I Think We Should Sell the House.
How do you tell your husband you want to drastically change your life, and sell your dream house? Well...here's how I did it....here's what he said...and here's what we did next.
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One of the questions I get asked the most when I talk about how we downsized our house is, “How did you get your husband on board?” In fact, this is something I even get asked when it comes to keeping a clutter free home.
When it comes to living with less clutter, the truth is, Tom is the one who nudged me in the direction of living with fewer things. However, when it came time to tell him my idea about selling our dream house, the one we had just moved into, I wasn’t so sure he would be on board.
If you’ve read my previous posts, you know that I’m the one who originally nudged our financial comfort zone in the first place. Even though Tom and I had both always dreamed of living in a house like the 3,400 square foot one we found ourselves living in. It was our dream house, that’s true. However, Tom signed the mortgage papers largely due to the fact that he thought it was what I wanted. I was hesitant to tell him that I now wanted out.
After nearly a year and half of killing ourselves trying to keep up with our new neighbors, The Joneses, and working overtime to afford the house, kids, groceries, and vacations we were both burnt out.
Still, I knew my husband and I knew he was always the one ready to be practical, to second-guess, and to hesitate when it came to big life changes. Hell, he could barely choose the movie we watched on movie night. Being with an indecisive, chronic overthinking partner can be draining sometimes. It can feel like pulling someone else through mud while manning the GPS all by yourself. I knew I needed to proceed with caution if I was going to make this happen.
If Tom is a chronic over thinker, then it’s safe to say that at that time in my life I fell into the category of chronic under-thinker. I had adapted to spending my life living on a whim. When I want to take a vacation, I would book it that day. We’d fly out a week later. If we needed extra cash, I would throw up a Facebook post letting my photography clients know I was having a discount on family sessions.
Planning wasn’t something I did and in a lot of ways it served me. I knew how to make shit happen. However, I was also great at making sweeping declarations about things that would never ever happen.
After reading and watching books and documentaries for months, I suddenly had an AHA moment that said, “We should sell the house!”
As soon as this idea hit my brain, I was off to the races. I launched myself up from the reading chair I had been sitting in, and I carefully made my way toward the staircase. Tom was sitting in our bedroom, and I knew I would need to play this cool. This couldn’t come across as the kind of idea that just came to me on a whim. I needed to be convincing, calm, and level headed or he wouldn’t take to it.
I made my way through the double doors into our master bedroom, and saw Tom sitting in the dark on the bed that had been stripped for the laundry. What a perfect image of a man undone.
Our marriage was still on the rocks, so talking wasn’t something we were really doing anymore. I sat myself on the edge of the bed, opposite where he sat, and said something a little like this…
“I know we’ve both been really stressed lately. We’re trying to hard to keep up with the house and the payment. I know you’re not liking the way your job is going, and you feel the burden on your shoulders to provide. I hate that our marriage is suffering. This family is the most important thing to me and I’ve realized that since moving in here, everything is falling apart. I really don’t want that. So, I was thinking, in order to get more money back, to reduce the stress around having to work, and to hopefully be able to spend more time together as a family…I think we should sell the house.”
I’ll never forget the look on his face.