Ask HN: Why does thinking about moving homes give me a panic attack?
I should be excited to think about the prospect of moving to a larger home, in a better neighborhood for my kids (read: more kids around), with more space. But every time my wife brings it up (and she's very persistent on it) I start to freak out inside. it just seems like so much to do.
I'll do my best to convince her that where we are now is good enough, but it's obvious that this is something she really believes in. And it's becoming more obvious that there's just not enough room.
I think that growing up in a small house in an old neighborhood makes me feel like this is a "keeping up with the Jones'" sort of moment. But in reality, we're outgrowing our neighborhood, size-wise and financially.
Homes in the midwest are affordable and huge. Neighborhoods grow like warts around here. I suppose I just need more convincing?
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 82.9 ms ] threadThis is more of a "does anyone else get this way?" because I'm having a hard time relating with the real world in this issue.
I don't - moving generally fills me with excitement, even when it was to a new country. But I have friends that react in such a way, so it definitely isn't just you. I'd say the other reply here is correct, however. I think the best course of action is to talk to a professional - therapist, psychiatrist or medical doctor. If you can get rid of the anxiety that leads to a near-panic attack, it'll make the decision making and the stress involved in such a decision easier to navigate and talk through.
All big events fall into this category but they can usually be broken into small stages that are a lot easier to visualise and accomplish.
Sometimes, just getting on with it is all that's needed; you can over think stuff.
Sure, this is all typical 'self help' mumbo-jumbo but there is something in it.
Also, I've done a lot of renovations to the home myself to cut cost and also update it faster: wood-look tile floors throughout, new flooring in bathrooms, update kitchen appliances & cabinets, deck, floor trim, etc. I often think that my commitment comes from all the blood and sweat (and even more tears) thrown into those things.
Growth here is significantly more tame.
And moving is indeed a heck of a hassle.
And having a small house that's well within your means makes everything financial in your life much easier.
So, there's obviously some truth to your feelings.
That said, the pain of moving can go to almost zero if you pay good professionals to do it. They can just move everything, and when you walk into your new house, and open your sock drawer, your socks are already there.
On the house buying process, I would just expect it to be terrible, and it probably will, but it's only temporary pain. The new place feels like home really fast.
As for the budget - can't help you there.
I thought our house was just fine. It's a 4 bedroom for a family of 4 and has 3 baths. I'm only there for long periods of time to dinner/gets kids into bed and sleep other then the weekends. My wife is there almost all the time. We got the house as a starter home and she wants stuff in it that just isn't there.
Just think of it like your desk at work, If you just have a small monitor you might be upset that you don't have a larger monitor with better resolution that can make you more efficient. That's sort of how my wife sees our current house. It works but it isn't everything she wants.
I just have to remember, she is the one in it most of the time and taking care of it.
It costs a lot to move. Not sure about US but here we have stamp duty. For me it's a year's salary. Another half years salary for agent fees. A month's salary for removalist costs. The only way to make it feasible financially is to do a reno project but that's more stress.
Selling stuff and being creative with space may solve issues. Living with "lower class" people isn't necessary a bad thing it may be good to prevent living in a bubble.
Yeah moving is stressful. If you do go ahead I wonder if there are services to manage everything for you. If you have the money maybe get the new place furnished ahead of the move.
Those are my thoughts exactly. I see moving away and letting someone else "deal with problems" is a great way to devalue a neighborhood. It seems more and more people are buying new instead of fixing up the old.
I intend on paying movers to do as much as I can afford.
I was married about 16 years before it finally sank in with my husband that when he dropped his dirty clothes on the floor instead of putting them in the hamper, it left me in the position that I could either pick up after him or just be in a messy space all day. So, it was a lose-lose situation for me. I was home a lot more than him and this was where my work was done. It would be kind of like if I went to his place of employment and dumped dirty clothes on his desk.
Whether your wife has a job or not, the odds are good that she is doing more of the house work and child rearing than you are. That doesn't necessarily mean you need a bigger house, but it does mean that if she is not happy with the house, it is not a good idea to be all "meh -- not like she will divorce me over this."
