Thanks for all your thoughtful comments... : )

I bought a home with my parents - it is a two-family home. They live upstairs, I live downstairs. Our apartments are the same size. We split all utilities... even our heat is separate. We are not co-tenants. We are co-owners. This happened before my ex and I even discussed marriage and a life together.

I bought my house after he bought his with his sister. While buying the house and choosing it, he never even asked me to go with him and look at the homes he and his sister were looking at. He never asked me whether I even like the town he was buying the home in. I understand, at that time in our relationship things were still fresh and thus I did not really feel entitled to those questions. However, when I do start feeling that I was entitled to those questions is when he claims that he was thinking about US living there when he was fixing it up.... If he had owned the home before we met, it would be a different story... But if we were already dating while he is buying... what's the damage in asking me if I like it, especially if he was buying it with the intention of us living there. What prevented him for mentioning something to me?? It bothers me because it feels as though he chose what was best for him, and now I am somehow forced to live there... He claims it is cultural - we are European. I do not believe it is cultural.... My folks got married in our home country 30 years ago and they found an apartment. My mom did not move to my dad's... they were completely independent. IT is definitely NOT cultural, and I feel as though he is using that as a poor excuse. It is 2010, and I am a home-owner. Out of respect for that alone, we should have discussed things more fairly. The last time we talked, he claimed that we should have lived in his home because he bought it first.... That's when I just smiled.

It would have never worked properly... I knew that if I continued being with him, there would always be that fear that I might want to do something else that he may not approve of... and we'd always have these issues.

We both need to figure out what we want. What we are ready to compromise for and what we need as well as have to offer to our significant others. We had something rare and beautiful. I felt as though it was not strong enough for him to offer me choices.