As social animals, we humans naturally share our space with other humans at various times in our lives. Across the world, this is still quite common. Many families live together in a much smaller living space than that to which most people in Western cultures, and especially Americans, are accustomed. Americans in particular have gotten used to growing up in their own room in a home with immediate family members. Many then grow up and move out into their own apartments and live independently, sometimes without another roommate to foot half of the rent and utilities. Although everyone’s situation varies – their lifestyle during childhood and financial independence during adulthood – it is quite common today to see people living alone. Sharing space with others occurs less frequently than it used to, even within the past century. Because of that, many unfortunately come to find sharing space to be challenging!
The art of sharing our living space with others is just that: an art. It is not necessarily a challenge, but it can become challenging if all parties are not considerate and flexible. For those who find it challenging, it is an art to be honed just like any other social skill. We simply have to learn to live respectfully with one another. This involves honoring both others’ needs and desires as well as our own. There is a careful balance to doing so gracefully.
Our Early Experiences Impact How We Share Living Space
As a child, we don’t get to choose our family or home country or city. We are just thrust into whatever situation we find ourselves, and then we have to make do with what limited resources and coping mechanisms we employ. As an adult, we can take one of two paths. We may go out into the world expecting every new living situation to be similar to our own growing up. Or, we take what we’ve learned from observing our childhood living situation and apply intentional changes to the way we interact with our new living situations, based on that knowledge. Often, we do some combination of both. This concept applies not only to our living situations but to how we interact with others and with the world and life in general. Here, though, we’ll focus specifically on shared living space.
How Easy is It for You to Share Your Possessions?
How possessive are you over your belongings? Does it bother you if someone else uses your things, or are you generally permissive of others using them? If it bothers you, is it because you are afraid others will misuse, soil, break, or lose your things? Often, when this is so, it is because other people have mistreated your things in the past. People who are touchier about their possessions have had encounters with other people who don’t treat their possessions with the same level of care. This is more likely to be the case with detail-oriented people, very tidy people, or people with some level of obsessive compulsive tendencies (not necessarily a diagnosis). Some people simply place more importance on their possessions than others do. They may have spent hard-earned money on something and any disrepair is, to them, like wasting hours of labor.
Some people are more likely to form an emotional attachment to items for any reason or significance. It is not uncommon for objects to carry sentiment to people. Some just do so more often than others. People who are more permissive of sharing their items could be less concerned with tidiness, details, or objects in general. They may not form such strong attachments to their things and see possessions as transient objects that are simply utilitarian. There are so many nuances with our personalities and upbringing that influence how we interact with our possessions and, in turn, with the space around us. How we feel about sharing our possessions is, to some extent, how we feel about sharing our space.
How to Share Living Space: Important Reminders
Regardless of how you interact with your space and how open you are to sharing it, there are some important facts to keep in mind as we consider how to share living space in any situation – both permanent and temporary.
- Unless you are very lucky, you are unlikely to live with another person, whether spouse, friend, family member, or roommate, who lives in their space the same way you do. You are both going to have to work together to communicate, compromise, and grow accordingly.
- Both you and the other person(s) have just as much of a right to living comfortably and productively in your shared space.
- Everything is unlikely to be just the way you want it, and you have to learn to live with that.
- Others can bless us with their differences in unexpected ways. We can only experience this if we are flexible enough to allow them to truly be who they are in our shared space.
- You cannot take your own preferences for granted. You must clearly communicate how you prefer to live and discuss how your living mate(s) can respect that. Otherwise, they may simply not know.
- People change. We change, and the others we live with change. How much and in what way totally varies, but oftentimes (and hopefully) it is for the better.
Communication is Crucial to Peacefully Sharing a Living Space
Communicating clearly and respectfully is the most important thing we can do in any relationship, and especially with those in our home. Because others can be so different and cannot read our minds, we need to make our values and priorities clear to them. Likewise, we need to ask them what is important to them so that we can respect that. It is in this discussion that we work out differences and compromise based on what is most important to all parties. Some people will simply never be happy living together. Those are the ones who hopefully go their separate ways! That doesn’t mean by default that there is something wrong with them, but that they are simply incompatible in how they live at home.
