How quick should relationship progress

[Moving92]

I will try to list the relevant details. Just wondering for thoughts and opinions on how quick a relationship should progress in these circumstances

Known dp 1.5 years, got together 3 months ago officially . I'm 30, DP is 38. I would like a child before 35. Living situations - about 40 minutes travel between us currently. He lives with parents but has substantial savings, didn't see the point in moving out alone and saved instead. I live in my own house alone, probably own about 70% of the house the rest is mortgaged. Neither of us have children. Both work from home 95% of the time. Both earn similar amounts
I would make him sign something to say he can't take any equity from the house for some time and then it would be nice if things worked out if he paid the rest of the outstanding mortgage and gets a percentage of the equity later down the line

This is all theoretical, depending on how things play out. I am interested to see what people think of the questions below

How quickly would you move in together
How quickly would you consider adding to house deeds/paying off mortgage so it's a joint asset
How quickly would you have a child

38 Yr old man lives with parents? Why? Has he previously been married etc? This is unusual to say the least.

Keep your house all to yourself op.

I am so sorry OP, and I do not want to sound judgmental or anything, but for a 38 years old to still be living with his parents is very odd at this day and age. I agree with @Fmlgirl you are not on the same page with this person and this may create many problems down the line. I am not telling you to leave him, just slow down. Good luck. I hope you find what you are looking for.

@Fmlgirl I did it twice! I'm wiser now.
OP based on your relationship status, you don't know what he's like and his finances sound flimsy compared to yours. Despite what you are thinking you hardly know each other.

Just to make it clear, I am not planning on him moving in, in the very near future. But I don't know what is reasonable timescales.
To answer some posters points, he lives with his parents because he doesn't see the point in moving out on his own, prefers to live with other people and has invested his money, so he hasn't frittered it all away. He isn't totally intertwined with his parents, he pays board, he has an active social life with friends. He does have an understanding of finances in general and doesn't seem to be incapable of admin around insurance and bills etc.

I wouldn't have a child or put allow him to pay off the mortgage and put him on the deeds until I was happy that we were able to cohabit effectively. I would expect an equal split in household chores etc, I wouldn't tolerate becoming a house maid for a man, he would have to move back out if that turned out to be the case.

I have had a long term relationship previously that lasted around 8 years and he lived with me, but we were young and I haven't really had relationships since then and don't know what is considered normal progression at my age.

Also to answer the question of whether I just want the relationship to have a child, no. I wouldn't have a relationship with anyone just to produce a child, but I wouldn't have a relationship with someone who doesn't want them in the future, when I do.

Yes but what self-respecting man at 38 also wants to actively live with his parents unless they needed care? He could have house-shared or buy his own place by now. He actively chooses a teenager’s life. Why is that.
The man I met also had a good social life and a good job. The fact that he had never cleaned a surface or operated a washing machine and was inherently lazy and a teenager in a man’s body only transpired when we lived together.

I think it's different choices for different people. I personally couldn't wait to live away from my parents as we didn't get on that well living under the same roof. Better relationship with them since living separately. He on the other hand gets on with his parents ok.
He does seem to contribute to the household chores at home, washing up, hoovering etc. So I don't think he would be a pain as far as doing chores around the house. In fact I'd probably say I'm the messier of the two of us.
Houseshares are just the same situation but with strangers, I don't think that would've appealed to me or him.
Yes I would probably feel slightly better of he was living away from his parents, but that's not the reality. I'm not going to leave him for the fact he lives at home, if all else indicates he is a capable adult.
If it turns out that when he moves in, he turns into a lazy slob, then that's fine, he can move out.

Not suggesting you should leave him at all and what I’m getting at is really not the chores per se. With my ex, the bigger picture was that he lived with his parents because he didn’t want to take on any adult responsibilities, be it buying a house or starting a family. He made all the right noises but things didn’t progress beyond living together were I was lumped with all the life admin.

I now have a fiancé who has his own flat, moved abroad and lived independently before like myself, and we are expecting our first child. The differences between the personalities of the two men is staggering. My fiancé is by far the more capable man in many aspects of life.

i am just suggesting I wouldn’t move this man in quickly, I would just date and see how the relationship goes for a while. I would also not make the same mistakes I made - I would have open discussions about chores, childcare and how he generally sees the relationship progressing.

This all sounds reasonable to me OP. I get that you’re not planning to move him in straightaway but just want some idea of timescales. It’s understandable (and wise) by 30 that you’d be thinking that way rather than just letting things drift as you might if you were early 20s.

I’d probably feel the same that it would be preferable if he didn’t live with his parents. Yet if you’ve looked into the reasons for this and don’t feel they raise any red flags, I definitely wouldn’t let it put you off. Let’s face it, good men can be hard to find and none of them are perfect (nor are women either!).

I guess what I'm trying to work out is the balance between not moving too quickly and not wasting time either.
We could live apart for 5 years, if he moved in and a few months down the line I find that he is lazy when living with me. I would end the relationship at 35 and have to start again.
In my head I think if he moved in around a year after the relationship started, I'll have known him for 2.5 years by then. If it ended I'd be 31 and be able to start again without an issue. Then maybe a year or 2 later be able to maybe try for a child, potentially have him take on some equity and pay off the mortgage if he wanted to.
But I wanted opinions on if this is rushing or too slow.

