“My Boyfriend Doesn’t Want to ‘Set Off His Dad” By Moving”
My boyfriend, “Bruce,” and I have been together for three years now and living together for about a year. We live in a town that is about 45 minutes away from both our jobs. I want to move out so we can be closer to where we work, but Bruce doesn’t want to because we rent from his dad and he doesn’t want to set him off. We have no lease with his dad, and we’ve been paying rent in a home that is unfinished (as in, a good 1/3 of the house doesn’t have any flooring installed, no baseboards are down, etc). There are cheaper options closer to our jobs and we would be saving thousands of miles on our vehicle that we are leasing if we moved. What should I do about this? — Ready to Move
Find a place that you can afford by yourself and present it as an option to Bruce for a place you both move into together. If he continues to reject the idea of moving – and he probably will – sign the lease by yourself, pack up your shit, and move on your own (the beauty of having no lease where you live now is that you can leave whenever you want with no penalty). The money you save in gas can go toward leasing a car for yourself instead of sharing one with Daddy Boy Bruce, and the time you save in commuting to and from work can be spent enjoying a home with full flooring (because it’s the little things…).
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Wendy, the rent doesn’t get halved if only one person moves. It’s good advice to present this ultimatum but moving on her own will likely be more expensive
She was living before she moved in with Bruce, and she can do so if she moves out.
I would actually check laws wherever this is. Usually no lease indicates month to month tenancy. Also if there are no floors in some of the rooms that is most likely also against the law. Yes, get your stuff and move on your own.
So many questions I want to ask, but really, just follow Wendy’s advice. No amount of talking is going to fix this. Possibilities include: 1) dad is a financially controlling person; 2) boyfriend doesn’t actually pay him rent, only you do; 3) dad is promising “this will all be yours one day” but he has to help renovate it; 4) boyfriend does not know how to stand up to his dad. The only way to influence your boyfriend towards ordinary young adulthood behaviour is for him to see by your actions that it is possible to walk away from a crummy situation and stand on your own two feet. The additional costs on the lease and fuel need to be included in calculating Daddy’s sweet cheap rent deal.