To ask you lot to give me a good talking to!

[Timeforanamechangey]

DP and I broke up a few days ago.

We live together and at the moment we are still living in the same house till I can move into the new place I have lined up.

We discussed this and we both feel it would be for the best, although it is vastly cheaper for us to carry on living together, if either of us want to move on to another relationship it will be too difficult to stay living together so we think it's best to just cut ties now.

We still want to stay friends and have mutual friends, we will still be living fairly close to each other so will probably still see each other on occasion.

But now ex dp has messaged me saying he doesn't want me to move out (I was supposed to put my deposit down today) and I don't know what to do. I think deep down I know I shouldn't stay here, it'll make it too hard for us to make a clean break and I couldn't bear it if he started seeing other people and I was still living there.

I don't know why he is saying this now. I know it's hard for us to let go of each other but we had good reasons for breaking up (no cheating or other nefarious problems).

Does he want to have his cake and eat it? Why else would he say this? I'm so confused and upset. Aibu to ask for some help in woman-ing up?

You've not really broken up. Are you sure you want to?

Either move out and never ever sleep together again.
Or stay and stay together and work out your problems.

The halfway house is not a good or healthy option for anyone.

Has he thought how he'd feel if you started dating? Chances are he wouldn't be very happy, and wouldn't be exactly helpful to your new romance!

It sounds like you aren't ready to break up. Are you sure your problems can't be resolved?

I've been in your position. I didn't move out for another five months but, looking back, knowing that we weren't right for each other and wouldn't be getting back together, I wish I had moved out as soon as we decided to split up.

Neither of us could properly move on until I moved out. It was a horribly confusing period of my life. We both knew we couldn't get back together but it was all too easy to seek comfort in each others' arms.

I tried to date other men but it was hard trying to explain to them I was still living with my ex. And my ex got 'funny' about me going on dates even though it was none of his business any more and we were, on paper, nothing more than housemates. I also remember the pain of realising he hadn't come home one night. He could simply have stayed over at a friend's house but my imagination was going into overdrive and it drove me crazy. It wasn't my place to ask but it upset me because I felt so vulnerable, like a sitting duck, setting myself up for pain.

We'd go through phases of being really close and eating dinner together/texting... then there'd be times we'd deliberately avoid each other which, while necessary to move on, still cut like a knife. I did a lot of crying in my room during that time of my life and had a lot of anger!

The best thing I did was move out of there. It was the clean break both of us needed and while we missed each other and stayed in touch for a while, we both finally moved on and are now a lot happier with new people.

I know what I'm like and if we decided to stay living together and he didn't come home one night (for whatever reason), it would just ruin me, I know I'd be so upset because I would assume he was with someone else.

In all honesty neither of us want to break up. The only reason we feel we have to is that after I finish my current course of study (in 3 yrs time) I will have to move away to find work and so I can't stay here. He doesn't want to move away from this area as all his friends & family are here, which I can totally understand but if I need to move and he doesn't then it doesn't really make sense for us to stay together in the mean time just to break up in 3 years. We'd feel like we were just using each other and prolonging the inevitable.

I missed my window to put down the deposit so now I'm back to having nowhere else to go now, can't find anything else in the area affordable I'm so bloody stupid!

If he's not willing to commit to you long term, then you're right to cut your losses, no matter how painful it is at the moment.