I think your timescales sound fine. I can’t imagine anyone criticising you for moving in together after a year by your 30s.

'Houseshares are just the same situation but with strangers'

Omg it is NOT at all. With housemates you are all going into rental at the same time: so you figure out who is paying tv licence, etc.
With his parents I guarantee they are taking care of most of these things (roof leak, council tax) - because they were already paying it. He will just contribute financially his part, whatever amount they've asked, but he hasn't actually sorted these things.
So the parents just keep paying and sorting it and your bf would just pay them board. It is more hassle for the parents to sit down with him and start from scratch again: ok what days are bin collections..??

They have already sorted it once, he just jumped on board.

Very weird set up. Doesn't he bring women back? Does he not want 'own space' even if it's flatshare? With flatshare he would be there as an equal, otherwise he is staying at his parents house. He is a visitor there, who has to obey by their rules.

He does not know how to run a 360 view of a household. At almost 40 years of age.

Anyway, to answer your questions...

How quickly would you move in together
5 months but it was covid and we bubbled up together. We rented a flat and paid equal amount of rent.

How quickly would you consider adding to house deeds/paying off mortgage so it's a joint asset
We did after we had a baby together.

How quickly would you have a child
2.5 years. This timeframe worked perfect for us. I was 35 he was 41.

You sound very sensible but i in your position I would be wanting to find out if he's compatible sooner rather than later, if he wfh most of the time there's no reason why you can't spend most of the week together at yours even without him officially moving in, it'll speed things up for sure, do you both want to spend more time together?

In response to the houseshare thing, I'd rather live at home with my parents, you still have to share communal space but with more people in a houseshare. You tend to pay landlord a set amount per week and they deal with a leaky roof or anything else with the property. I wouldn't live in a houseshare and sort out anything to do with the maintenance of a property and it tends to be with older teenagers/young adults and would probably drive me potty, so I can see the lack of appeal. I wouldn't feel like he was anymore of a 'grown up'' if he lived in a houseshare, it's still pretty low responsibility
He has sorted some stuff out for his parents in the past when needing to call workmen, sorting out insurance for them and things, so he isn't totally taking a back seat and expecting to waited on. I wouldn't be interested if he was acting like that currently

He may live in London or a part of the SE.

I now know lots of adults of different ages including one in his 60s who live with a parent, their parents or other older relations due to rents and house prices in London and some parts of the SE.

The trick with people like that is to see what they do in the house. So they need to have space to invite you over and you need to see them actively do household chores.

BTW OP some houseshares now are full of older adults.

Due to the shortage of places to rent people interview lots of people and so will choose someone in their age group. So now it's highly unlikely someone who is 38 will be accepted and end up in a houseshare with 21 year olds.

I feel like this thread is getting hung up on the why doesn't he rent or house share. Yes Id prefer if he lived on his own, but he doesn't. If he was lazy and paying his parents £50 a month to live there and didn't do any housework, I wouldn't be in a relationship with him.
If I didn't buy my house when I did and had to rent I would be paying more than 2x as much on rent. I can see the appeal of not paying more than half your salary on rent if you are able to live fairly independently at home, he hasn't had a relationship for a few years, so taking girls home hadn't been an issue.
I have been to his house while his parents had been on holiday for a few weeks and it was spotless, he was capable of doing the chores around the house and he does help out at home.
Obviously he could totally change once moving in with me, but so could a man living in his own house. I wouldn't tolerate having to do all the 'wife work' and he would be asked to leave if that is how it played out

@Reugny yes but I live in London, too. My 20ies were rough as hell going from rental to rental but it was formative for me. I don’t think I would have tried as hard in my career if I had no Incentive to do so but getting away living pay cheque to pay cheque and hoping to pay a flat made me work even harder. Also the obstacles, close to being made homeless a couple of times due to landlords wanting their houses back etc, really helped me appreciate what I have and also encouraged problem-solving skills to say the least 🤣.

@Reugny Oh and I’m also 38. So this didn’t happen 20 years ago, just to add for context.

To answer the question you asked I think a year is a reasonable time frame for someone to move in. I moved in with my now DH after 11 months. I had a long term relationship before him that never progressed to moving in together or any form of commitment really so in my head I had a cut off of a year in new relationships or I was out.

Keep your own assets in your name
Live wirh him and future kuds before entwinjng finances he has more to gain (his mates should advise him to marry you though! He stands to gain a lot)
Consider that you may end up a single parent

@Ihaveaskedyouthrice thank you. Did that feel like the right time when you actually moved in?

@cestlavielife yes would definitely not join any finances for a while, I like to plan for worst case scenario but hope for the best. If he did go on the deeds it would only be the percentage that he paid off that would be his, I wouldn't go 50/50 if he'd only paid 20% or whatever. As it's not a huge chunk of the house my theory is o could get a mortgage in the event of a split up, so it wouldn't risk the roof over my head

I got engaged to my husband after 4months, we got married after a year and then had children straight away.

We were both at a point of looking to settle down and we knew quickly we were right for each other. We've been married 27years.

I think 30 year old women should be much more assertive about what they want and not waste their time on useless men.

Alarm bells for your situation: he's never left home and he only spends one night a week with you.
Sounds like a man baby who'll find it hard to move into the commitment to marriage and children phase where his life will have to change.

I'd try to suss out quickly his willingness to commit and make the lifestyle changes you'll be wanting.
Don't waste your time.