Relationships6 August 20265 min read

Before Moving In Together: 40 Things to Settle First

Forty concrete questions to settle before sharing an address: money, housework, space and guests.

Short answer

Most arguments in a couple's first year of living together are not about the relationship — they are about running a household: who cleans when, how rent splits, how often guests come. Left undiscussed, each person assumes the arrangement they came from, and those assumptions collide within the first month. This piece has 40 questions across four areas, what to settle before the move versus after, and why the first three months are not representative. Short answer: discuss the household, not the relationship.

First-year arguments are not about the relationship

Most of the arguments in a couple's first year of sharing a home are not about the relationship. They are about running a household: who cleans and when, how rent and bills divide, how often people come over, how much time alone each person needs.

None of this gets discussed before the move because none of it is romantic. Each person assumes the arrangement they came from — from their family, or a previous flatshare — and the assumptions collide inside the first month.

The collision itself is normal. The problem is that the argument ends up being about "why did we never discuss this", with both people convinced the other is being unreasonable.

1. Money and costs

The most concrete area and the most deferred. For couples with different incomes, skipping this before the move means it forces itself in the first three months.

01How do rent and bills split — evenly, or by income?
02Are we opening a joint account?
03How do groceries and household costs get shared?
04Who earns what, exactly?
05How do we decide on buying things for the flat?
06How much can either of us spend without asking?
07What happens if one of us loses their job?
08Who has debt, and how much?
09How do the deposit and moving costs divide?
10If we split up, what happens to the furniture?

2. Housework and routine

The most mundane-looking area and the most argued over. These want concrete answers; "we'll figure it out" does not survive contact with a real kitchen.

01How does the housework divide — should we list it out?
02Who cooks, who washes up?
03How often do you think cleaning happens?
04How much does mess bother you?
05Do beds get made, and daily?
06When does laundry happen, and who does it?
07Are we getting help in?
08Do we eat together or separately?
09How do we tell each other when something has not been done?
10What does each of us absolutely not want to do?

3. Space and time

The least discussed area and the most decisive long term. How much solitude two people need in one home is independent of how the relationship is going.

01How much time alone do you need?
02When you get home, do you want to talk straight away or be quiet first?
03Should each of us have our own room or corner?
04What are your sleep patterns?
05Are weekends spent together, or are separate plans fine?
06If you work from home, how do we draw the line?
07How often do you see friends without me?
08Does time apart bother you?
09How do you say you need quiet?
10Should we have a rule about phones and screens at home?

4. Guests and family

The area that causes trouble fastest after a move, because both people already have habits and they are usually different.

01How often do guests come over?
02Do people turn up unannounced?
03How often does your family visit, and how long do they stay?
04Will our families have keys?
05Can friends stay, and for how long?
06Whose family do we visit at holidays?
07What does your family think about this arrangement?
08Do our families weigh in on decisions about our home?
09If one of us is uncomfortable with a guest, how do we say so?
10How often do you want the flat to be full of people?

Before the move or after?

Not all forty of these need discussing before the move, and some only make sense once you are living together.

Money and space belong before: those are hard to reverse. Housework and guests work better in the first month, discussed against real situations rather than hypotheticals.

01Money and space: before the move.
02Housework: in the first month, using a real example.
03Guests and family: before the first visitor.
04What happens if you split up: before the move, even briefly.

Why the first three months are misleading

In the first three months both people are on their best behaviour: more cleaning, fewer complaints, arguments deferred. When that ends it is not the relationship deteriorating — it is the real arrangement appearing.

Knowing this helps, because the first genuine argument around month three feels to most couples like evidence they made a mistake. It is a normal stage of the process.

01Do not mistake the first month's arrangement for the permanent one.
02Do not read the month-three argument as a verdict on the relationship.
03Revisit the arrangement at six months; the first conversation is always incomplete.
04If something is not working, change it rather than adapting to it.

Starting the conversation

Most of these do not open with "we need to sit down and talk" — the sentence itself adds weight and puts the other person on the defensive. A ready-made list lowers the threshold, because the question comes from the list rather than from one of you.

The Modern Dating Problems deck carries questions about the relationship and daily arrangements alike. First Date Behaviour, placed between the heavier subjects, keeps the conversation from becoming exhausting. Because both people answer the same prompt, it never runs one way.

Frequently asked questions

What should you discuss before moving in together?

Money, space, housework and guests. Of those, money and space belong before the move because they are hard to reverse; housework and guests are better discussed in the first month against real situations.

What do couples argue about most in the first year?

Running the household: cleaning frequency, splitting costs, guests and the need for time alone. These arguments are not about the relationship but look like relationship problems, because each person assumed the arrangement they came from.

How should costs be split?

Evenly where incomes match, proportionally where they do not — the proportional split produces fewer arguments. What matters more than the method is having agreed it before the move; arrangements improvised later get renegotiated at every expense.

Why do the first three months go so smoothly?

Because both people are on their best behaviour: more cleaning, fewer complaints, deferred arguments. The end of that period is not deterioration, it is the real arrangement surfacing, and the first argument around month three is a normal stage.

Is it bad to discuss splitting up before moving in?

Not bad, and briefly necessary. Who bought which furniture, whose money the deposit came from, whose name is on the contract — undiscussed, those turn an already difficult period into a list of things to untangle.

Card sets mentioned in this post

Modern Dating Problems

Ghosting, breadcrumbing, situationships — 100 question cards on the unnamed problems of modern relationships.

First Date Behaviour

100 conversation cards about what counts as acceptable — and what counts as a red flag — on a first date.

Let’s Meet Again #1

100 question cards that reintroduce you to someone you thought you knew. Opens with questions anyone can answer, ends somewhere nobody expected.

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