Follow up to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AgeGap/comments/1esiier/well_it_was_bound_to_happen

Parents are still completely unaccepting of my relationship, so I’m not moving back home, that’s for sure. I still have another week or so to make a final decision, but my girlfriend and I have made the decision that I’ll be staying at her place.

I'm still a tad iffy about things but honestly, these past few weeks that we've been living together have been some of the best of my life. Every single day, I wake up next to her, get ready for the day with her, kiss her before she leaves for work, have dinner with her, then go to bed together... every day. It's been wonderful. I'm sure we're going through a bit of a honeymoon phase and maybe things will feel different months down the line, but at the moment I can’t get enough of her and so far it's been working out perfectly.

We had to have a financial talk. I don't make anywhere near enough money to contribute in any meaningful way to anything like mortgage, but I can definitely help with utilities and other bills, groceries, and things like that, and will be contributing my share. We'll also be splitting housekeeping duties, and she's talked about what a relief it will be to have another hand, especially a male one, around the house that she'd been taking care of alone for quite a while now. She said she’s thankful now she won’t have to run out of the house when she sees a spider (I didn’t quite have the heart to tell her I’m terrified of spiders as well).

There were a few other issues that came up and we had to talk about. One example is that I don't know the first damn thing about cooking. Fortunately she loves to cook and is great at it. Makes a mean lemon chicken. I am going to be eating so much better than I would have been living in dorms, not to mention healthier, and not to mention having dinner with her every night. But in exchange for her being entirely responsible for our nutrition, I'll be entirely taking on a few responsibilities around the house that she hates doing.

She also insisted I stop buying her flowers all the time as I had been. That hit my man ego hard, but really I can't afford it right now so she's right. Not to mention now that we're living together, our date nights have a different feel to them since they're no longer our chance to see each other and catch up. The first day after we agreed to stay living together, I brought her flowers after work anyway, and she pretended to get really upset. It was adorable.

So yeah we had to work out several things like that, but it seems like we've come up on a great balance. I hate that I'm not contributing to mortgage at all, but all told, I am contributing roughly half of almost everything else and she assures me it's going to be a great help to her, so I'd like to think I'm not mooching off of her and we're in a good place.

So we are officially cohabitating. It's my first time, and her second, her first being her ex husband. It's seriously just been great to see her every day. For the first time perhaps in my entire life, I can't wait to get home every evening. She’s nervous as well about getting so deeply involved with someone for the first time since her divorce, but we’re also excited about this next phase of our lives and relationship.