What Living With Someone Is

Talking about barely scraping by and he says "Hell, I have a roommate and a good job and I'm barely making it."

Knowing a bit about his money situation,  I'm still a bit incredulous.  "I could totally get us both by on only what you make."

"Well, I'm sure you could but I'd have to change how I live."

Ah,  and that's the crux of it,  isn't it?  You've had long - long-term relationships but you've never lived with someone.  Living with someone is different.

It's more money until one of you hits a rough patch and loses their job or gets ill.   It's someone being scared shitless about the bills and another person pretending they aren't. It's telling someone to quit that job that's dangerous, that you'll be able to get by until they find something else.

It's sacrificing your guilty pleasures to the budget. It's "fuck the budget,  you're pms-ing and deserve fried food and chocolate."

It's "I never get chinese because he doesn't like it." It's "I can't keep chips or ice cream or beer or crackers (fucking crackers!? ) in the house for more than a few days and stuff is never there when I want to eat it because someone else always eats it first." It's someone else doing the grocery shopping on pay day. It's "Daddy, can you make me carbonera?" And he says yes but he has to look it up online because he doesn't actually know how to make it. It's bacon and fried eggs that put every restaurant to shame on mornings when he's up before you go to work.

It's not being able to get yourself something without getting something for them. It's either eating your Taco Bell really fast & throwing the wrappers away in the dumpster before you get home because buying for two or three means spending $20 for a single trip. It's knowing which their favorite candy bar, beer or wine, and fast food order. It's the look of surprise on their face when you bring it to them, even if you really only got them something because you wanted something.

It's cleaning up the kitchen only for it to be dirty an hour later. It's "I just cleaned this sink. Do you not see all these little beard trimmings you left here?" It's "that doesn't go in that basket!" It's someone else scrubbing the tub, with baking soda not bleach like you would have used.  It's someone else walking the trash out in the dark. It's someone else helping you carry stuff to your car so you don't have to make two trips. It's someone appreciating that clean kitchen. It's knowing they look forward to hearing whatever new album you are currently obsessed with and how you sing softly to yourself while you do the dishes.

It's never enough sex for one of you.  It's fucking when you dont feel like it beacause you know they are feeling deprived or unloved. It's cuddling or petting their aching head or rubbing their cramping belly, even though you really want sex. It's sex that lasts all weekend the first time you get a full two days alone and finally feeling reconnected. It's them diving between your legs until you cum when you poutingly refuse to get out of bed to go to work without sex.

It's not having that extra money so you can go to every concert you want to,  or fly across the country to visit a friend,  or take off work half a week to see your team play in the college club hockey championship. For awhile, it's just visiting family for holidays, having to put up with theirs. It's going to their friend's wedding and staying in an allergen - filled house because there are no motels nearby,  as if you could afford one. It's planning trips on the cheap around the hobby of one of you that the other doesn't really like. It's finding a place you've both always wanted to go and dreaming and saving for it. It's showing them the California coast because they've never been. It's an Alaskan cruise for your 25th. It's your kids taking you to Ireland for your 40th. It's taking your granddaughter to Disney.

It's having to put up with someone else's crazy family, watch them hurt that person and you dont get to just say "tell them to go fuck themselves." It's weird foods and traditions. It's people getting in your business.  It's someone forcing you to spend Christmas with your mama before you deploy. It's someone standing with you at your father's deathbed. It's simeone holding down the fort while you stay with your brother in hospice three hours away on family leave. It's someone who buys a two duplex building so you can move your parents in next door and help care for your ailing mother.

It's more money but still never enough. It's an extra set of hands but a pain in the ass. It's someone else to shoulder the load but it's constant work. It costs more than you have, in ways that you can't see on a spreadsheet,  and it's worth every penny. But you'll never know that if you don't stop worrying so much about what yoy lose and ignoring what you gain. It might not have worked out for me this time but I'll still do it again. And I'd even do this one again.