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NO MATTER HOW MUCH you love someone, sharing the same space with another human being can be downright challenging at times.
In fact, it’s so difficult that we’re taking the heat off by giving away a month’s free rent with Circle.
Whether it’s fights sparked over finances, conflict over chores… We got people to ask themselves this question: What’s the one thing I wish I knew before moving in with my other half?
Here’s what they said.
Before you even consider having a fanciful look on Daft, it’s worth having an upfront conversation around bills – rent expectations, whether you’re going to half the bills, whose account will it leave. It will definitely prevent future financial bickering, says one respondent:
You should discuss the exact breakdown of bills, if it’s half each or if someone is going to pay more/less, who manages the direct debits, and whether it’s worth getting a joint account.
When you live alone or with roommates, having a sprawling closet full of unworn clothes can go pretty much unnoticed – when it’s time to divvy up that wardrobe, it can be a different matter completely, and space can rapidly become scarce.
When my boyfriend arrived at the flat I’d already been living in alone for four weeks, I had a minor meltdown about the amount of ‘stuff’ he had brought and grumpily sent him to the charity shop with some of it. A few weeks later, I realised that some of those things were quite useful and slowly had to buy them back.
Don’t forget that downsizing storage space can mean parting with beloved items, clothes and even space-hogging hobbies like an extensive guitar collection or cherished cooking utensils. Be patient and charitable with any shelves you can spare.
“Ask if they think it’s reasonable to bring 10 pals home on a week night after boozing”, was a real, and not totally unrealistic suggestion given when researching this article. Others shared the same sentiment about socialising:
I think it’s a good idea to discuss how often you’ll be out or how often you’ll be home so you’re on the same page. You don’t want to move in with someone and it turn out that they’ll only be home at 3am most nights and that you may as well be living by yourself.
A source of conflict that was echoed by many was the issue of bins: “the whose turn it is to take out the bins argument is a never-ending one”. The suggested solution is to elect one of you to be in charge of bins.
Similarly, get a system in place for cooking, cleaning and shopping where one of you doesn’t end up feeling resentful: “We have a deal that we shop together, I cook and he washes up,” was an example solution.
Most importantly, be patient that your partner may have contrasting attitudes to you:
Keep in mind that just because someone else has a different approach to housework/chores than you doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Everyone learns these things differently growing up and you have to compromise.
If you let it, moving in together can signal the end to the dates you adored when you lived apart, so it’s essential to make plans to spend quality time out of your home:
You need to agree to still do nice things and not just consider doing domestic chores to be spending time together. It’s so easy not to make plans together when you think ‘oh, sure I’ll see them at home’.
“It’s important to figure out whether they put the teabag in the bin or on the draining board,” cited one respondent, before another admitted: ”I purchased a small bowl for used teabags because someone kept throwing them in the sink and it honestly changed my life.”
And sometimes, you can end up on the receiving end for your seemingly harmless habits: “Someone looked at me once with crushing disappointment and said, ‘I just didn’t know you were someone who left your wet towel on the bed’.”
Even if they don’t have any super annoying habits, they will have weird opinions like ‘only books with single-colour covers can go on the shelves in the living room’ and ‘there is a right way to pair socks and it is not the way you do it’.
What do you wish you knew before you moved in with your other half? Let us know in the comments.
Here’s a genius way to avoid any possible squabbles this month. We’re currently giving away a month’s free rent with Circle.
Here’s how to make sure you’re in with a chance to spend a month living rent-free:
Money can be a tricky business. Make things more simple for yourself this month by downloading Circle, an instant, free, secure and fun way of sending money to people no matter where they are in the world.
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It can be improved by introducing one simple thing and that’s called ACCOUNTABILITY. In the private sector, if you screw up you have to face the consequences.
Every week, the HSE are in court apologizing and writing cheques for some poor soul who was hurt in their care. They seem happy to keep writing those cheques instead of sitting down and trying to design/implement processes that will reduce those kind of errorss.
The people in the media recently who were caught having a champagne party were all moved to new roles right after that party i.e. when it became known it would become public knowledge. Instead of punishing them, they move them on and in a lot cases actually promote them.
The golfgate trial or whatever they are calling it is another circus act. It’s a toothless exercise to make it look like those characters “on trial” will be punished.
When you have leaders and managers signing off on those kind of circus acts and actually believing that the Irish taxpayers will not notice the charade, then it is very clear that there is no accountability. They simply don’t care.
@David Corrigan: private sector facing accountability? What about bankers wrecking the economy or builders/landlords screwing people for housing?
