Is there really anything wrong with moving "too fast"?

[peanutbuttercupfield]

I've met an amazing man, who ticks all the boxes (apparently I tick all his boxes too) yet I've been told by others that we are moving "too fast". I have spoken to him about this and we both agree that we are behaving like a couple of giddy teenagers but I truly believe that I've met my match in him.

I'm not naive and I know that everyone puts their best foot forward at first but we've been honest with each other (as far as I'm concerned) and we know the good, the bad and the ugly in regards to our past.

We've been together for two months and thinking about moving in together sometime down the line.. although it feels as if it could be sooner rather than later.

Has anyone had any experiences like this that's ended positively or even negatively?

extra information: I'm 27 and he's 45. I'm also divorced with no children. I have been divorced for 3 years and dated two men in between.

I think it totally depends on the couple, as long as you are sensible in regards to anything financial and you dont rush into having kids or marriage etc. Ignore the negative comments and follow your instincts.

For what its worth I got with my husband pretty quick and I admit we did rush things at the start and we had to have a bit of a slow down period after about 3 months together, but after a couple of months of going slow we got back to how we were at the start and we moved in together 2 months later. That was nearly 9 years ago :)

Thank you everyone. I had a long day and haven't had a chance to log in since.

My sister thinks it's too good to be true because "no one can find someone who ticks all the boxes" Well, I have. He's everything that I have always wanted, warts and all. I appreciate that some things may have been held back but that's normal with everyone right?

I'm not saying I have fallen head over heels for him but I definitely think he could be the one for me.

I've been married before and have had another long term relationship, so I'm not naive. I will wait to move in though, there isn't a real rush for that.

I'll be working from home but travelling to London for events every other weekend so I'll still be socialising.

That is also true (age gaps within friendship groups). I don't think it would be an issue for me as I get on with most people, or I at least try. But my friends have made it slightly hard for him.

Thank you for the replies, I can't remember all the questions asked, so apologies if I haven't answered your question.

I would advise caution - if you are only 27 and have already been married once and had a long term relationship I suggest you take your time and enjoy your own company rather than heading into another relationship. So many people seem to think they must have a boy/girl friend rather than being single - the most content people I know are those who are happy in their own company - they may be in a relationship - but it is not the be all and end all of their life.

Good luck whatever you do.

Ask him to give up his job and relocate to move in with you see if he is as keen to rush into this when he's the one turning his life upside down after knowing you for only 2 months.

Haha okay Chase, I was hoping it did. gutted.

I am happy in my own skin, in fact, after my divorce came through I decided that I wouldn't settle for less should I find someone along the way. This is not like anything I have ever felt before. I know it could be infatuation but I've never even felt like that over anyone before. what I thought was "love" didn't even come close to this. Maybe I'm just crazy.

Depends how much you trust your judgement.

Sorry, but there is no way judgement has anything to do with sniffing out an abuser in the early stages - they are masters at moulding themselves to their target. So less of the 'judgement' calls, please.

You do seem besotted, op. Detractors glide right over your love bubble. Why did your marriage end btw (sorry to be nosey but it may impact on your current situation).
I really do think you shoukd consider your sister's 'too good to be true' comment. She knows you. But you are probably thinking 'no one understands'. Yeah, been there (re first para)

If you can develop your business anywhere, then develop it where you are. Too much pressure on a new relationship to be developing a business at the same time as moving in together after such a short time.

You are also vague about children. Love is blind, but not for long.

You've not seen his warts if you've only known him 2 months...

And just because you've never felt this way before doesn't make it real.

To be divorced by 27 I'd hazard a guess that judgement in relationships is not your strong point.

You're already settling for 'less', in this case it's less informed...

You have no children so you really have nothing to lose. I'm worried that as you'll be self employed and initially living off your savings then you may be trapped should it not work out. Would it be possible to keep some of your saving to one side - just-in-case. Also do you own your own place now? Could you rent that?

If I hadn't had children then I'd have moved in with DP a lot earlier than I did. So I'm not one to talk!

Oh and I did have a relationship with 19 years age gap. The gap gets wider the older you both get. I also didn't want children at 27 but did at 29/30.

I have a friend who says she judges a man by whether he brings you food and sympathy when you are ill with flu or a cold, and who cleans up the cat sick without complaining as soon as he sees it.

So if we are talking ticks in boxes - we all have different ones!

BTW my (now) DH did both these things in the first 2 months of us meeting.

Shacked up with my OH after 4 months and seven years, 2 kids, 3 houses and a cat later we are still together.

In all honesty I wish we'd had more time to enjoy the honeymoon period though.

