How To Not Kill Your Spouse During Your Move

Communicate

It seems so simple, and yet is so quickly forgotten when push comes to shove. Communicate with your partner. Use words to describe what needs to be done and how you are feeling at each stage. Take some time every day after a task has been achieve (or even derailed) and celebrate the little successes or work out where you went wrong so you’re better prepared for the next step in the process.

Make A Plan

Sitting down and making a plan of attack is one of the simplest ways to get ahead. While some people will immediately dismiss lists as ‘useless’ and ‘unnecessary’, they’ve been proven to work time and time again where you’re a team trying to work in tandem. Work out who is hiring the truck and removalists, who is packing each room and who is calling the electricity company. These things all need to happen before the removalist pulls into your driveway on moving day, so ensuring you’ve got them all listed will help you make them happen… plus, there is nothing more satisfying than crossing something off your list.

Don’t Make Plans

The plans we speak of here are different to the plan above. Don’t make plans to go out with friends for dinner, or stay late at work in the last few days before your move. This is particularly crucial the night before the move. Keep your schedule free to take care of last minute things. If one of you has decided it’s ok to go out with your friends while leaving the other at home dealing with the final push, you’re brewing a recipe for disaster and will likely return home to someone who resents you greatly.

Get Rid Of the Kids

If you’ve got kids, especially young ones who are unable to help much, remove them from the move entirely. Ship them off to grandma’s house for a mini holiday or organise back to back play dates and sleepovers. While their needs are being taken care of by others, you can focus without having to field constant complaints of hunger or boredom, nor have to mediate fights about who owns what toys, which will only create higher levels of stress for all adults involved in the move.

Order Take Out

Clearing out your fridge in preparation for your move is stressful enough without having to buy more groceries to create more meals. Once you’ve finished the hard task of consuming anything perishable (especially meat products), there is no shame in treating yourself to a little take out. This does two things: it frees up your time to do more packing, as someone else is taking care of dinner preparation, and it forces you all to stop together and take some time out to relax when the food arrives.