As a highly transitional period, a house move can put a lot of pressure on a relationship.
There are many reasons, both personal and circumstantial, why a couple may find it extremely hard to keep their usual composure, patience, and harmony when getting ready to move out.
Moving house is a big step in a relationship and the moving process will bring about many significant changes that are sure to affect both partners in various ways.
Things can get really complicated if one of the partners wants to move but the other one doesn’t. In addition to that, there are other relocation scenarios as well that could prove to be detrimental to a healthy relationship… unless major steps are taken to prevent such a personal disaster from taking place.
If you get the funny feeling that your relationship might be in danger when you’re preparing to move to a new home, then you should definitely follow these 5 tips for maintaining a strong relationship while moving.
1. Make sure you both want the move to happen
The very first thing you and your partner should do is discuss the upcoming move in order to figure out where each of you stands.
Ideally, both of you will be willing to proceed with the move, that is – you’ll both want to move out for whatever the underlying reason might be.
This way, you and your partner will work together as a team and you’ll be able to handle all the required move-related tasks, one by one, until the house move is successfully completed.
It’s important to know that you and your significant other are on the same page when it comes to what needs to be done prior to moving out. After all, it’s not a secret that good teamwork is crucial for the outright success of the house-moving operation.
However, it’s possible that your partner doesn’t want to move for one reason or another – a very unpleasant scenario that will surely complicate things even further. If he or she is willing to go through with the move, then you must sit down and discuss the issue openly in order to find a mutually beneficial solution.
The only way to resolve the situation when one of you refuses to move is to be sincere with each other about the situation.
Of course, you will want to try to persuade your partner to see things your way, so the best way to do it is to do your homework in advance, meaning that you should back up your arguments with simple facts during the discussion.
Be completely honest with each other – this is the only way to keep your relationship intact during the move. When you want to move but your significant other doesn’t want to do it, then it’s up to you to present to them the clear advantages of the upcoming move.
A successful move is all about making the right decisions… together.
Moving house is an entire process that requires many choices to be made along the way.
Starting with one of the very first dilemmas you’ll have to solve – Should you hire movers or should you move by yourself? – you’ll have to make tons of other equally important decisions in order to guarantee a successful end of the relocation story.
Each decision you make should be made together with your partner so that it can be an informed decision – the best one under the presented set of circumstances.
Sometimes you’ll have no-brainer decisions to make (Yes, you’re moving the antique chest of drawers no matter the cost) but you might also be faced with some impossible choices that will require not only some serious thought but also a comparative analysis of the pros and cons of whether you should do it or not.
To preserve the peace and harmony between you and your loved one, you must make sure you make all critical decisions together. This is exactly why you just have to keep the communication channel open between you two and encourage the other party to share with you their feelings, thoughts, opinions, and impressions throughout the relocation process.
Set a good example by not keeping anything all to yourself – stay open with the person next to you and you’re very likely to be treated the same way. After all, you’re in the same boat together so constant communication is often the key to smooth sailing and a problem-free relationship with your spouse or partner.
Most importantly – avoid unpleasant surprises or mismatched expectations by not keeping anything hidden from the person you’re expected to trust the most.
The thing is that you’re not likely to see eye to eye with your partner about each and every issue that arises during the house move.
Sometimes you’ll want to do something which they won’t. Other times, you’ll wish to complete a task in a certain way but your spouse or partner will have other ideas about the best way to tackle that.
And that’s OK.
Differences of opinion are normal during a stressful life event such as a move – after all, different people see things differently. The real question is how you should proceed when you’re faced with a lack of agreement about an important issue.
You would love to keep your relationship with your spouse or partner intact during the move, don’t you? Assuming that your answer is YES, then you should not try to impose your opinion on them.
Instead, try to work out a satisfactory compromise if neither party is willing to yield.
For instance, if you want to hire a full-service moving company to take care of all aspects of the move so that neither of you will have to lift a finger BUT your partner insists on organizing a full-scale DIY move from start to finish, then a good compromise will be to pack up your things by yourself and hire the movers only to load all household items onto their truck, drive, and deliver all boxes, appliances, and furniture to the new address.
This way, you’ll be able to save good money by not having to pay professional packers while eliminating all potential risks and dangers of driving a big truck across the country.
Of course, some compromises will work better than others but ultimately, the art of knowing when to yield for the sake of peace and harmony at home will help you maintain a healthy relationship of mutual understanding, support, and respect.
Failure to distribute moving tasks fairly could disrupt the peaceful equilibrium at home.
If you don’t wish the approaching house move to affect the relationship with your spouse or partner in a negative way, then you should do all in your power to keep things fair throughout the move.
Now, it wouldn’t be fair if one of you did all or almost all of the work by yourself while the other one was sitting on the couch and watching TV all day, would it?
One of your main goals should be to try to distribute the tasks fairly evenly between you two so that none of you gets too overwhelmed by the heavy burden.
There’s so much work to do when moving out that it’s usually impossible for one person to manage it all by themselves. But even if it were possible, it shouldn’t be how it’s supposed to happen when a couple is working toward one and the same goal.
If your partner agrees to arrange the mover – finding one of the best moving companies in the area and hiring their professional moving services, then you should tackle a task of a similar caliber – for example, securing all the required packing materials, including finding free moving boxes as a good way to reducing the overall cost of moving.
While there isn’t a handy tool to gauge how much each moving task is worth in terms of effort, neither you nor your spouse or partner should feel tricked in a way by having to do most of the work.
Keep in mind that proper workload management throughout the move is vital because it should help you avoid dealing with bad arguments or harboring any hard feelings toward the other.
Life may not be fair but your move can surely be as fair and square as it gets.
Even though the process of moving house is notorious for being extremely stressful, it doesn’t have to be this way when you and your partner are getting ready to move out.
A house move can and most likely will be rather stressful for a number of good reasons – it’s expensive, packing takes forever to complete, it takes you away from your friends and family, and it throws you into a completely new environment where your future will be greatly uncertain.
The stress of moving has the tendency to build up slowly but surely until it reaches a critical point that could endanger the integrity of your relationship.
Therefore, you should always be on the lookout for any worrisome signs of excessive stress during the moving process – if you sense too much tension in the air, you should look for ways to let off some steam before the situation becomes too volatile.
Consider using these tactics to keep the stress of moving from reaching any critical points at any time during the move preparation:
Give yourself more time by starting the preparation as early as you can. Having enough time until moving day will give you the peace of mind that you can make it on time even if you make a few errors along the way.
Declutter your home thoroughly and get rid of any unwanted items before you begin the task of packing. Having fewer things to box and move will save you valuable time and hard-earned money.
Pack up all or most of your things by yourself – you and your spouse or partner. Unless you’re running out of time or you have specialty items in the house that require special packing care, you should be able to manage the packing job without having to rely on professional packing services.
Moving to another home doesn’t have to be stress, stress, and more stress.
Should you notice that the stress becomes somewhat overwhelming despite your efforts to keep it within healthy limits, break the monotonous rhythm of packing by doing something that you know both of you will enjoy.
Go catch a movie, have dinner at a fancy restaurant, meet up with your friends to hang around a bit, or organize a farewell party for your pals prior to moving day.
The stress of moving is real but you should not let it affect your relationship in any way. Remember to form a strong team with your partner and any stress-inducing instances should be nothing more than a mild nuisance on your adventurous moving journey together.
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