Men who share your age are not ipso facto selfish because they want to pursue their own goals (have children) rather than yours (presumably, compansionship). I don't know many 45 year old and up men who are not married or divorced with all the children they need, but if those who find themselves in that situation have a fault, it's that they don't make their intentions clear enough before wasting the time of women who are unlikely to want children. But then, there are lots of women who have children after turning 40, so age is not necessarily the bar that LW thinks it is. It's always hard to be found wanting, but mismatched expectations are the hallmark of dating. I have no doubt there's someone out there whose goals in life are congruent with LW's. In the meantime, wish those fellows luck changing diapers and working into their 70s to pay college tuition while their much younger wives are carting Junior around to soccer games where they meet all of those nice divorced dads who just happen to be their own age.

Please don't follow Cary's advice, at least not without doing a lot of due diligence.

1. You cannot, must not, move out until your name is off the lease, even if other names are also on the lease. You cannot get your name off the lease without your landlord's acceptance, which might or might not be forthcoming. Considering how your "friend" has treated you, you would be insane to leave without getting the landlord to formalize your constructive termination of the lease. Even if his name is on the lease, if you read your lease carefully, you will find that you can be held liable for the entire amount of the rent. Now, if your friend agrees to pay you the entire amount of his share of the rent (as in, 100%) before you leave so that you can be sure that you will not be left high and dry, maybe you can talk.

2. Every potential scenario flows from the above.

a. If you don't want to move and yours is the only name on the lease, you can tell your friends to move. YOU ARE NOT A LANDLORD. You are a tenant and for a variety of reasons (most of which have been stated in one post or another), you are not engaging in discrimination against women or families or babies by not wanting to live in the same apartment as a family with a newborn. Don't listen to Cary -- people evict women with children all the time. The court of public opinion might be against you, your other friends might not like you anymore, but the law will protect you. Of course, you can invite them to stay if your landlord thinks it's okay.

b. If both names are on the lease, this is more complicated, whether you want to stay or not, but still, remember 1 -- the landlord might settle the debate once and for all by declining to rent to roommate and roommate's girlfriend based on their creditworthiness or some other factor. HE might be liable for discrimination, but let him worry about it.

c. If you want to move (hey -- you never know, you might find a better situation, and you can certainly see what's out there before committing) then, still, your landlord has to let you out of the lease. If he won't, tell your roommate that you will give notice to the landlord in due course, but until then, sorry, you have to stay in order to protect yourself.

Not a fun situation, but landlord might settle things without you being held up as the bad guy.

It is true that in many states, where you let someone move in with you, it can be difficult to make them leave. So your roommate might have some rights even if he is not on the lease, HOWEVER, a big difference in this case would be that it is almost certain that the lease agreement prohibited you from letting roommate move in without landlord's permission. In which case, roommate's legal right to inhabit the space is quite doubtful -- and here again, you can point to the lease and tell him that he will have to take it up with the landlord, should he wish to remain in the apartment legally. This is your only leverage -- if roommate is not on the lease, then roommate's right to be there is dependent on your right to be there, and if you have violated the lease agreement already by letting him stay, it's not clear that your rights are all that robust. The point is, he would not have a very strong hand if he tries to enforce his "rights."

There are ways to play hardball without getting all angsty.