I’ve reached a bit of an impasse with my DP and could really use some advice on what to do next please.
We’ve been together for 3 and a half years, taken things really slow as both of us are divorced and we have three kids between us (ages 6-10). Time spent together has increased naturally to the point where we spend almost every night at his place or mine both with and without kids. We’ve discussed the future, and although neither of us wants more children or to get married, we would like to live together.
He owns his flat outright, I own mine with a mortgage. Neither of our homes are big enough to house all of us together. He has never rented and doesn’t want to so we’ve been looking for a place to buy.
But here is the tricky bit. In order to finance the kind of house we need (i.e. each kid having their own bedroom) we will have to sell one of our properties. We’re in a position to keep one, and have agreed that should things go wrong at least one of us will be able to move out into the other property. However, which property we sell is the tough bit. Mine is my only asset, it’s solely in my name, I was lucky to be able to buy it and having had to move so many times in the fallout of my divorce I’m reluctant to sell up. Although admittedly I don’t have the cashflow to be an effective landlord if we kept mine. As for his place, the financial order he has with his ex-wife has a ‘clause’ in it that states that should he stop paying the mortgage on the family home, his place would then belong to her. If he sells his place and buys another home, this clause is automatically transferred, and having his ex-wife’s name on a property I would be living in makes me nervous (she can be very difficult).
We’ve agreed that we’ll draw up a legal agreement so that our assets are protected should we split and should one of us die, our respective children will get the share. However this does leave me nervous about where I would end up if this happens – if we split or he dies I would have to move again and if I don’t have my current property to fall back on, I’ll be back in the same situation I was in when I got divorced.
At the same time, finances are not going to change for either of us for a long time, so even if we leave it for now we will be in same position in a year, or two, or four… and although I’m not in a rush, packing a bag etc for every visit is getting tiresome. He's also stressing as he really wants to give his kids their own rooms (at the moment they share at his). And the cynical part of me worries that his main driving force for moving is that, and not because he actually really wants to live together. If we can’t work something out it’s leaving me wondering if we really have a future.
I hope this makes sense, could use some thoughts if anybody has any!