Carolyn Hax: She feels pressured by new boyfriend’s rush to move in together

Q: I’ve been dating “Kevin” for a while (about seven months) and am really enjoying it, except that he has been pushing a conversation about moving in together since approximately Month 4. He lived with roommates until last year and I think he is feeling the pinch of living alone, which I don’t think is a good enough reason to combine households.

We are both in our 30s, and I also feel weirded out by the idea that maybe he doesn’t know how to live alone.

On the other hand, if this is headed toward marriage, then it might make all the sense in the world to test out our compatibility now? With the pressure I feel from him, I have started to get confused about what I actually want. How do I figure that out?

— Confused

A: There is nothing confusing about your confusion. Pressure famously, obviously, disrupts our ability to sort through our own priorities in a dispassionate way. Nuggets of self-knowledge like, “Do I love Kevin, do I even like Kevin, do I know Kevin well enough at 4-7 months to trust my opinion of him and our compatibility, and what’s with all this freaking pressure, Kevin?”

As the pressure mounts, it tends to displace those other priorities, until it’s all about the pressure itself — namely, how to make it stop.

The whole point is to weaken our resistance into giving someone what they want.

But you’re just busy thinking, “I might regret not buying the car at this price” … uh, wrong index card …” It might make sense to test our compatibility now!” Anxious thoughts of a deal you wouldn’t be thinking about in Month 7 if he’d simply let you be.

That’s why it’s so important to understand and be unafraid to use other ways of making pressure stop — like walking away.

That’s the simplest and surest method. It also isn’t just for showrooms, because pressure can happen in any context and it’s disrespectful of your autonomy anywhere. More so when it’s about what you do with your life.

Since you think highly of Kevin, you can give him a good faith chance to show you he respects you and your needs by backing off: “Kevin. You’ve been asking since Month 4, and if I were comfortable then I would have said yes.”

Say you expect time and space to be yourself — not time in which you are relentlessly lobbied to give him what he wants.

Note, I’m assuming you feel able to start this conversation. If your assertiveness isn’t up to his defensiveness, then that — he — will overwhelm you, regardless of timing or topic. Enjoyable though things may seem now.

After drawing your line: “Please respect that. Pushing the conversation says you see my ‘no’ as negotiable. Not OK.”

Take his response seriously, both in the moment and over time.

Can he accept this without getting defensive?

If yes, then can he live with your boundary, without chafing, just because that’s the right thing to do?

This crossroads for a newish relationship is so telling. It is the crossroads. You’re saying — pointing out the obvious, really — that you and your needs are right beside him and his needs, holding the same degree of importance.

He either grasps this immediately, sees how his cohabitation-pressure campaign walks all over your equal standing, apologizes and backs off to let you think, or he doubles down on his impatience and keeps treating you as an obstinate means to his ends.

Wait — can you even have this conversation? If so, then go.

The message in any confusion is clear.

• Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, or chat with her online at 11 a.m. Central time each Friday at washingtonpost.com.

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