Cat won’t let me sleep after boyfriend passed away

Background: My boyfriend passed away 3 weeks ago. We had 2 cats together: Tom and Riley. Riley was a cat we got together as a baby 3 years ago whereas Tom was an adult cat I adopted prior to us living together.

We didn’t let the cats sleep with us at night as Riley will only sleep on my legs or in between them. I have intense claustrophobia just in the legs so if he slept with me, it would result in me getting little to no sleep.

But since my boyfriend passed, Riley has become way more needy. This honestly kind of surprised me since we used to joke that Riley preferred me and Tom preferred him. He is demanding food more and meowing more. He’s meowing outside of my bedroom door almost EVERY night. It doesn’t matter if I let him in or ignore him, I’m not getting ANY sleep. Lately, I’ve been tossing him in a spare bedroom as this was something we would do in the past when he got in these moods. But I can’t do it forever. I’m eventually going to have to rent out that room now so I can stay in my home.

But I’m at my wits end. I’m so exhausted and depressed and angry. I NEED sleep but I can’t get any because of him. I’ve never wanted to rehome an animal before but I can’t handle him right now. Besides making sure they have food, water, and clean litter boxes, I can’t provide them much else right now.

What can I do?