AIBU to be extremely upset at having to sell my home?

[woods4thetrees]

My partner with whom I just bought our first house in March this year walked out at the weekend with his 2 DS (10 &11) , leaving myself and my 5 year old DS from a previous relationship. We have just spent the last 6 months doing the place up spending a large amount of money in the process (think new kitchen, bathroom etc) and had literally just finished all this when he decided he was leaving. He cites my anger and stress as the reason saying he no longer loves me. I am currently feeling like I am going crazy. I do have a short fuse and a sharp tongue, but suffer with depression and have been pretty down as have been stressed about all the work we’ve been doing in the house and also the transition that has been going on getting used to us all living together. He and I had very different parenting styles, I am quite strict, believe in disciple and boundaries. He is very laid back and wants to be their mate, no consequences to bad behaviour, that type of thing. We’d had a few rows recently, nothing really major I’d thought but then I am a bit of an argumentative so and so. He is a more sensitive soul but is also quite rude and patronising at times to me but was generally very loving. This has come a bit out of the blue. He wants to now sell the house, he pestered me to sell my house and move in with him, uprooting my son, and now I’m going to have to move again!! AIBU to be really really REALLY upset? My DS just asked me if we can buy back our old house I can’t decide if it’s all my fault!

[MyBrilliantDisguise]

Is it possible to buy back your other house and do a Bobby Ewing?

[Sillyjelly]

Really sorry you're going through this @woods.

Does any part of you think it might be best to separate? And if not do you think you can work it out?

Renovating a house and blending families will have been stressful for both of you, maybe a bit of space would be beneficial, with mediation possible in the future, if that's the right thing to do.

[woods4thetrees]

Seriously? Obviously I can’t buy back my old house. I doubt the lady who bought it would want to move again!

I wish there were the opportunity to try and have space and reconcile but he’s just shutting me out. Says there’s no chance of him changing his mind

[BarbarianMum]

Of course you are not being unreasonable to be upset. But from what you've written you sound supremely ill-matched, so maybe it will ultimately be better to separate.

[winobaglady]

Can you buy him out of his share of the house?

[RhiWrites]

What a selfish horrible man. No thought of the three children this will affect. No attempt at counselling, just walks out.

It's awful for you OP, hopefully the money you've put in will lead to a lucrative sale.

Explain to your son you can't buy your old house back but you can now look together for something new for the two of you.

In retrospect this was not a good idea. What do you know now, OP, that will change how you approach relationships going forward?

[user1471517900]

" I do have a short fuse and a sharp tongue"

" I am a bit of an argumentative so and so"

These two sentences jumped out here. While I understand you have depression - this can't be healthy for helping this. Or be much fun for him to live with either. Being honest and thinking what he would have written here about his situation "should I stay in a house with my kids where me and partner argue all the time...." etc. I'm sure he'd be told to leave for both of you and the kids sake.

[KurriKurri]

I was in a kind of comparable situation - although fortunately no young chilren involved. I was very sad at selling my old house - I though t it was going to be my forever home, I;d worked hard on the garden etc. and I liked the village I lived in.

I used my share to buy myself a terraced house (Don;t know what your financial situation is - do you have enough to buy another house/ get a mortgage) The nicest thing about my new home is that it hasn;t got a nasty man living in it - and that will compensate for all sorts of regrets about moving.

The most important thing for me when my XH buggered off, was that I'd never ever be reliant on someone else for a roof over my head, I would never share, or move in with anyone, any house I had would be mine and mine only.

I would speak to a solicitor to find out whether you would be able to recoup any of the money you have spent renovating his house.

[Bluntness100]

I guess when you live together you both get to see the whole person, and of course you have found you are incompatible.

Of course you will be upset, very upset, but it’s better to move on when you realise it’s a mistake than drag it out.

Neither of you are who you hoped the other would be. Him more so than you. I think you need to accept it, not make it worse by causing further arguments, and simply sell the house and move on. I’m sorry.

[MaryMcCarthy]

You're not unreasonable to be upset about your partner leaving you, no. It's quite normal to be upset.

[LIZS]

Assume you can't afford to buy him out. Alternatively could you rent somewhere smaller and rent your joint property out? Or is he insisting on selling?

[Bluntness100]

What a selfish horrible man

I disagree, if it’s reached the stage he simply can’t go on any more and he knows it, then it is much better to end it than put the kids through dragging it out and allowing them to become settled. You also don’t know how his kids feel about living there and with the op. They may desperately want to leave.

