Amongst all the great and famous chronological markers of a relationship first date, meeting the parents, getting engaged probably the most significant, excepting marriage, is that of moving in together. It is also one of the most stressful of these relationship markers, and can lead to significant tensions in the time immediately surrounding the event.
It is especially stressful when one half of the relationship isn’t even aware of the move, and continues not to be aware until they look bemusedly around themselves one day and realize it’s already happened.
If you have a sneaking suspicion that your partner is the type to try and weasel their way into your home, then you need to look out for the following list of ten colonization indicators and start raising the barricades!
# Stuck like glue
The first and most obvious sign that your home is being colonized is really quite an obvious one they’re never anywhere else. Any excuse to be with you, snuggled up to you in your abode, and they will be there.
There’s a difference between being a regular visitor, however, and a colonist. It’s not just the regularity and length of stay, but also the nature of it. Are they starting to sit in your favorite ass-worn sofa, and audaciously starting to pick up the remote control like it was their own? If so, you’d better change the locks and lay down some new boundaries.
# A helping handEveryone needs and appreciates a bit of help from friends and loved ones from time to time. It’s a signature requirement of a true and loving relationship. Using that help as an excuse to hold someone over a barrel though, to emotionally blackmail them into achieving a specific end, is an act of extraordinary foul play.
The home colonizer is an expert at this move, especially taking advantage of someone’s financial issues to help them, and using this help to justify a claim to the home. At all costs, reject any attempts to take over the paying of a bill. Bills really tie them into your home and give them a kind of semi-legal claim to living there. Definitely one to avoid.
# Make yourself comfortableWe all want our guests to feel comfortable in our homes, and none more so than the significant other. There is a big difference though, between them putting their feet up and helping themselves to the odd item from the refrigerator, and bringing their own creature comforts with them from their own home.
If their chairs, beds, tables, etc. start turning up courtesy of the local removal guys, or new items selected specifically with your place in mind start getting delivered by the department store, then there’s no doubt – colonization has begun in true earnest.
# The bathroom cabinet
Nowhere in the house is there a single better indicator of your partner trying to move in without telling you than in the bathroom cabinet. This sacred place is home to your toothbrush, toothpaste, medicines, creams, and other quite personal items. If, all of a sudden, you find them pushed into a corner to make room for your partner’s most intimate bits and bobs, then a move in is most certainly on the cards.
There are gender-specific indicators here also. If it’s a guy and he’s brought his shaving kit, or a girl and she’s loading your cabinet with female hygiene products, then a full colonization is firmly in effect.
# In the neighborhoodIf your other half is very sneaky, then they may put a more long-term plan into place. Rather than scaring you off with some of the other brasher indicators mentioned elsewhere in this feature, they may first start off with a move of their own – but to a place that is far nearer yours than was previously the case.
The closer the location, the greater the indicator that a sneaky takeover is on its way, as are very short-term leases and significant downgrading. If they’ve moved from a plush 5-bedroom townhouse to a gloomy, low-key box room, then chances are, they aren’t planning on staying there too long.
# Let’s talk about itIf the conversation turns to the topic at every turn, if every other word is twisted to somehow include the question of moving in, then you have a surefire indicator of an imminent colonization.
Try to change the conversation back as much as you want, but when this person has their mind set upon an aggressive takeover, there’s not much you can do. And the only way to deal with it is to bluntly put them in their place – no quarter given!
# Dawn till duskThis is quite a sneaky little indicator for you to take advantage of, and gives you an early warning on the whole sneak-move-in thing. Basically, when you are working and your partner has a day off for some reason, observe what they do with their time.
Most people won’t feel comfortable spending the whole day in someone else’s apartment. It feels like an imposition, and it just doesn’t have the comfort factor that your own home does. However, if they end up spending the whole day there, and are still there when you get back, then beware – they’re trying the place out for size and familiarizing themselves with what they’ve identified as their future abode.
# Cool itSimilar to #4, if your most beloved nibbles and tipples are unceremoniously dumped out of the refrigerator and replaced with the preferred comestibles of your partner – then a takeover is, without doubt, waiting patiently in the wings.
# Return to senderHave they started using your home address or home phone number as a point of contact for people whom you don’t even know? Then the process is, I’m afraid, almost complete. And you didn’t even see it coming!
# Keeping them sweetPutting on the pressure is a key weapon in the arsenal of the surreptitious colonizer. There is no better way of doing this than by currying the favor of friends and family, and recruiting their help in “trying to make you see the light.” If this charm campaign extends to immediate neighbors also, then you really are fighting on the back foot. Good luck with getting out of that one!