart”
I’d say that often, especially on the nights before he was due back home, one hundred miles away from me.
Now my wish had been granted and I still didn’t feel quite right. Had I meant what I said at the time? Looking back I can see that I did but in those moments time stood still and I heard myself saying things based on the temporary bliss that I was feeling in those precise moments. This is not to say I don’t love my partner, but rather to say that I was not mentally prepared for living with him at the time. When I wished we could be together, it was merely a wish. A wish that I didn’t think would happen so soon.
Over time these thoughts started to madden me and I tried to rebuild walls to protect myself from the inevitable hurt that I thought I would bring upon myself. Eventually, I was forced to confess to my partner. After hearing them, he sighed.
“You’re your own worst enemy, you know that right?”
I mumbled some embarrassed words into his chest. He said that I always entered into these vicious cycles which made me believe that I wasn’t good enough. Once I believed that I was encouraged to act in ways that would confirm this. A defence mechanism to stop me getting hurt. He wrapped his arms around me and told me that he was looking forward to seeing the “real me”, raw and unfiltered and that I shouldn’t be so scared of showing it. I knew that the only way to go forwards was to try and block out the “what if’s” and “buts” of our relationship and let it takes its natural course.
Adapting
After the first few weeks of living with my partner, it still didn’t feel real. I felt like I was on an extended break and was waiting for the inevitable phone call to tell me that the pandemic had ceased and university had reopened summoning me back like always. I waited and waited but the call never came. The permanency of my decision started to gradually sink in.
After our chat and his reassurance, I tried not to think about me so much. Me and my volatile ways. I started to let myself do my own thing without the repercussions of negative rumination. He had always been the “chilled one” out of both of us and that was something that I had to accept rather than constantly comparing myself to. His temperament meant that he just wasn’t going to get as frustrated as frequently as I did and I had to accept this.
Instead of trying to copy his lead and become someone that I wasn’t, I started to live as myself. This was the person I was before I moved in with him. The unsaid thoughts were finally spoken and the lid of bubbled up frustrations were tentatively taken off. This certainly led to some tense moments and disagreements but like most things we always worked them out. My fears that confrontation would shatter our relationship finally subsided as I realised that a relationship was full of the imperfections along with the everything else.
I was finally being unapologetically me whilst living with a partner for the first time in my life. Despite lockdown, I felt a sense freedom that I had never experienced before. Adapting to live with someone doesn’t necessarily mean changing your ways. For me, it meant reverting to the old me, the one that lived behind closed doors. Adapting became about re-learning to be myself and letting my partner love me for who I truly am.
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Originally published on Medium
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