When I bring up buying a house, my boyfriend wants to wait until he’s bought a car. He already has one that works, without a warning light on the dashboard. But he loves sports cars, and the car he wants is part of the future he’s excited about. The future I keep trying to discuss has room for both of us.
I’m 22, he’s 23, and we’ve been together for six years. We both still live with our parents, about ten minutes apart. That distance makes seeing each other easy. It doesn’t give us a place that’s ours, or the chance to find out what everyday life together would actually be like.
This isn’t a conversation we can only afford to have in theory. We don’t live in a particularly expensive area, and we’ve each held stable jobs for at least three years. I’ve saved enough for a down payment on a $300,000 house that would avoid private mortgage insurance. Between our income and savings, I believe we could afford a home.
I know being able to pay for something doesn’t mean feeling ready for it. A mortgage is a commitment, and he’s told me the thought is stressful. He worries that owning a house would keep him from doing everything else he wants to do. I can understand that worry without finding it easy to hear when the thing being put off is living together.
Renting might give us a step between our parents’ houses and buying our own, but he considers rent wasted money. Buying is something he wants to postpone. He has offered another arrangement: I could move in with him and his parents. I don’t feel comfortable leaving my parents’ home for someone else’s parents’ home, especially when it’s only ten minutes away. I want space of my own, whether that’s an apartment or a house.
I’m not against him having a dream car. There are things I want for myself, too. What bothers me is that I can’t tell when our shared plans become a priority. His current car works, while we haven’t started living together at all.
We did agree that we would start looking in July 2027. Having a date ought to make this feel less vague. Yet when I bring it up, I feel dismissed. I’m left trying to work out whether we have a plan he means to follow or a date that lets us stop talking about it for now.
Marriage is uncertain in much the same way. He has said he’d like to marry me, but we don’t really talk about it. After six years, it’s hard to separate where we might live from whether we’re moving toward a life together.
I could get a place on my own. I want that independence with him or without him, but I’m worried he’d be upset if I went ahead. I know I’m young. I also know I don’t want being young to mean I must stay exactly where I am. July 2027 is the date we’ve named. What I haven’t figured out is whether I want to wait until then to take my own next step.