Men typically have very different priorities than women and the work you have been doing on the house may in no way meet her needs. It may be possible to make this house work for all involved parties, but you likely have blind spots as to what she needs. A good kitchen and laundry area can make the women's work vastly less burdensome. If your entertainment area is awesome, but her work spaces are terrible, this may be a case that it bothers you less than her because you have completely different experiences of the same house.
Since this issue persists, it really would not be a bad idea to get some professional mediation rather than asking HN.
Implying that you think living in a too-small house actually is grounds for divorce?
That's why it pays to have someone by your side who isn't a complainer. You relieve burdens from each other not because on the whole it makes your lives objectively better in sum, but because it's easier to endure the unavoidable pains of life when you have a good human reason: Family.
The rare occasions where women drop the facade and talk honestly about this stuff are always interesting. In spite of all the feminist rhetoric that we're exposed to these days, the truth is that women want (and often expect) a provider.
>a human being whose opinions are equally important
For day-to-day stuff, of course this is true. But in decisions that are largely financial (such as home ownership), the opinion of the person earning the money should probably carry more weight. Perhaps that's a controversial opinion. (And before you accuse me of sexism, I'd have the same opinion when the main breadwinner is a woman.)
What I disagree with is the (incredibly old-fashioned) implication that a man is somehow duty-bound to provide the material things that his wife requires.
I am not "hanging my crap" on anyone.
So, yeah, you have baggage and you are projecting all kinds of stuff onto me that I never said.
If you check my blog, I encouraged my adult sons to take over the women's work in order to let them avoid getting a job and let me put more of my energy into my corporate job. I have a proven track record of being willing to be the provider for an adult man. I think it unlikely I will ever be the provider for a lover though because all evidence suggests that men almost never take over the housework proficiently when they have a woman paying their bills. Everything I have ever heard indicates they typically sit on their ass, play video games and can't be bothered to cook. She works all day and then goes home and also cooks dinner.
I supported my sons because I came home and got served dinner. Most men seem incapable of really grasping that being a housewife is damn hard work and genuinely supports his career effort. An awful lot of them seem to think it is some pampered, privileged position where she sits around watching soap operas all day and eating bon bons while he busts his hump to support her in style.
If you want to reread my previous remarks and engage my actual points, I am happy to talk to you. But everything you have said so far is total and complete projection of things you imagine me to believe, not anything I actually fucking said.
You make bizarre, unfounded generalisations like that and then accuse me of having baggage?
http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/11/imperfect-re...
http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/12/how-i-got-ma...
So if you can't come back with genuine and respectful engagement, then I am done here. Because your remarks look like they are in no way in good faith.
The gross generalizations made here just completely turn me off from the rest of this conversation. I hope more people got a better idea of what's happening with the older comments made.
Too bad, so sad that those "gross generalizations" bother you. I have reason to believe they are not inaccurate. Statistics that I have seen back them up. The degree to which women get pretty shit on by life is bothering me a helluva lot at the moment, a thing you are no doubt wholly unsympathetic to.
Small places are usually good for one person. The more folks you add to a small space, the more work there is for a single person. This is especially if folks happen to have a lot of things they aren't using, have hobbies that require a fair amount of physical space, or have differing hobbies/interests that take a smaller amount of space.
Additionally, some things make for daily frustrations, depending on the housing situation. Fighting with your own storage space to put the dishes away, for example. These sorts of frustrations add up and affect the quality of life. One person winds up having to deal with it most of the time, and there aren't coworkers there to vent to. There is no one.
One solution is to gain more space and more efficient "work" or "duty" areas (laundry, restrooms, and kitchens). Another solution is to do things that make the other's daily life easier, hence the picking up after oneself. Making sure to split the chores up fairly evenly so that both parties get days off or simply doing it more often so a homewife/husband gets some time away from the monotonous daily grind.
The answer is both yes and no.
Edited for clarity.
I just find it depressing that women in 2017 will quite casually talk about divorcing someone for not being a sufficiently good provider of material things. I cannot imagine men talking like this.
