My main question will be about preparing to move in with a significant other, mostly about what to consider about paying shared bills/house needs.
If you want to read the boring lead up to my question, I’ll start with, so I guess I’m a late bloomer in the adult dating department and find myself, at the “tender” age of a perimenopausal 43, in a nearly year long relationship discussing plans with my boyfriend (50) to move in together. I dated in high school and into college and then just didn’t notice many opportunities and didn’t care and was fine with that. But at my new employer as of last year I kept meeting this guy through another company (food) that my employer worked with and I started to notice getting nervous around this guy I saw every few weeks/months which hasn’t happened in a looooong time. Anyway, took a minute to get him to notice me but here we are! Things are going really well, we seem to be a really good fit. I’ve looked for red flags because I’m still so surprised to be in this situation, but really, we have similar temperaments, interests, silliness, and are able to communicate well (like, I told him I sometimes will need space because I just like being in my own company, and he totally gets it. No hard feelings. We can tell one another what we need without it being A Problem). Both his parents really like me (I’m told this hasn’t always been true of his previous girlfriends), and my dad even wrote his name on the family birthday calendar (whoa!).
He’s lived with a few other women before and obviously it didn’t work out. He’s now dating a planner and we’ve had lots of discussions about moving in which he never really did before. I guess before he and his now exes were like, move in together? Great. Here’s my stuff! But he has basically been living at my place since we had “snowmageddon” after Thanksgiving and he couldn’t even park at his apartment because, even plowed, there was too much snow for his car, but he hasn’t moved anything big in, just his favorite pots, pans, and of course his cat. But now we’re discussing doing this thing officially. Not tomorrow, but his lease is up in March so he’s going to keep his apartment for now while we continue to navigate our relationship/living together.
What’s the best way to make things equal and lessen potential resentment? Here’s the situation. I own my small house–outright. No mortgage, though of course I pay property and school taxes. He is willing to help with those taxes and utilities. I don’t think I’m ready to add him to the deed or anything. Maybe if we get married. We both make just about the same amount of money (not a ton, but just shy of $50,000 a year for both of us, this goes pretty far in my small PA city).
How should we do this? Does he just pay me half of the utilities at the end of the month, and same for when property or school taxes come due?
If I need a new, say, fridge, do I pay for it myself since it would stay at this house (should we break up)? I don’t want to feel like a landlord, but how do I consider something like wear and tear on things around the house? Carpets, washer/dryer, and so on. Something will eventually happen that needs replaced or fixed.
As I said, he’s been open to discussing all of this, and we have, but I wanted to ask you all what you think because this group always has good ideas and other things to consider. I’m excited about being moved in officially together (he is too!), but I’m also super practical about things, which is less romantic, but maybe in this situation that’s a good thing?