@Brendan: Who were they protected by Brendan? I will give you a clue. Both parties have F as the first letter in their name.
I was speaking of private companies i.e. non-banking or building related.
@David Corrigan: The big question is who is sf accountable to.
@Tim: All our political parties are accountable to the people of Ireland Tim.
@David Corrigan: I believe we pay, still, in our taxes to cover a couple of private insurance companies who screwed people over.
@David Corrigan: but when you say protected what do you mean? What is unprotected? How would SF leave the banking sector unprotected and what would the consequences be of SF not protecting our banking sector? Labour promised not to bail out the banks. I’ll just leave that there.
@Tim: The GFA was 23 years ago. Let me paint a picture: 1944 was 23 years after the IRA and Britain declared a truce in 1921. 1921 was also the year in which Oscar Traynor, serving as Minister for Defence in 1944, oversaw the burning of the Custom House. 23 years is not a short time in politics, and ALL political parties in Ireland have ‘weaponised’ histories… I’m not a SF supporter, but when something smells a certain way it generally does emanate from a bull…
@GrumpyAulFella: Protected = bailed out. I have no idea what SF would do as they have not been in government yet.
If SF do what Labour did then they deserve to be punished like Labour. Labour were held accountable and rightly so. We just need to spread those rules across the whole political system. FF and FG consistently fail when in power but they still wrangle their way back in.
Merging after the last election was their final play though. They can’t pretend they are different anymore.
@David Corrigan: Your example of people getting hurt in HSE care will never be eliminated unfortunately regardless of how accountable people are made to be. I’d be willing to bet that everyone including myself and yourself has made an error at work at some point or another. The difference is that my mistake or yours can mostly be identified quite quickly and rectified without any major consequences. That’s not the case with a surgeon or an obstetrician unfortunately, where even minor errors of judgement can lead to life long consequences for their patients.
@David Corrigan: ask yourself the question, why they get back in. We’ve had the Greens, we’ve had the PDs, we’ve had Labour, we’ve had masses of independents all in power. Did they make a difference? In fact they were arguably worse than the current coalition. SF are the outliers. 2 in 3 of the voting public don’t want them due to their fairytale policies, appalling record up North and suspect characters in their midst. We need real opposition, a new party to emerge with real alternative policies instead of fairytale populist promises and sound bites.
@GrumpyAulFella: So we continue as we are then? Continue with running the country into the ground. We have the potential to be a GREAT country but our political system has no interest in pushing for that.
SF are the last of the untried in this country. They will be given their chance soon enough the way things are going. If they fail, then there really is no hope for this Godforsaken kip.
@GrumpyAulFella: Not in the slightest a S.F supporter and god only knows what they would do in power but in regards to the carry on of the Banks in this country is nothing short of disgraceful. They were bailed out by our national pension fund to the tune of 80bn (where now most people won’t get a pension til 70) plus an ongoing USC and yet they continue to charge almost 2% above the EU average for mortgage and will never pay that money back to the state even though they are making billions every year. Bear that in mind, every man woman and child in this country contributed 16000 each plus all the USC to private institutions and not only are they allowed to get away scot free without paying back a penny they are allowed to carry on as before with impunity with the assured backing of our govt. Not only this they put up massive roadblocks to any new financial institutions coming into this country to make a bit of decent competition in the market with the threat that it would ” seriously undermine the Irish banking sector”. The Irish banking sector needs to be seriously undermined, it needs to be held accountable for its nothing short of fraudulent carry on in the past and it also needs a lot larger degree of separation from members of the main govt parties
@David Corrigan: ‘god forsaken kip’ Get a grip. Have a look around the globe. Ireland. Land of the moaners.
@slfc21: We are talking about Ireland. Nothing to do with the rest of the world. There must be cartoons or something on the telly that would entertain you this morning?
@Michael McGrath: Spot on Michael.
@David Corrigan: Godforsaken kip??? Very un-Republican of you. I’ll always love this country no matter who is at the helm, yes even SF. SF will never have an overall majority but they may get into a coalition. They are untried because people don’t want them. That’s democracy for you and it will take some time before sensible voters would swing in the direction of having ministers of the calibre of Cullinane, O’Broin and O’Snodaigh, thankfully. SF isn’t the answer. We need an alternative.
@GrumpyAulFella: But in fairness they have to get their chance, I don’t know what kind of a job they will do but we have had either Fg or Ff in power or some version of them since the foundation of the state. After 100 yrs surely the time has come to give someone else a chance.
The public will decide next election.