The thing is I could have shacked up with dh after 2 months and I'm sure it would all have been great. We both felt we "knew" quite soon.

On the other hand, I can think of other relationships I've had/friends have had where it's all been amazing after 2 months and then a few months further down the line, rather less so. Sometimes something so intense can only end up fizzling out.

So I think if you take that plunge so early on in a relationship then luck really plays a huge part as to whether it turns into your happily ever after or disaster story. The distance and amount you would be giving up means you should tread more carefully too imho.

There are two aspects to this: emotional and practical.

I do not believe in holding back emotionally 'just in case'. In my view, breakdowns in relationships hurt a whole lot anyway, and if you're always cautious you just get the bad times without the really good ones. Love always involves risk. I'm sure you're old enough to realise that.

However, I do think there are practical arguments against committing to living arrangements before more time has passed. I moved in with my DH after 6 weeks of meeting him. In my case, there were good practical reasons why I couldn't continue to live where I was living (I was having to house share with my violent and abusive ex, and because we had a mortgage to pay I couldn't move out).

DH and I are now happily married. But it did put a big strain on the relationship early on - I think there were times when we both felt a bit anxious and trapped by it. DH had lived on his own for some time and had to adjust to having a mad woman and a couple of cats around; I felt a lot of pressure to make it work. It was OK in the end, but because we are both quite anxious people it maybe raised the stakes higher than was completely comfortable.

I would think carefully before pooling finances, housing situations etc etc etc. That stuff may be better taken more slowly!

As others have said, what do you have to lose by waiting? After all you are planning to spend the rest of your lives together.

Have you spent a week or more together? I know several couples who found after less than a week of living together that they hadn't found "the one".

My gf and I have known each other eighteen months and been together five. She would have moved in together within two months, but I was the one that said there was no need to rush. We spend three or four nights a week sleeping at each others house, I'm lucky though in that I work from home a lot and can just as easily commute to my office from her place as from mine. We agreed that we would talk again in December about moving in together.

My advice would be to find a way to try living together before either of you taking the step of moving job and house to be near the other. But you know the relationship and your feelings better than we do, best of luck.

I was just coming out of a long term relationship when I fell for a work colleague. It was a purely physical reaction to begin with, I had hardly said two words to him but I used to sweat and shake whenever we were in close proximity. I had never felt anything like it. I stopped eating and the weight fell off me in a matter of weeks. Then I plucked up the courage and asked him out for a drink and we spent an amazing evening in the pub getting to know each other. We saw each other after work every day for a fortnight after that and 10 days after our first date I told him I loved him. It was always in the back of mind that it was far too fast and passionate but that was easy to ignore - I was head over heels. We didn’t actually move in together until 6 months after we met but this was due to circumstance rather than a conscious decision. We were certainly talking about it within the first few months and spent very few nights apart in our respective homes anyway. That was 8 years ago and we’ve been together ever since. We’ve now been married 3 years, been through two house purchases and acquired two cats. Our son was born on our first wedding anniversary and we have another on the way at the end of the year. Certainly the passion of the early days fizzled out within a year or so but it has been replaced with something much deeper. I still fancy DH like mad and every November when the anniversary of our first date comes around I get a fission of excitement when I reminisce.

Be interested to know how you have been divorced and had another LTR by the age of 27. That's moving quite fast. Might there be a lesson there to be learned?

Impulsive behaviour maybe?

If this is also a LDR and you see him at weekends - over 2 months- you really do know bugger all about him. I had a LDR with my current DH- for 3 years it was long distance- but it was only when we lived together that I really got to know him. Weekends and holidays - everyone's on their best form, it's not real life.

You've skirted around the issue of children - both here and with him. Blinkered perhaps?

Sadly you don't seem to want any advice- just confirmation that you are right.

Hi Fermin, Dh and I got together in very similar circumstances, are you me? Anway we got together very quickly, became engaged and pregnant within weeks. We had known each other for 5 years though, but not really well just as colleagues who didnt work alongside each other very often.

There is also a 15 year age difference but now I have developed a chronic illness that absolutely zaps my energy levels DH is the one who runs around after the children. He was 44 when our first child arrived and 45 with our second, we wasted no time in having the babies. He wanted to have as much energy to play with them as possible. By the time they are in their teens he will still be working, and there are blokes older than that in this office cycling up mountains and across Britain with more enrgy than i'll ever have.

The age difference actually makes it easier for us now, because DH is going to slow down to my pace before any man my age.

