But be warned: if you're mostly the silent partner in this search, while your spouse trolls the real estate sites on the Internet, drives aimlessly throughout neighborhoods and visits house after house -- you may be inadvertently sending a signal that you don't care about your future new digs, or worse, that you don't care about the person you're living with.

Unless you've agreed beforehand that you're mostly sitting this out -- perhaps your job is getting in the way, or your spouse is searching in one state and you're stuck behind in another part of the country -- by not getting involved with this important milestone, you could easily destroy your future house and relationship even more efficiently than a home wrecker or wrecking ball.

After all, house hunting alone is sometimes lonely work. True, much of it is fun -- imagining your life in a new home, mentally arranging your furniture every time you enter a room, the sense of an adventure of starting a new chapter in your life -- but looking for that right house can take time and be taxing. So if you want to show your special someone that you're not just financially invested in this house, but emotionally invested, we have some suggestions -- 14 of them, in fact.

And, of course, if you're the one doing all this work and feeling unappreciated, then why not find a way to get your clueless partner to see this article (hint: print this out and put it on their pillow) and possibly get the message that he or she needs to get off their butt and into the game.

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