It started with AF at 4am on Saturday morning. Then we went to visit this house we are interested in for the second time, bringing along my MIL and FIL. Then followed a very heated discussion between all four of us where I was the only one being reticent about the price and the stuff I would want to change in the house. I was totally pressurised – and sorry but I am not going to say yes to the biggest purchase of my life by being bullied into it, I’ll do it because I want to actually live there so much that I will make sacrifices about the price if I have to.
So I had things like the following thrown in my face, mostly by DH which depressed me a lot:
“Well, of course, we’ll just carry on renting and we’ll never buy anything.”
Um, no, I am not bringing into question the strategy of buying a house, I am only saying that this house is bigger than we need, has a correspondingly high price tag and still needs some stuff, like a new kitchen, doing to it. The fact that we like it is not the only factor to consider when buying a house. Otherwise, let's go and by a château like this one. It needs a bit of double-glazing, a heating system and you would have to cook over the fireplace but just look at that view:
“Everyone we know says they wished they hadn’t spent so long looking and had bought sooner.”
Yes, agreed, the people you are talking about spent 5 years looking and we have been seriously looking for a total of three weeks, so I think there is some middle ground.
“You are always pessimistic; we will probably have other kids, you are just choosing to see the glass half empty. You should be optimistic.”
Okay, first I am not ALWAYS pessimistic, in fact I am working quite hard to be as okay as I can be and so that hurts me quite a lot. It is me who knows what cycle day it is and buys pg tests and who is planning the s*x, you pretty much just have to show up and do your stuff and do not have seem to have a good grasp on human reproduction because I am the one that is doing all the research. Second, let me take my admittedly emotional response to CD1 and look at it objectively, in the best case scenario we could have two more living kids. So why does that mean we need a house with four bedrooms plus and extra room downstairs and having to watch every penny to make ends meet each month?
“What about that house we saw last summer. We should have bought that but you didn't want to. You're just looking for a perfect house that doesn't exist.”
Yes, when we saw it I was more than 8 months pregnant with my first child, and did not think moving house was something I wanted to do right then. Then my son died, and I was not interested in purchasing a house, as there were details like choosing a coffin, watching it get cremated with my son inside, scattering ashes, staring at the nursery with everything in it, wondering how to get out of bed etc. Then that house got sold. Please stop harking back to that house. And I am "perfectly" aware that the perfect house does not exist.
Okay, then followed some quiet time of no shouting and then another period of shouting in the evening as DH showed me his spreadsheet which was supposed to convince me that we could afford it but was in fact doing the opposite.
This caused me to have a mini-breakdown as in addition to all this I have to decide what is going on at work this week with a new role etc. I called my mother but I was incoherent and she couldn’t understand me so I just ended up freaking my parents out with worry.
At about 10:45pm I went for a walk – DH wanted to come but I wouldn’t let him because he was so angry and making me more stressed. So I was walking around the countryside in the dark on my own. At every pool of light cast by a lamp post I imagined hanging from it but thought that isn’t nice for the person who discovers you, when I saw the trains go by in the distance, I thought, that would be a good way, I even know someone whose mother threw herself in front of a train but it’s not so fair on the train driver who has done nothing. Same applies to jumping off of a bridge over the motorway. Also not nice for DH who would have to identify my body. This is not very nice, but it is seriously what I was thinking about. I walked for about 45mins and then decided to go home. As I was on the road I saw DH who had come looking for me, presumably because he was worried. (I had not taken my mobile, not on purpose but more because I just put my jacket on and left). He hugged me and we walked home together. I called my mother to let her know I had come back from my walk but I didn’t want to talk to her right away.