The only thing that I wouuld say is get on the same page regarding marriage and babies, but that is advice I give anyone wishing to move in witha partner no matter how long into the relationship they are. I have known freinds who have stayed in dead end relationships far too long, 'hoping' he will propose or change his mind about children.

Why not let him move, find a new job/friends etc? Or perhaps it just wouldn't happen if he had to make so much effort.

Why not see how it goes and evaluate in 6 months 2 years

captain - it's not at all unusual for an older man to marry a younger woman ad in many ways it's how it used to be- men made their fortunes then looked for a younger wife! 44 is not old for a man to be a father- I know men who became fathers at 50.

The 'problem' here is the speed, the ambiguity over children, the long distance relationship, the former short marriage and another long relationship before age 27, the fact that relatives are worried, the fantasy world the OP lives in thinking she knows someone warts and all after meeting them a few times over 8 weeks, and wanting to relocate and build a business at the same time as plunge into living with this guy.

Oh- and not respond to any negatives from posters.

Persoanlly I would say 'wait'
What is there to lose by waiting a few more months? You can continue to enjoy being together and have a full 'going out' phase which is different to the living together phase. If it fizzles out because you are not living together (and I'm not quite sure why that would happen) then it would have ended anyway, and it's good that you haven't moved in.

I think there are several things to note. You are pretty young and already divorced, as well as having had another. Long term relationship. You may think that serial living-together monogamy is a good idea, but what you are really after is 'the one' from your post. If you want to avoid this being one in a string of living together relationships, then it might be worth taking your time and making sure it is right, before launching in. As someone who is divorced, I'm sure you know how messy and difficult it is getting out of marriages and relationships where you live together. I think you need to have a bit of a sense of 'once bitten, twice shy' type thing. It might be even more important as he has children....you need to think of them too, as does he. He particularly should be wary of introducing new people into their lives too quickly, and the fact he is willing to do this so soon, does ring warning bells with me, in terms of his priorities.

None of this is to say that this relationship cannot or won't work.

Personally, I think that drifting into living together,without having had a proper conversation about long term commitment is problematic. I have known lots of women who have done this pretty quickly, seeing it as a low level commitment which could be ended if need-be. And then these relationships continued, and they found they had been living together for 6 years bout never really found out if they were on the same page about having children, finances, caring for elderly parents and other dull but important topics that you need to be on the same page about with a life partner. And then it was difficult to have those conversations and even more difficult when they found they weren't on the same page, to get out of those relationships. So I think it is worth waiting and actually people should have a pretty strong commitment to a future together before moving in together. I think it gives a much better basis for success.
I realise this doesn't fit with many people's approach these days, which is to move in together pretty quickly. Clearly,some of these relationships work and become very long term. But many don't and there is much hurt involved.

So I ask you the question, what have you to lose by waiting say another 6 months? If it all feels so urgent, ask yourself why that should be so, because waiting a while shouldn't be a problem. And ask him the same question too. Use the time to see if you are fully on the same page about the important things in life, rather than just hoping you are. You are in the early throes of love or lust and tbh your judgement probably isn't totally rational,with the greatest respect.

And yes, as an earlier poster said, OP you need to be prepared to think through the queries people on here have and to answer them at least to yourself.
If you try to answer them on here, you will at least be thinking the issues through.

Don't ignore the issues being raised. They are genuine issues. Don't be someone who asks the Q, but isn't prepared to hear different opinions, but is so determined to move in with him, that they throw caution and reason to the wind. If you can think through the possible problems raised here and explain why it is better to do it now rather than waiting, then fine. Perhaps you will decide to do it soon. If you can't provide decent answers to these questions, hopefully you can be honest with yourself and see that it is perhaps not the best thing.

That is also true (age gaps within friendship groups). I don't think it would be an issue for me as I get on with most people, or I at least try
.
I think comments like this show real naivety; you simply cannot equate having friends of all ages with living in an age-gap relationship. There is also the experience-gap issue. He has children? I missed that bit. I thought he didn't. Well he ought to slow things down. You'd be a step parent-and he should spend a long time thinking about this.

Actually- what is worrying is that HE isn't putting the brakes on this. As an older, divorced man, he should have more sense than to suggest ( if he has) that you move-in so quickly. You have everything to lose- friends, home, job, - whereas he has everything to gain. For your sake he ought to be taking it more slowly.

At 27 I was 99% sure I never wanted children.

By 32 I was desperate for a baby and luckily DP felt the same, so we had one.

Distance, work, living arrangements, even finances - all of those things can be compromised on.

Children cannot.

I would think very, very seriously about committing your fertile years to a man who says he doesn't want children.

It might not feel like a big deal to you know, but it will be a big deal later.

*now, not know.