Should I feel bad or not?

[beck1976]

My partner has been living with me for a few years, and I have tried the living together thing but it’s not for me. He is basically saying if he can’t stay at mine then he will move back to where his family live and leave his job here as according to him it’s not a relationship if you don’t live together. I don’t see why he can’t get his own place in my area, but he clearly doesn’t intend to or want to. I enjoy being with him but want my own space too which I was used to before him.
I feel like he’s trying to make me feel bad saying he would have to leave the job he enjoys and everything, but I can’t help it. Am I being fair or not?

Asking him to move out when he doesn’t want to would be relationship ending for most people. If you don’t want to live with him then that’s fair enough, but he’s not unreasonable at all.

No you’re not being fair.

You’ve changed the rules of the relationship on a fundamental level that will have a huge impact both emotionally on him and in terms of his career. Yet you seem to nonchalantly think that’s perfectly reasonable and don’t understand the fuss.

If these are the relationship rules you want to implement, you need his consent for you both to remain in the relationship. Surely you can undertando this is a huge change. Stop pretending you understand the upset.

If this is what you want then you’re going to have to be much more thoughtful in the way you go about things. But don’t be surprised if the relationship ends.

Did he move to your area to live with you?

Moving in together is a relationship milestone. Asking him to move out is a step backwards. You're undoing the move you made forwards in your lives together. It's just an unspoken rule that if you move in together and someone moves out, you've broken up.