The next day we went to brunch at the newly bought apartment of some friends. Their apartment had new, contemporary fixtures and fittings which were right up my street and which the house we are looking at doesn’t have, of course it could have, it has A LOT of potential if we had a bit more money. When I got home my mother called in the evening, I had not seen that she had left a message in the morning to tell me to call her back. She had not slept from worry and was worried that DH and I were too strained. I could tell that she was at a loss as to how to help me, but she said some things which annoyed me, like the throwaway platitude, “It will happen.” (I spoke to her again this morning and I think I was able to relieve a bit of her worrying. She said she was most worried about us not being able to pull through as a couple, and I told her that we had arguments before Moksha and just because he died, did not mean we turned into saints but does not mean we are falling apart as a couple either).
Slowly DH is coming round to the idea that maybe this house is too expensive. I cannot cope with the stress of being treated as the bad guy who is pissing on everyone’s dreams. But even if we had one kid, I would rather be able to do stuff with him/her, like go on holiday, than spend all my time in a house with 50’000 empty rooms. Of course, we would expand to fit into the rooms, but the point is we don’t need to pay a lot of money and have fantastic views of the Alps for storage of junk.
So, I am not looking at ways to end it all anymore but it was in short not a good weekend.
5 comments:
Well, you know, buying a house (any house) is very stressful in general. It might be a good idea not to be even looking now. I firmly believe that when you find the right one, you will know. And if this isn't it, then so be it. If you're arguing about it to that extent, then it probably isn't the right one.
That chateau seems nice though eh? LOL imagine the heating bills.
And re thoughts of suicide -- yeah, i had these alot too. (Not so much any more.) It helps to talk about them a little bit, and i do think that it is pretty normal to have them every now and then. But if you find yourself having them alot, and/or not in response to a bad event (like fighting with the dh and CD1), then it might be time to discuss it with a counselor.
I didn't want to be totally negative on your blog, but i think i would be hesitant about buying a house that is a little outside of your financial comfort zone. I know i don't like to worry about money (maybe because my parents did when i was growing up), and I like to be able to do things that aren't in a budget.
We bought a house that is about 2/3 of what we could have afforded, but I wanted the option of one of us working part time in the future, to be able to travel, to be able to eat out when we wanted to (not only when the budget allowed).
I'm sorry it had to get to the point where you felt like you were being ganged up on... and that it added to how upset you already were.
I hope you find a nice house that both of you will love.
You are right and that is why I am not too worried about it as I do not have these thoughts when there is no trigger. I think there were about 50 triggers this weekend though. It's strange how you go from thinking those thoughts to having to decide which career move to make within 24 hours.
The bank came back to us today saying that they would lend the money for this house. I am thinking of making a compromise that we put in a low offer. I mean I do actually like the damn house. I did want to visit it again.
By the way, that château is the most visited tourist attraction in the country. You can't see it in the picture but in addition to being surrounded by Alps, it is also directly on the lake. It was originally built in the 12th century. I have been there twice and it's very drafty ;o)
I hate to put any more pressure on a pressurized situation, but my grief counselor advises to make absolutely no major changes in your life for at least one year into your grief. She says this applies to all profound grief (death of parent, spouse, brother, etc.) not just death of a baby. It is such a stressor on a relationship to make these type of changes (i.e. moving house), even when you aren't processing the death of your only child.
I agree with Kate, too. The arguing probably means this isn't the right piece of real estate.
Also, I wanted you to know that at about the same time post-C.'s death, I had a huge blowout with my husband. It was horrifying. I got up and walked out of the house, didn't tell him I was going. Actually, I intended to just sit in the yard and stew, but was restless. So I walked down the block to the kid's play park, and cried for my son who would never play there. My husband was so terrified when he couldn't find me that we had an even bigger fight when I got home. However, this was absolutely the turning point in us coming together to grieve in tandem instead of completely separately. This huge fight was the impetus for a huge, good change in our relationship. We came to a much better understanding of each other.
Sorry so long, and so about me. Just want you to know that our experience was similar - know that you aren't alone in how you are thinking and dealing with things.
Delphi, don't be sorry. It always helps to hear about others' experiences. And I am priveleged to get a long comment from a busy and sleep-deprived person named Boobie.
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