Mutual Using

Dear Bitter Single Guy: I have been living with a man for 7 years.  I pay the mortgage, and he provides me with a car and pays the insurance.  He was particularly cold and uncaring over the last year or so, so I accepted a job in another city and relocated.  I still own the house he lives in and pay the mortgage and I still have his car.  He says he wants to continue the relationship but doesn't make any extraordinary efforts to do so.  I guess I just need to hear someone else say that he is using me.  – Feeling Used Up

Dear FUU: The Bitter Single Guy is always sad to hear when his readers’ love goes bad, but this is not the BSG’s first time at the rodeo and he knows (as many of you do) that, like clothes left for a week in the washing machine, sometimes love goes sour.

Worse for you FUU, is that your love has gone sour while you’re financially wrapped up in each others lives.  You are waiting for someone to tell you that you’re being used, and the BSG is happy to be that person, but he’s actually going to take it one step further because there is some mutual using going on right now. Feeling used because he lives in your house while you are still driving his car?  Come on FUU, don’t make the BSG point this out.

You have no righteous leg to stand on regarding payment of the mortgage on the house he lives in while he continues to pay for the car you drive.  Call your ex (that’s what he is by the way; perhaps you noticed?) and tell him that you’re putting the house up for sale in 30 days and that you’ll bring his car back to him this weekend.  Tell him that if there’s any hope for your relationship you both need to step back onto neutral ground so your loving negotiation isn’t tainted by mortgages and insurance payments.