@David Corrigan: Someone who works in the public service once told me that if you made 9 good decisions and one bad one, the one bad decision would count against you for promotion. A person who never made any decision would get the promotion. So management are all people like that and they promote people like that.
@GrumpyAulFella: Like I said, Ireland has the potential to be a great country. Unfortunately, due to how its managed it is now a kip. High cost of living and no services.
We have a good education system and our people obviously do a great job for the likes of Intel etc. The potential is there but our resources are mismanaged by the likes of FF and FG.
@Bert Carolan: My father worked for the public service for over 30 years. He saw one time where a fella was promoted as he was a yes man to his manager. HIs manager would get promoted and drag the yes man up each time i.e. following him up the ranks.
The yes man couldn’t read or write.
@David Corrigan: My first real job was in Public service, only waited two years. Was young and not there long enough to really see the culture. I left because my boss was only a few years older than me. Who knows I might have been still there if he’d been older. You never know.
@GrumpyAulFella: Off you go then start your own party that will offer opposition to sf but not the legacies of FFG!
@Angela McCarthy: sure Mary Lou and Chris Andrews are FF anyway.
@David Corrigan: that’s just bluster though. High cost of living is heavily influenced by global factors and our high wage compensate for that to a large degree. You say no services but don’t specify so this is just more populist rhetoric, a hallmark of SF. Look up north. Poor welfare system, pension is a pittance, employment dominated by public sector, health service on its knees right now and a housing crisis worse than ours all with SF at the wheel. They can’t keep hiding behind the “untried” mantra. We see them in action every day and it’s not pretty.
@GrumpyAulFella: Why is SF always a binary option to FF or FG? Let’s discuss how the entire political community should approach this cross-party. You touch on it with your mention of Labour. If this isn’t a view shared by all in political spectrum then there will always be room for big lobby, sleaze and cronyism. I think the people of Ireland have matured massively in their political knowledge and engagement in the past few years and the next election should be positioned on political accountability for public services, projects and ultimately better oversight of tax spend.
@David Corrigan: yes I am a child. Good one.
@David Corrigan: and yes we are talking about Ireland. But there is a thing called perspective. Maybe try it.
@David Corrigan: every single branch of the public service is accountable to their own registration board or council . They are also accountable to their direct managers and as such must be target oriented. I’m a teacher . My work is overseen by my board of management, parents , the teaching council and the ever present inspectorate . Your comments show no knowledge of how the public service works . Your arguments are tired populist out of date and misinformed. If you are going to post on social media simply for likes you’ll do well with this approach. If you want to make an informed point with this approach you’ll get nowhere .
@Conor Flood: You’re actually proving the point, though. Nobody is blaming frontline staff in these examples, but middle and upper management. The fact that you have to answer to three separate bodies, the board of management, the teacher’s council and the inspectorate – all of whom I have no doubt are cumulatively paid enough to fund an entire new school – is exactly what people mean when we criticise public service dysfunction.
Nobody is denying that management is necessary, the issue stems from the ongoing paradigm in Ireland in which pay for people who sit behind computers or clipboards and work entirely in logistical fields continues to outstrip pay for those who do the actual grunt work – teachers, doctors, nurses, Gardaí, you name it.
Nobody in the education system should receive a higher salary than the people who actually sit in the classrooms teaching the kids. Nobody in the health system should receive a higher salary than the people who actually, directly diagnose, prescribe medication to, operate on, look after during recovery, etc, actual patients in need of healthcare. Nobody in the justice system should be paid more than the people who actually patrol the streets, respond to call-outs, prepare books of evidence, piece together clues to ascertain who committed a crime, etc etc etc.
We happen to be on the same page here I suspect. How many more teachers, or resources, could your school afford if there were fewer people in the education system who sit behind computers all day and never interact with an actual student?
@Patrick FitzGerald: points well made ,
The current leaders of both FF and FG are previous ministers for health. They know full well the failings in the HSE. Neither of them however have any desire to fix them. We have a similar situation with housing.
Both Varadkar and Harris are lauded by mainstream media. Yet under their respective tenures as health ministers our waiting lists have grown to astronomical numbers which is rarely ever questioned by the same media.
To my knowledge Kenny gave Varadkar the health portfolio as punishment.
We have a current health minister who has not been seen with the leader of his party for over a year. One like Martin, Varadkar and Harris before him who have failed miserably in the portfolio.
A lot of issues with inefficiencies could be dealt with with better legislation. Most of Irish legislation is riddled with holes.
