By Rachel Barker
If you break up, peeling your life apart from your ex’s can be a long and sticky process. But it can be done. Here’s our take on handling it:
Whānau
It's not totally uncommon in break-ups for parents and exes to stay in contact – whether it's just being friends on Facebook or texting to see how the family dog is doing.
If you don’t want your whānau to keep in touch with your ex, then explain to them how the situation makes you feel and what your preferred boundaries are. Most parents will respect your requests. Remember though that there might be some overlap between family friends and sports teams that make it harder for your ex and your family to completely avoid each other.
Likewise if your ex tells you they feel weird about you still getting coffee with their mum, then take the L and respect their choice. It might feel like letting go of real family, but that’s just another part of the grief of ending a relationship.
“Hello’s” and “How are you’s” are totally fine if you’re bumping into their parents, but seeking out time with someone else’s family doesn’t let you both grow apart in the way you need to.
Friends
The truth of untangling your social lives might mean you walk away with different friends than you started with. You can’t just revert this to the way things were.
You might want your ex to stop seeing your friends, and you can ask for that – if you’re respecting their boundaries, you have grounds to expect them to respect yours. In the worst case, you might bow out of a group of friends you had become close with because they have a stronger connection to your ex.
But at the end of the day, you can’t tell your ex who they can and can’t be mates with, when there are other people involved.
Pets
If you owned a pet together you have two options: Either co-parent and understand that this is going to logistically be quite consuming and potentially emotionally draining, or make a decision and hand the pup over – what you can’t do is tell someone who has equal ownership over your cat/dog/rat/bat/frog that they need to give it up if they don’t want to.
Also think about who can really offer your once-shared fur/scale-baby the location, safety and attention it needs. If you don’t think that’s you, be gracious about it.
Flatting
For most exes staying in the same flat, let alone the same room, isn’t really an option – If you’re in a good place, you can chat through whether one person wants to take over the room on their own. Otherwise, you’ll need to sort out new tenants. Let your flatmates know what’s going on ASAP so they suss other tenants with plenty of time.
As always, when making these decisions, consider what staying in the flat really means to you and your ex, and try to be objective. If the flat is 10 minutes away from their whānau or job for instance, it would be a kindness to let them keep the room. It might help for each of you to make a list of practical pros and cons to help you decide, or leave it in the hands of your flatmates.
If you’ve been screwed over by someone moving out with rent still to pay, then have a look at your lease and double check if your names are both on there. If your ex is on the lease too then it’s not your responsibility to make up the rent if they’ve bounced. Contact your landlord or agent and let them know that the person has left unexpectedly – it’s their job from there out to track them, and their rent payments, down.
Even if they’re not on the lease and you are, getting ahead of the situation by notifying the owner of the property might give you some time to negotiate a solution. And remember you can always contact the NZ Tenancy Tribunal for advice.
Money
This brings us to money. Things can get ugly, but if an ex owes you a large sum you should utilise your connections to their friends and family. Let people close to them know what they owe you. Request that other people chase them up if they’re avoiding you. Most people won’t agree that it’s right to leave an ex financially high and dry, even if it’s their friend.
Likewise, if you owe them any money, pay up, or make a plan with them to pay them back, and then you can get on with your life knowing that you don’t have a debt hanging over your head.
And if you’re in a relationship ever gets serious enough to consider merging your finances/bank accounts, it’s super important to have a lawyer to draw up an agreement. This way neither of you can screw the other over if things end badly.