I grew up believing the feminist rhetoric and hoping that my eventual spouse would be an equal partner, but the truth is that (most) women want somebody to provide for them, and a man's value in the relationship marketplace is still largely determined by his ability to provide.
Look, if I'm working and the job gives me monotony and frustration daily - where folks aren't doing their basic things and I'm having to make up for their shortcomings - I'm likely to quit after a while. This is more similar to staying at home, except there aren't really days off and you can't escape.
One of the possible solutions to improve it is to move. Just one, and this isn't available to all. Others are her working, him making sure to pitch in more, remodeling, and so on.
You're assumptions are incredibly wrong.
> Whether your wife has a job or not, the odds are good that she is doing more of the house work and child rearing than you are. That doesn't necessarily mean you need a bigger house, but it does mean that if she is not happy with the house, it is not a good idea to be all "meh -- not like she will divorce me over this."
She works harder than I do full-time; I am at home many nights without her, with the kids, while she wins more bread. We split responsibilities quite well but she'll be the first to tell you I am an All-Star dad. I usually clean the house as I'm the neat-freak of the family, and what most people consider clean is just getting started for me. I spent the first 9 months of our first child's life at home being a semi-stay-at-home dad, rearing her almost completely as my amazing wife positioned herself into a career that helped us tremendously and really aids in our lifestyle now.
We appreciate each other, but don't value one's output over another, except maybe at our places of work. We're a team and we play like one.
> A good kitchen and laundry area can make the women's work vastly less burdensome.
Agreed, although we upgraded these features and requests to pinpoint issue we both had, as we both split duties performed in these areas at least 50% (different areas and different weeks demand different percentages).
I made a good faith reply based on sketchy information, thus drew on aggregate statistics to fill in the gaps. I stand by my actual suggestions to you that it might make sense to get mediation, etc. There is nothing in my actual suggestions to you in my first reply that is ugly or any of the other things I have been accused of here.
I realize this is your question and you are probably feeling like everything I have said here is thus about you. But most of what I said here was in defense due to being randomly attacked by some guy who swears he does not have baggage, yet feels perfectly fine with putting ugly words in my mouth and upping the ante with every single comment and not backing down.
But instead of fussing at him for derailing your question, you chose to fuss at me. Maybe you should wonder why that is.
I am only bothering to point that out to suggest that if you really want to work things out with your wife, it may help to wonder how you are coming across. Because the pattern for how this conversation went of he-said-she-said and the shit show just escalates is an all too common one. It does not build bridges.
I sincerely hope you and your wife can find a way to work this out. But I am feeling quite crapped on overall here and wondering why I bother to try to build bridges, keep the peace etc.
I am not your wife. Presumably you two have positive things going on as well. But this entire conversation is all too emblematic of what is wrong with the entire men vs women crap in the world today.
So I plan to step out of this discussion permanently. At this point, whatever else gets said, I just don't feel any good can come of me trying to make further good faith efforts to participate and I am incredibly tired of feeling like I got shit on for the crime of being female in a majority male forum.
Most women don't listen to reason, but rather emotion and their feelings. So try to make her feel all the good things about your current place and all the bad things about a new one.
Really she probably just think about how much work it is for you to pay off a bigger loan.
So I say just put up with it, and don't buy something you can't afford. Just don't do it or you'll be miserable. Your body is trying to tell you you are in danger by making you anxious. You should listen. Women are not reasonable about this kind of thing. Their hormones make them go crazy about houses and you have to be a man and make the financially smart decision. Ypur wife will be just fine, but she's just getting s little too greedy.
However, I can relate to the wildly opposing viewpoint perspective between you and your SO, so perhaps a mediator may be in order- an impartial friend, a therapist, whomever you trust and isn't biased. Neither side needs convincing, but perhaps both sides may need a happy medium. Perhaps a new house may be in order regardless, or maybe just reorganization or expansion on your current place. But the way you describe it now, it sounds like nobody will end up really happy with the outcome.