@Fay Moynihan: I can’t remember the date in December but on that particular date they were record number of beds available and patients on the trolleys. Yet the mainstream media chose to ignore it yet when hospitals are overflowing it’s all over the news etc. Bad news sells better than good news
@Fay Moynihan: I can’t remember the date in December but on that particular date they were record number of beds available and NO patients on the trolleys. Yet the mainstream media chose to ignore it yet when hospitals are overflowing it’s all over the news etc. Bad news sells better than good news
@Patrick O Connell: Are you actually serious?
@Patrick O Connell: That’s not possible Padre.
https://www.thejournal.ie/hospital-trolleys-number-highest-pandemic-5628921-Dec2021/
Dec 2021 figures in the link above. So you are saying there was record number of beds available and no patients on trolleys someday last month?
@G Row.: We are talking about Pat here mate , the guy is living in the parallel universe.
You simply cant be that deluded if you are an average citizen unless ofc you are a PR/Damage control paid troII.
@John Johnes: You have no idea how how much these followers will jump up and down hoping for a few crumbs from their masters table.
But you are right, even for Paddy that excuse is a bit extreme.
This is refreshing to read. We’ve been waiting a long time for meaningful change and this article would encourage cautious optimism. We need more of this kind of thinking from our elected representatives.
Great article
God absolutely, great article
@Yvonne Lavelle:
The people within Irelands civil service and public system don’t want change as it’s a roadmap for making money with nailed on security for life. No personal accountability required pretty much, just do the hours.
Dozens of likes and positive comments by Sinn Fein supporters on an article about the Sinn Fein leader written by a Sinn Fein politician!
@mcr: Many SF “supporters” are just voters who will vote for anyone but FFG at this point. That’s democracy. If you don’t like it you’re probably living in the wrong country.
@mcr: And here was I thinking “Sinn Féin supporters/voters don’t get up early in the morning”.
@mcr: Propaganda piece for damage limitation with the Politburo pushing the bots out of bed early in the morning instructing them to hop on it. Nothing to see here.
@GrumpyAulFella: Did you sleep it out?
@David Corrigan: no I was working this morning, keeping the country going. You should try it :)
@GrumpyAulFella: I know all about it. It’s a 7 day week job when you work for yourself.
@mcr: I’m not a Sinn Fein supporter- but this article is common sense. It’s at the core of so many issues in our sluggish and dis-functional public services.
@David Corrigan: welcome to the party. I’m sure you’ve heard that phrase before, although probably as Gaeilge. :)
@David Corrigan: On the subject of the public service and reform, there has been an idea floated around for a good few years that we should follow Australias pension system where you, the company you work for and the govt contribute towards your pension, and you get a proper living pension when you retire capped at a reasonable amount, a proper national pension scheme as you will, if you want more then you fund it yourself. This is a great idea but it is being blocked at its infancy by high ranking civil servants as it would put an end to their tax payer funded lotto style pensions. Lads on here castigating S.F for the alleged subservience to the IRA army council or whatever forget that our main govt. parties are subservient to something far worse an hereditary civil service (high ranking part) who are in reality a self service to who reform is an anethema if it effects their remuneration in any shape or form and where most of our tax hikes in the last few years were to keep them from feeling any financial pain, the pension age extension being one of the main ones. The contributary old age pension is one of the few things in Ireland that’s completely self funded and should be completely ring fenced and never be allowed to be touched as it is a person’s own money and not state money at all as they would have you led to believe
@mcr: what do you think they should instead do – make unhelpful comments?
I recently started working in the public service. I can’t believe how slowly things work. There are about 5 people in the chain for me to get paid snd it’s slow and sluggish as a result. The private sector would have one doing it/ it would be cheaper, easier and more efficient. Total culture shock at how acceptable the processes seem to be to those that are there. Fully support this article.
@Lucy Legacy: The extra four people are there to keep the FFG vote up.
@G Row.: Non-sense comment that doesn’t help the discussion at all. The Public Sector is broken from within, the problem of legacy governments is simply that they have never looked to reform the public sector, it’s inaction. The additional layers are there because some Director General had a big 4 consultancy come in and recommend more management and paid them thousands to do it and no one questioned it because they didn’t want the tough job of saying no to a public servant
@Lucy Legacy: Wait until you are involved in a project or change! You need a review of every aspect of a decision before a decision is made, they will pay consultant after consultant just so they never have to be accountable for a decision. Not to mention that the rules for promotion are based on longevity over performance or ability! When I’ve been brought in to work with senior leadership in different bodies I am always blown away by how little knowledge of the area they are leading they have, they all are experts on how to progress in the Public Sector and can tell you their union agreements off by heart but they never have any knowledge in the main topic they are involved. The HSE leadership is the only exception but they are never allowed to do their job, there’s always interference
@Local Ore: I’d hate to work in such a function. I just couldn’t deal with that kind of environment.