[BishBoshBashBop]

Neither of you are who you hoped the other would be. Him more so than you. I think you need to accept it, not make it worse by causing further arguments, and simply sell the house and move on. I’m sorry.

I agree.

a short fuse, sharp tongue and a bit of an argumentative so and so

This is how you have described yourself. Sorry but I couldn't live with that either.

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

HOw long were you together before you bought this house?
How much money have you each put into it?
Who paid for most of the renovation work?

Yeah, it'll be a bit upsetting for your DS to be uprooted again, but if you can't afford to buy your exP out, then you don't have much choice, do you.
I hope that you get out of it what you put in.

[Talkietalk]

Better to sell and start again then raise children in an argumentative household as you described

[wowfudge]

You've had a shock on top of the stress of doing all that work on the house. Don't be too hard on yourself. Tbh, though it doesn't seem like it now, it may well be for the best.

Concentrate on a strategy for protecting your investment and resolving joint finance issues with the minimum fall out. Hopefully, the improvements you have made to the house will be reflected in the asking price if you have to sell. Did you have a declaration of trust to protect your investment?

[guilty100]

I'm sorry you are going through this. I'm afraid he has every right to up sticks and leave, but that doesn't make it any less hurtful and awful for you. I think sometimes when a big life event like this happens, we fixate on a kind of symbol of our grief - the loss of a pet, the loss of an object, the loss of a house - as a way of understanding it. However, while I understand the pain of having worked on a house only to have to move because of a relationship breakdown (been there myself), at the end of the day, it's only a house. You can build your life elsewhere, and you can and will make a success of it. Give yourself time and space to grieve, though.

[existentialmoment]

What a selfish horrible man. No thought of the three children this will affect. No attempt at counselling, just walks out

He's under no obligation to continue a relationship that does not work for him and is making him unhappy. No-one is. Would you say that if it was OP that wanted to end it? I doubt it.

OP. no of course you are not unreasonable to be upset, but to be honest if you only bought in March you must have been aware of the problems you had. You can't be together that long, so selling your home and moving your child were obviously not the right choice.

Learn from this and move on.

[PerfectlyPooPoo]

this could be a good wake up call for you OP. I'm sure he hasn't done this lightly either with 2 dc of his own affected.

Short temper, argumentative etc, they're not really nice characteristics so I'd probably work on that.

[AnneLovesGilbert]

Sounds like he's doing the right thing by his children and removing them from a household where he's snapped at and there are lots of arguments, you criticise his parenting and hammer the DC with boundaries and discipline - which he's presumably managed without before you got together. And if you didn't know there were differences in your parenting style beforehand, then you shouldn't have bought a house together.

If this is how you describe yourself, and it's a choice to behave like this if you know you're being awful, I can only imagine how he sees it! It says only good things about him that he's getting out and protecting his DC rather than flogging a dead horse.

If a woman was posting that her DP was being critical and angry with her and bullying her DC she'd be being slated for staying in the relationship and subjecting her DC to an angry abusive partner and a stressful childhood.

It's highly unlikely this is how he'd hoped things would pan out either. He's been under the same stress of moving and having work done, has presumably invested money, time, energy in what he'd hoped would be his DC's home.

[JemimaLovesHamble]

Is there any financial possibility you could buy him out and get lodgers?

I'm sorry this happened, but from what you say you guys didn't sound compatible at all. Don't waste your energy trying to get him to change his mind unless you think you can live with changing how you parent, not commenting on how he parents and keep your temper for the next 20 plus years.

[AnneLovesGilbert]

YANBU to be upset. But YABVU to blame him for the relationship being over and the resulting consequences of that when it sounds like you've been impossible to live with.

[LibertyHill]

No, not unreasonable to be upset. It's also not unreasonable for someone to pull the plug on a relationship with a sharp tongued, argumentative so and so.

[Majormanner]

You have very different parenting styles and maybe its for the best you have split. Sometimes one of you has to make that decision. If you had been a man I expect lots of MNs would have been cheering at the other person leaving

[JemimaLovesHamble]

Who was mainly overseeing the work? I suspect it was you. Was it a case of you taking all the stress on your shoulders and not getting any support from your partner? Not an uncommon thing to hear about, and then when the woman finally snaps she's called a nag and a shrew and he's advised to leave. It's also not uncommon on these threads for a woman to call herself a hideous human being and then if they stick around long enough the story fills out quite a lot more. Perhaps you are emotionally abusive, or perhaps your partner absolved himself of adult behaviour to be a mate to his kids and you were carrying the load for all of you...