Conversations Take A Turn For The Serious

by Audrey Ference

Second, there are the sorts of preliminary decisions you have to make as relatively non-rich people buying property in a relatively expensive area. Basically, deciding what compromises you are willing to make. Is it better to buy a small crappy apartment in a fancy area? A great place in a farther away area? A neighborhood that is much less cool but close to an area we like versus an area that is clearly going to be cool in a few years but harder to get out of?

And discussions of those questions, the “what do have to have, what can we live without” discussions, are the ones that lead into really deep waters. Because suddenly we need to talk about stuff like whether or not my assumption that we’ll be a childless couple is shared (no, it turns out.) How sure both parties are that we’re in it for the long haul (pretty sure, to my surprise.) What kind of contract we’d need to get drawn up for this thing, whether we’d just share it all 50/50 or work out some kind of weird plan where I own more shares of the house because I’m paying the down payment. And from there, how exactly we’re thinking of finances and sharing in a larger sense these days.

Conversations that draw tighter and tighter circles around the Big Question neither of us really are sure of the answer to yet: should we just get married? And if not, what?

For so long we’ve kind of gone happily along, committed but not in any official sense. And I like that because it feels organic and genuine. But these conversations have made me realize that by not directly addressing the uncomfortable issues of what exactly our shared future might look like, and exactly how shared that future even will be, I’ve made a lot of untrue assumptions about what Frank wants out of our relationship. And, well, life, I guess.

It’s hard for me to bring this stuff up, because it is so stereotypically a “girl” thing to do—pressuring a guy about commitment or future plans. But I am also by nature a planner aheader. I don’t want to be 35 and living in a one-bedroom apartment when Frank suddenly turns to me and says, “Hey let’s have a kid!”