@Local Ore: I agree with your points but would you vote against the very people who are insuring you don’t have to be accountable in your job?
@Lucy Legacy: Be careful there Lucy, some smart reactionary will be along here soon accusing some Shinner of infiltrating the public service.
@G Row.: I understand the point you are making but it is very rare (not that it doesn’t happen) that people are hired in public sector due to their allegiances. It may be shocking to know but for about 3 decades, Labour had the largest proportion of supporters employed in the public sector and today SF have a big proportion too, probably as much as FF and FG. The public sector issue isn’t any party affiliation, it’s a cultural issue in Ireland that politics has ignored because it has made it easier for politicians – neither public sector nor elected official need to be accountable and that suits them both. I’m happy that Mary Lou has started to focus on the public sector as it may start to change that culture
She’s spot on to be focusing on the dysfunction in the public sector. I comment on every article that the only way we can achieve real change in Ireland is if someone takes on fixing the massive dysfunction in the Public Sector and I think she’s the first leader to come out and say it so she deserves massive credit for that.
I don’t think anyone has a problem with criticism of public servants and civil servants. The problem is that a politician is doing it – and their party affiliation doesn’t matter. A lot of the issues causing “constipation” is a result of politicians practicing parochialism and populism. And of course the voters who put them in power are responsible too.
The type of comment used is not helping SF when they do get into power as the civil servants have a lot of power and governments need them on their side , not antagonising them
@Paul Keenan: And therein lies the problem.There should be no fear. There should be accountability.
@Franny Ando: only people who should be afraid are politicians
@Paul Keenan: that’s why this damage limitation article has been rushed out. It suddenly dawned on Mary that it hasn’t gone down well with the hundreds of thousands of PS workers/voters. So we’re told now that everyone misinterpreted her words. The spin doctors are spinning. Every time they open their mouths they put their foot in it.
@GrumpyAulFella: “Criticism as Dept of Health spends €230k sponsoring Operation Transformation series”
“Mother & Baby Homes: Just 40 survivors get health files amid row over GPs signing off on requests.”
Two headlines from today’s Journal, both Sinn Fein propaganda?
Or just the usual.
@G Row.: what’s any of that to fo with this SF TD’s propaganda article. I’m sure there have been many successes in health too like our world leading vaccination programme and Covid strategy that saved thousands of lives but it has nothing to do with this article.
@GrumpyAulFella: No point in discussing anything with you really is there?
You keep voting for the lads and make sure nothing changes, true progress.
@Paul Keenan: I don’t doubt that this is true but it’s equally concerning and points to a serious lack of professionalism in the public service. They have a job to do and personal vendettas and political allegiances have no place in that.
@G Row.: you don’t know who I vote for. I don’t vote for “the lads”.
A respectful choice of words would help
@James Gorman: How does saying it’s a constipated system disrespect the individual civil or public servants? They are all just working to the letter of the legislation they have to work under. Saying it’s constipated is not a reflection on them.
@James Gorman: The language isn’t strong enough, the issues in the public sector are extreme and need massive change. The way people are hired in the public sector needs to be reformed, the way performance is assessed needs to be reformed, the way the public sector procures needs to be reformed, reporting needs to be reformed, transparency needs to be introduced, the way the public sector bodies are structured needs to be reformed, the entire thing top to bottom needs reform and quick. Look at how long it takes to build a road, we are 4 decades talking about a Metro North, you can’t build a building in Dublin without a whole series of rejections for non-sense, the whole thing is broken and she’s right to be focusing on the system and structures, someone needs to!
The gullible voters seem to forget that the parties and particular politicians who rabbit on every day about Sinn Fein, are the very parties who have been in power for the last century and are the only people to blame for the disaster that is happening g to Ireland. Sinn Fein can not be blamed for private companies and vulture funds buying our corrupt politicians and even local councillors. It’s time the people some up and started asking our FFG bedfellows what the hell they are doing to this country and its people.
If and when SF get into power the first people they will depend on the public sector managers that they currently criticize. When it comes to SF making hard decisions they will of course blame the same public service
Managers for any subsequent fall out and run for cover. Just look at the indecisiveness of SF in the NI Assembly.
SF keep this up, that may get my vote.
have your say