Ugh. Help me understand this.

[freixenet]

Or maybe just listen to me rant about it? I dunno. Whichever suits you.

So we're house hunting, and we've set an upper limit on the price and established some essentials that are not negotiable. (Things like the right size kitchen, a pool, a 3 car garage for the hot rods to live in.) Those are things we came to agreement on easily. Then we started looking, and now, within the last week, he's been looking at homes that are well above our max price. I am pushing back because I am not interested in going above our agreed upon ceiling and I'm not changing my mind on this. This has had no effect on his interest in going to see the house.

So now he shows me a house that he really "likes the look of." It is substantially over our ceiling. And it has only a two car garage. Both of these we agreed would be deal breakers. But he wants to go look at it. I asked why and he said he likes the look of it. Well, that doesn't explain much now, does it. I actually don't like the look of it, because it's one of those golf course houses with a ton of lawn, no fences, and a whole lot of wall to wall carpeting. Which I hate.

Adding to my discomfort and anxiety is that the only time we can go see this house is tonight, at 530, after the owners have had a chance to get home from work and remove their pets (you can see two little doxies in one of the photos--so sweet!). So at 530 on a Friday evening, we're rousting these people out and costing our realtor her holiday weekend afternoon (and frankly ours, since it's date night), to roam around their house and then not put in an offer on it. This seems rude to me. He doesn't see it that way.

This situation is causing some conflict. His instinct is always to go bigger and better. Hell, just replacing the roof on THIS house turned into remodeling the back patio, the front patio, and the roof pitch. The price he initially told me? Yeah, the contract we signed is literally five times that price. Every single big thing we do, he feels compelled to make it even bigger. I do not like making things bigger. I like making things SMALLER.

And I am not at all sure how to negotiate this. I hate being in conflict with him and I feel like we've been tense with each other for weeks now. I don't feel like I'm a partner in this set of decisions, because things we agreed on are just going out the window when he feels like it. I don't feel like I can do that myself. It's like we agreed on things that represent the absolute minimum for him and the absolute maximum for me, and that's hard to make changes on.

Sigh. Starting to question.

Comments

[usedtobeljs]

Yikes. I hope that you can talk with him about your anxiety, and I hope that you find something awesome you both love. [hugs]

[freixenet]

Being married is weird, L. Thank you for the yikes AND the hugs!

Hugs cross county for a cooler day...

[roguedemon]

((Hugs)) Well, you are in the right here — risking your financial future is not wise in America. Hell, Social Security is due to run out right about retirement age for us. Things are going to continue to get worse for people who aren’t wealthy. I’d be really anxious too, you’re not crazy. Also, in a marriage nobody should be making unilateral financial decisions — insisting on signing that contract was out of order for him. You can’t agree on something and then pull the rug out from under your spouse like that.

House hunting can be tough on marriages. Greg and I fought about how much to spend on renovations, but in the end we had to be basically on the same page. Our fight was generally over his OCD about saving money and the way his insistance on doing everything the cheapest way possible created a lot of unnecessary stress. Generally it was over relatively small differences in price though. I gave in on some things because it’s not worth it — sometimes you do that, and I think he does it with me — but we’re always basically in agreement when major decisions are made. Deciding that you’re going to do something risky that your spouse absolutely does not want is out of order.

I don’t know exactly what advice to give, I just wanted to let you know that I think you’re right to be upset. This isn’t a good sign — but fights over money are common. They can be resolved, but one person giving in all the time isn’t exactly egalitarian. Maybe the thing to do is figure out what makes him want to spend money all the time. Understanding the roots of G’s shit helps me deal with him. ((Hugs)) to you.

[freixenet]

Thanks, T. I know you know and I know you have a strong professional insight too, and that helps me a lot. Ultimately I think this is really a question of his past marriage haunting this one, because challenges like this were never met as a team and she didn't care as long as whatever he ended up doing was bigger, shinier, and more expensive. This is not me. And it isn't us. But there are patterns and assumptions that have to be identified before they can be dealt with. :)

Hugs, my friend. Thank you for being supportive!!

[alhbooks]

Nothing useful to add to above messages, but I figure more hugs can’t hurt.

[freixenet]

Hugs help! Thanks, A.

[allwhowonder]

Random person with a random comment that stumbled across you from surfing /random.

So, boys are sort of impulsive and like their toys and such and often we look at a situation that is slightly different than the parameters of what we planned and go "oh it will be fine" and accept it because of some idealized picture of things we have in our head. The reality is basically always different than what we envisioned.

Maybe try to focus on the price differential, do some of the math and figure out what that will come out to in terms of monthly expenses and produce an argument that alternates between "remember that time you just had to have that thing right that instant...? Well with this house, you wouldn't have gotten it" and "well in the price difference per month, after 3 months, that's a trip to... and for the same money we could have instead...".

My suspicion is, and I'm a random person speaking about random men, I don't know you or the situation, so your mileage likely will vary, but when you break down the costs of what that "oh it will be fine" means on a monthly basis, then he probably will have whatever idealized vision of the way things would be in his head fizzle out, and you'll be back to the price ceiling.

Try starting with "well, I dunno, I was thinking about it and we don't really need a three car garage, we could get by just fine on two, but, the price...", because that's probably what he is thinking.

best of luck.

[freixenet]

You know, for a random stranger surfing DW, you have good ideas. :) Thanks for weighing in. It's useful to get that boy perspective...I think I know boys pretty well at this point, and this one I'm married to in particular, but outside eyes see stuff I can't.

Some good suggestions here, and a wealth of understanding. My thanks.