As the cost-of-living crisis rages on and rent prices remain high, us Brits are stuck living with our exes more than ever.
Whether it’s the price of a flat white, your favourite flavoured vape or, most significantly, rent, it is hard to avoid that everything is costing more. One in five rental properties in the UK has an asking rent higher than the average person gets paid in a month, which is roughly £3,000. A pint will set you back just over a fiver now, too.
This is hitting our heart strings as well as our purse strings. Research conducted by Manchester Metropolitan University last year found that rising costs are impacting our relationships and our break ups, with more and more couples having to live with each other after splitting because they can’t afford to move out. According to the study, the cost-of-living crisis is one of the key factors in making this living arrangement increasingly common among Brits.
Relationship coach Natasha Mahtani has noticed an increase in the number of her clients remaining in unhappy relationships because of financial reasons. “I 100 per cent see this [happening] and mainly with women who typically earn less than their partners or in young families where the woman is a stay-at-home parent,” she says. “Money is the number one reason women can’t leave a relationship in my experience.” Mahtani is right that the gender pay gap persists – the latest statistics show that women in the UK earn, on average, nearly seven per cent less than men.
Tash Palmer, a 26-year-old from West Sussex, is in this exact situation. Just over a year into living in the house she bought with her ex, Palmer found out that he had cheated on her. The real kicker is that he admitted the infidelity took place before the pair had agreed to buy together. As Palmer was coming from a two-year master’s degree and had a lot less savings, her then-partner had fronted most of the costs. She admits she owns “a tiny portion”, but even so, it’s more than she can currently afford to pay off.
“I feel very trapped because I can’t go anywhere,” Palmer explains. “I haven’t even looked into it, but I know it’s going to be a lot of money, more than I’ve got. I didn’t expect how much of a commitment it was before. But then again, I didn’t expect this to happen.”
While content creator Diana Foster had a less dramatic break-up with her partner of over six years (there wasn’t a “specific reason” for the split, just a relationship “breakdown”) she felt so isolated by the experience of living with an ex that she made a TikTok series dedicated to it. As neither Foster nor her ex-boyfriend can afford to rent somewhere else in addition to paying for their small London flat, it is now coming up to six months since they’ve been cohabiting as exes.
“When we broke up, I went onto TikTok to get advice and see what other people were doing, how they were coping,” Foster says. “I didn’t see anything. But when I did post the video [about living with an ex], there were so many people saying they are in the same position, and I honestly couldn’t believe the number of messages I got or the comments; thousands of people.” One of her videos in the series has been viewed nearly 900,000 times.
Moving on from a breakup while living with the source of your woe is clearly going to be a barrier to healing. Foster discusses this: “The first thing I thought of when we broke up was that whatever happens, it’s going to be a lot harder to get over the breakup. There have been times when I’ve blocked him on social media, and there’s no point to that. I’m going to see him later that day.”
Dating is pretty much a no-go, too. Foster describes how returning home from a date can feel like “cheating”, even though it’s not. While “nothing crazy” has happened in this regard for either her or her ex, “it’s obviously very awkward”.
For Palmer, she says she wouldn’t describe herself as “on the prowl”, and has only dated since the breakup insofar as she slept with someone she met on a work trip: “I told [my ex] straight away when I got back but he couldn’t really be angry about it. We were broken up then.” In fact, her living setup has led to a tendency to fall into a situationship of sorts with said ex. “It’s easy to slip back into our habits and be all lovey and cuddling,” she admits. “At the moment, we’re in a weird place, back together-ish, but I don’t know what I want.”
According to relationship guru Mahtani, this sort of arrangement could be stopping ex-couples from moving on. “Boundaries are everything. Mentally re-frame the relationship – you’re now housemates, not partners. Physical boundaries are important to ensure you don’t fall into a ‘friends with benefits’ situation. Give each other space.”
Boundaries are important, but so is communication. Foster describes how her most challenging moments living with her ex have been when they’re not speaking, specifically regarding her ex’s whereabouts. “Not knowing where he was didn’t give me the space to feel like I’m home by myself because I didn’t know when he was going to be back. He could be back in 10 minutes. He could be back in five hours. That was difficult.”
Foster recommends “communicating a lot” to avoid this. Distractions help too, according to Palmer: “It gets exhausting living in it. It’s mentally draining. Keep going to the gym or whatever you like to do, or being focused on your work.”
Whether you’re living with an ex right now or avoiding breaking up because of shared living, know you’re not alone, and there are ways of coping. Along with communication, distraction and boundaries, Mahtani advises securing an exit plan so this “situationship doesn’t drag on for months”. In the meantime, prioritise your own healing as much as possible: “Time doesn’t heal heartbreak; doing the inner work does.”