Hey @groovy_thyme I'm sorry to hear that you're stuck in a scenario where you're finding someone toxic to your mental health and need to find a middle ground. It sounds like this person really pushes on doing things that make you feel bad intentionally or unintentionally and it can be so frustrating, I've known that feeling. For me it was a jealousy that my ex seemed to spend more time with other people in his life than me and I felt really excluded because he flaked on me a lot. While I didn't live with my ex it did become toxic to be in his friendship group after we broke up because of his connection with other friends I felt like were being rubbed in, despite the fact we wanted to stay friends. I found that drawing boundaries on what our friendship meant, mainly in my own head, was what helped me. I made a decision early on that I didn't want to rekindle any sort of romantic relationship even though I had feelings because I knew it wouldn't work out. Alternatively, I told myself that I was going to 'wait out' these feelings I was having and see if they still existed months along the line and if they did I would act on them, and by that point they didn't. As time went on I found myself getting over the bad things and feelings my ex brought up and the connection changed naturally because I delayed my response to the feelings and could focus on other stuff.
Along with the lease that you said you were going to be a part of, if it's going to kill your mental health to be with this person in close proximity despite having a better place to live and you might want to bail, I wonder if bringing up the idea you might not want to be involved would be good to bring up sooner rather than later? I have a friend who had to do that and just explain she didn't have the headspace to move and while it was annoying for the housemates they made it work. Another thing might be that if you're living with multiple people at least you'd be able to get away from him?
