Me and DP were planning to move in together for a while. Initially the plan was she would move into my place (she rents), but that turned out to not be possible logistically for us. So instead the plan became for us to buy together somewhere near where she currently lives. It wouldn't be ideal for me as it would mean 3 hours a day commute, but if it's what we need to do to be together then I'd be happy to do it.
It's an expensive area, and we'd need a big deposit to get anywhere decent. DP has a small amount of savings but not much. The idea would have been for me to sell my place and put all my savings in, which would mean I could contribute £500K deposit which would be enough for us to get something decent (hopefully forever home), and also means DP wouldn't have to cash out her own savings which are in an ISA so probably worth holding onto.
We talked about this previously a bunch of times and we always agreed on buying as tenants in common, so if things didn't work out for whatever reason then deposits are protected. The reason protecting the deposit is important to me is because I'm due to retire in 5 years and so need to have some financial security around that. The remaining equity would have been split 50/50, I agreed to pay majority of the mortgage as I earn a bit more, but I'm happy to do that to help DP build equity in the house so she also has some financial security if things went wrong. From my perspective we were 100% committed to each other and we've always considered ourselves life partners, but you can unfortunately never know the future.
About 3 months ago, DP had a sudden and very significant shift in her feelings about the relationship. She became very negative about me and told me several times that she didn't really like me anymore, she didn't enjoy spending time with me, she was thinking about leaving me etc. I still don't really understand where this came from or what triggered it, but obviously it was very upsetting and hurtful to hear.
A couple of weeks later, she wrote me a letter in which she again told me she was thinking about leaving me, but in this letter she also said she would consider staying with me provided we buy a house and agree to own everything 50/50 regardless of who has put what deposit in. I didn't find that very appealing given the context of the discussion (that she's already thinking about leaving). But we managed to agree that we could buy a cheaper place so we wouldn't need to put so much deposit in, and that way we could own it 50/50.
So we start looking at houses together. I feel pretty strongly that we really shouldn't be buying a house together if she's saying she doesn't like me anymore, and I suggest that we should rent for a short period and try to work on the relationship before deciding what to do next (also note we've never actually lived together before this point, so there are still some unknowns around that).
But DP is quite adamant that she isn't going to rent anymore and is going to buy a house either with or without me. DP also starts looking at some small flats for herself during this time, and tells me if she gets a place on her own then it won't be big enough for both of us and so it will mean she's definitely leaving me. DP does actually tentatively try to offer on a place for herself (she phones the agent in front of me), but gets outbid.
At one point DP does actually leave me, and we're split up for a coupe of weeks. I kept telling her I'm not going to give up, and I managed to convince her we should keep trying to work things out. So she (seemingly quite reluctantly) agrees to try again, but while also telling me several times that her heart isn't in it and she doesn't think there's any point.
We resume the house hunt. I'm still thinking it's a terrible idea, and I start having major anxiety about it. DP continues to make really negative and dispiriting comments every few days, e.g. saying she can't even name 3 things we have in common (I could probably name 50). Since we've agreed to look for a cheaper place, the forever home is now completely out of budget. So on top of everything else, it looks like I'm going to be buying a house that I don't even particularly like.
This goes on for another 3 weeks and we see about half a dozen places. Then DP gets angry at me for not liking any of the houses and basically says I've now got a 2 week deadline to find a place I'd be happy with.
This is pretty much the final straw for me. I tell DP that while I really want to buy a house with her at some point, I'm not going to do it unless we can work on getting our relationship to a better place first.
I suggest three alternatives which would allow us to move in together and work on things
- Rent temporarily, work on things with a view to buying in 6 months or a year
- I can buy the house outright, she can live there for free. If we work things out then when we get married in a couple of years (as was the plan) then it would become half hers anyway. If not, she'll have saved a bunch of money for her own deposit
- I'll help her to buy her own place and I'll move in there with her. I can pay for renovations etc, or help out a bit with the deposit if she's short. If we buy a place together later she can choose whether to sell it or rent it out
DP isn't interested in even discussing any of the alternatives and tells me pretty much on the spot that it's over. This is about a month ago, and I've still been trying to convince her not to give up and that we can find a way through this. She has been absolutely adamant that she doesn't want to be with me, and has again been (in my opinion) frequently quite unkind with her words.
She is very angry and feels that I somehow betrayed her by not buying a house with her. But in reality we would almost certainly be going ahead with a purchase together now if she hadn't repeatedly told me she was thinking of leaving, and basically just started trashing the relationship seemingly out of nowhere. We'd talked about buying a house together almost since the beginning of the relationship and it was something that we both always wanted.
Anyway, in perhaps a final twist, she's recently softened a little and now says that she might reconsider if I can make a "sizeable" financial commitment (in her words, equivalent to a house). We already discussed and agreed previously that we would join finances and have a shared current account covering all outgoings/expenses (again prorated with me contributing more). The only thing that wouldn't go into the joint account would be our individual pension contributions. Given that, I'm not really sure what else I can offer? What does a "financial commitment equivalent to a house" even look like? I've asked DP to suggest some ideas but she's adamant that it's me that needs to figure it out (and again, there's a looming deadline).
I also can't shake my own feeling that DP has been quite unreasonable throughout this whole thing. The frequent threats to leave and forced deadlines etc have felt to me borderline abusive given the circumstances. And the current conversation is uncomfortably close to sounding like "I'm leaving you unless you give me lots of money".
Hoping someone might have some suggestions or general advice to share. I'm feeling quite broken after this whole ordeal and don't even know what to think anymore.