Housing Dilemma - AGAIN!

If you know me or have been reading this blog a while, you'll know that I have moved house about a billion times. For some reason I've found it impossible to find a home for myself. Not just a house but an actual home where I can stay for a while and relax in with all my things around me and no nightmare flatmates or noisy neighbours.

Brighton is a nightmare for housing. I'm 40 and cannot afford to live on my own - hardly anyone can. A tiny one-bed flat here is at least £700+ per month and a bedsit is about £600+. Bedsits are tiny, they are diddy, usually horrid places that you'd go mad in. I don't want one of those. 

At the mo I live with my boyfriend in his flat. I've had issues with this as mentioned in a previous blog post. His basement flat is dusty, spidery and really dark. You have to put the lights on in the back of the house to see even in the Summertime. It's rammed full of his stuff that he won't get rid of, and the flat in no way reflects my taste or personality. We're also having relationship problems...

Things have changed in the 2 years since I met him and I'm not very happy. Without over-sharing we are more like flatmates who just sleep in the same bed, or like friends who aren't always very friendly towards each other. He has changed from a brilliant find into someone I don't think I want to be with any more. I think he's always been like this but I didn't realise how much it would effect me over time.

He sometimes suffers from depression yet refuses to do anything about it; he's really lazy, incredibly unmotivated, and all he likes to do is to go out and drink for hours. That's his one and only hobby and he has nothing else in his life that makes him happy. He's not an alcoholic but I don't like it when he goes out and comes home stinking of booze between 4 and 5 in the morning (5 o clock last night and 4 o clock on Friday) I'm not impressed by his lack of ambition and I don't really respect or admire his lifestyle either. My real father was (is) a complete drunk and it's not something I like being around. My boyfriend is never violent or anything - it's just very boring!

This sounds really harsh I know, but when you're quite a positive and motivated person (or trying your hardest to be) being with someone who is so negative about everything can really bring you down. 

I didn't know he was going to be like this as we got together very quickly and I moved  in after 3 months. He even went out drinking with his mates the night I moved in. This man is 41 and I don't think I really want a boyfriend like this. It's been like this for so long now that I've been thinking of moving out.

You may remember that I have a very wealthy American client who paid for me to learn to drive as well as flying me out to Vegas for a week for his son's birthday. He has a one-bed flat here by the Marina that I found for him that he hasn't even stayed one night in. The 6 month lease is up in November and I emailed him to remind him of this - I also mentioned that I was thinking of moving but would make sure there was no change to his service.

He suggested that I move into his flat and then pay him half the rent - when he comes to town he would simply stay in a hotel and use the flat to store bits and bobs. I think he just needs a UK residence as he has a company here. On one hand this would be an amazing opportunity for me; to get a one-bed flat for under £400 a month would be remarkable.  I'd need to put some of his stuff in storage to get all my stuff in, but the problem is that it is a bit small (I chose the flat for his needs not mine) but there is no outside space for my cat Dillinger.

I love my little cat and I really don't want to leave him, so I cheekily emailed the client today suggesting that I find him another property of the same value with outside space so that I could move into it. What a nerve I know! I just figured that it wouldn't hurt to ask and he doesn't really care one way or another. He's hardly here and if I pick a place I can also live in, then it costs him even less. You never know.

So all in all a bit grim at the moment. The words "I don't want to be your girlfriend any more" have been on the tip of my tongue for months and months. we've only been going out together for 2 years and things have been a bit rubbish for most of this year. Surely relationships shouldn't be this hard? You shouldn't have to work at them this hard! The thing is I haven't split up with him. A friend of mine remarked that this was a very strange thing for me - she said I was usually very decisive and she'd never seen me faff around like this.

I don't know why this is, but I don't think this is the type of relationship I want and I'm tired and bored of trying to make it better. But I really don't know why I haven't given up already when I feel like I've tried everything. You can't make a relationship work on  your own..

I'll let you know how it all turns out.