Some of the best friends can make the worst roommates. And some of the worst roommates grow and mature into excellent roommates years after they have long since moved on. Everyone is at their own stage at different times, and sometimes good people end up living together at clashing stages. I have been on both ends of this spectrum at different points in my life, and there were certainly clashes! This is why discussing expectations and establishing some basic boundaries before living together is crucial. Most of us, however, never do this. We are simply looking for the right place at the right time and connect with a friend or acquaintance or stranger who we get along with well enough. Like many, I wish I could go back to do things differently, but many things are only learned in hindsight!
Strong and Unspoken Preferences Can Lead to Incompatibilities
Far too many divorces occur because of living incompatibilities. Usually there is a deeper issue at play such as poor communication, but sharing a home is where these issues play out for all to witness. Learning to live together civilly is a basic skill that our survival depended on not too many years ago. It therefore makes sense that if we can peacefully inhabit the same space, we are mature enough to weather other storms together. The art of sharing space is a learned one, though, even for the most well adjusted individuals. Since two people rarely live the exact same way, we must make our needs clear and honor the other’s needs.
Here are some common ways in which our preferences can differ when we embrace how to share living space:
- Cleanliness (this includes cleaning the floors, dusting, washing linens, cleaning bathroom, etc.)
- Tidiness (this is different from cleanliness and has more to do with clutter and organization)
- Interior design and décor (this includes paint colours, curtains, furniture, linens, art, etc.)
- Wake and sleep times, and sleep environment
- Noise levels (this includes the television, music, conversations, musical instruments, etc.)
- Lighting (some people prefer bright lights while others prefer dim lights, at different times)
- Conversation (some like to talk any time another is nearby, while others like some quiet time)
- Structure (some like to have a set schedule so they know when to expect others to be around)
- Company (some like to have others visit frequently or any time; others prefer scheduled visits)
All of these areas can become argument points for couples or others living together unless they are openly and respectfully discussed. With some extreme exceptions, most everything can transform from argument points into compromise points. This only occurs when people are willing to genuinely consider the others’ needs and accommodate appropriately. Most compromise involves give and take, where one person’s wishes are met at certain times or in a certain way and the other’s wishes at other times or in other ways. Everyone’s balance will look different, because we are all different!
Preferences Can be Complicated and Can Stem from Deep Needs
Sharing space can be such a complicated thing. I, for instance, have never lived alone except for a couple of months during two transitional periods in my life. I have, however, always been adamant about having my own space in which to think, relax, or create something. To this day, I have a really hard time being the only adult in my house come evening. Yet, I also dislike someone being in the same room as me at all hours. I think this is because most people require some amount of conversation and there are times when I need to think or work on my own and cannot do so if I feel like I need to ‘tend’ to another. (Some people, however, are very quiet and relaxed and are perfectly fine to have around all the time.)
Yet, I’m more comfortable if another adult is in the room or nearby, doing their thing while I do mine. It is comforting to know that, once we each finish doing our own thing, we can easily converse or do something together. Just because I don’t want to constantly talk with someone or give them my attention doesn’t mean I don’t want their body physically nearby (so long as they aren’t distractingly noisy). This is why I’ve never willingly lived alone (more a financial decision, but also intentional) and why I struggle with evening anxiety when home alone. Still, sharing space with others is an art I’m constantly honing! There are several differences in how my husband and I keep our space that we continue to work on.
Our Personal Living Space Can Feel Like an Extension of Ourselves
For anyone whose space has been violated at any point, especially while growing up, maintaining a private space of your own is very important. As a young child, I lived with an adolescent brother at my mom’s house who messed with me and my space. When I got a little older, I lived with a younger sister at my dad’s house who was also in my space (developmentally appropriate for her age, though still frustrating). There were other privacy violations throughout my childhood which led me to be very protective of my physical space. In a way, my personal environment feels like an extension of myself. I sometimes wonder whether healthier family boundaries would have allowed me to be more relaxed about my environment today. Still, it’s impossible to tease out which personality traits were learned and which are based solely on personality!
The Takeaway: Effectively Communicate with Others in Your Home
No matter how personally you feel connected to your space, most of us at least have some preferences about it. We have preferences for colours, frequency of company, cleanliness, lighting, sounds, smells, and the overall feel. Some people’s preferences in these areas are very strong while others are not as concerned one way or the other. When you live with anyone else, you both need to openly communicate where you stand on your preferences and how important each of those preferences is to you. Only then can you establish how you will each respect one another’s living habits.