When commitment feels rare and everyone’s lonely, Change of Heart is a Valentine's Week investigation of what makes relationships so hard—and how they can be better.
Moving is understood to be so terrible because it's expensive, time-consuming, stressful, and all-around nightmarish, and especially so if you're doing it at warp speed while you're already dealing with heartbreak. Here's how to get out as fast as you can with minimal damage.
Know your rights and responsibilities when it comes to moving out.
You share a place with your ex, but how exactly do you share it? Is your name on the lease? If it isn’t, your credit won't be affected by this aspect of a sudden move. If your name is on the lease, though, you're legally entitled to be at your place, so you don’t necessarily have to leave right away just because your ex is insisting on it or because being there is awkward. But if your sanity requires an immediate departure: Talk to your landlord first and explain that you’re moving ASAP. There’s no need to get into why if you don’t want to talk about it—your landlord is a businessperson, and this is a business situation.
“If you absolutely have to break your lease, it’s best to work with your landlord as much as possible to avoid any further negative consequences," said Brittney Castro, Certified Financial Planner with Mint and Turbo. If you break or violate a lease and simply vanish, you may be subject to a lease-breaking fee, and/or forfeit your security deposit—either or both may undercut your immediate and future financial stability, too. That's not to say you shouldn't ever do it, but make sure the years of impact it may have on your credit mean leaving immediately is actually worth it to you.