Breaking up is hard to do

Relationships are complex things. When they work they involve two people achieving common goals in a way that brings happiness to them both. When they don’t work, they usually bring frustration and anger to the surface, until the point that it gets too much and one of the partners calls it a day. I’m sad to say that I’ve reached this point. After a few weeks of uncertainty, frustration, anger and complaining to anyone who is unfortunate enough to be within earshot I’d finally reached the point where I could see it wasn’t working. Now I just had work out how to tell him….

So here’s the sorry tale of how I finally worked up the courage to break up with my estate agent. He’d arranged to come see me at home to discuss how things were going. I was tempted to cancel the meeting, I knew what he was going to say and I’d no interest in hearing it. But at the end of the day I thought it would be best to tell him to his face. I’d been taking longer and longer to return his calls, and speaking to him no longer filled me with hope but like most men, he obviously had failed to read into the signs. He arrived at the door full of vim and vigour, his little briefcase clutched in his sweaty hand, full of printouts to show just how much he’d been thinking of selling this house and how hard he’d been working.

I had to be blunt, better to be cruel to be kind. Before he’d even sat himself down on the sofa I told him I’d decided to hand in my 2 weeks notice, as and from the 28th Nov we’d no longer be together. He did seem a little taken aback when I thrust my handwritten (the printer was broken) letter of termination of contact at him. And he may have had the right to feel a little hurt when I got him to sign the (also handwritten) letter saying that he’d received notice of termination. Where’s the trust? he must have been thinking.. do I mean nothing to you?

What followed was a ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ conversation, where I assuaged his feelings that I wasn’t happy with him or the amount of work he was putting in. It’s me, I said. I’m tired of having to rush home at a moment’s notice to clean the house from top to bottom so some person can walk round it for 5 minutes and decide it’s got the wrong aspect and they don’t want to buy it. I’ve got exams coming up in December, and it’ll soon be Christmas. I just don’t have the time to invest in this anymore.There's nothing out there that I want to buy, and I can't sell this place. I'm sorry, but it’s over.

His little face looked so disappointed I had to resist the urge to pat him on the hand and say “Don’t worry, you’ll find someone else with a better house, a bigger house with more commission to be earned. You'll soon forget about this place".

Rich of course made me feel like the female Alan Sugar, for handing out the ”you're fired” letter so soon into conversation. But I didn’t want the poor man to be lead on now did I ? Better to let him know there’s no hope.
Now all I have is his little print outs of the statistics of how our house is performing on Rightmove (above average clicks … but no bidders). What use is it to me to know how many bored people are gawping over our property details? I need someone to come here and give us a half decent offer. That’s why I told him I’m leaving him for someone else. Someone who won’t require so much effort and money, someone who can deliver on their promise. Someone who can sell our house.. I just need to find them.