Page 2 | To be actually crying over this.

FortyDoorsToNowhere · 2014-01-07T20:50:41+00:00

My parents have decided to move, The house they live in atm is my childhood home. My parent moved in when i was 6 weeks old. The house is far to big for them since all of their children have moved out and my rational brain know this is the best for them. I have not stopped crying since they broke the news to us all. The thought of another family living there is making me feel even worse. Is this normal.

GlitzAndGiggles · 07/01/2014 21:34

I'm 21 but have lived in 5 different houses since I was born. The last place I lived was hard to get over as I lived there with my mum up until she died and for 5 years after that. The flat my dad grew up in is still being lived in by my nan and whenever I go you can tell it was filled with memories it feels like a happy home. I know that sounds really odd but it's the only way I can explain it

TSSDNCOP · 07/01/2014 21:36

I would feel very similar. My parents have lived in their house for 50 years. I haven't lived there for nearly 20 yet I know where everything is better than my own house. I could walk round it blindfold better than my house. The view from their living room window is as familiar to me as the back of my hand.

persimmon · 07/01/2014 21:39

I think it's normal. DH was very sad when his childhood home was demolished. I think buildings can become part of who we are, after all, it's generally accepted that our environment shapes us and affects our mood.

Hissy · 07/01/2014 21:45

My DM did this last year.

But she didn't actually tell me where she'd moved to.

Unsurprisingly, this with a couple of other issues since has pretty much severed our relationship.

Your parents are going to pass this house on to another wonderful family to make family memories in, that's a lovely thought, knowing that someone else will call your home 'home' too.

You'll get used to the idea, and you can get excited about your mum's new house! PLUS you get to shop for bits for the house with her too!

[manly pat]

cate16 · 07/01/2014 21:46

My parents have lived in their house 60years as married, and my dad since he was around 12ish. He moved with his parents when the house was built. I was born in the house and dread the thought of it being sold.
Ideally I think my daughter should live there............however I think my brother may not agree :)

Plumpysoft · 07/01/2014 22:03

I wrote a thread about this just before Xmas. I really feel for you xx

forcookssake · 07/01/2014 22:16

I was gutted when my parents sold their house/aka our family home. I was 32 and hadn't lived there since I finished my A-levels and left for university. I'd hoped to have children who could have Easter egg hunts in the gardens, whole family Christmases with a real tree twinkling in the conservatory, maybe even a garden party after mine and DP's wedding...
But, I was too slow, or they were moving on more quickly, because now it's sold, belongs to a new family and I try to feel happy for them. I don't. I'm envious (pointlessly) and I realise that I'm extremely unlikely to ever achieve a similar lifestyle for myself as my parents offered my siblings and I

Original poster

FortyDoorsToNowhere · 07/01/2014 22:18

the family seems nice, got 5 children and they will love the large garden and the extra space.

Time to let go of the pile of bricks.

OP posts:

traininthedistance · 07/01/2014 23:39

Completely normal OP, I would be devastated if my parents were to sell the family home. I tend to get very attached to places - in fact I recently moved from a rented house I really loved - I mean really loved - and it was actually devastating; I sobbed and sobbed as we left. It is an amazing, unusual house and I felt it had looked after me. Now in a newbuild flat which is cosy but I miss so much that house that wasn't really mine.

I think bereavement from home or a place you love is something underestimated in society. It used to be celebrated, but modern capitalism wants us to forget our natural human attachments to our home and surroundings in favour of thinking of ourselves as a mobile labour force without inconvenient emotions. Just look at the idea of the bedroom tax: why don't we any more feel outraged that people should be expected to leave their homes because they no longer need all the bedrooms, even if they've lived there for decades, maybe had children there, perhaps pets and partners who have died? We're supposed to think Tough, shape up and ship out to the values of the market, you shouldn't have what you can't afford, however much you care about it. But people have always loved and cared for their homes and the idea of their homes, their land, their places, and their past - it's a natural thing to us and other eras understood it much much more.

monkeysox · 08/01/2014 07:59

Try to be positive. It's their choice, not being forced to sell due to illness or bereavement? I recently sold my mum's house. It had been my home for 34 years (even though I have my own house and family). A new family have had Christmas there, it is now their own home, I'm glad it's not empty. Non mn hugs yanbu feeling like this

DelGirl · 08/01/2014 08:04

I think you'll be fine once it's done. I felt like that a bit when selling the home I shared with my late dh but once id packed everything and the house was empty, it was really only a shell. I realised I'd take the memories with me. Perhaps if you help them pack up, it might help you.

EBearhug · 08/01/2014 08:07

My parents' home is still home, even though I have not lived there for 20 years, and they've both been dead for 13 & 5 years. It does make me feel like I am a bit rootless now, as nowhere else has ever become home in the same way.

BitchyFestiveFace · 08/01/2014 08:21

I think bereavement from home or a place you love is something underestimated in society. It used to be celebrated, but modern capitalism wants us to forget our natural human attachments to our home and surroundings in favour of thinking of ourselves as a mobile labour force without inconvenient emotions

That's really interesting and I think I agree.

I cried for weeks when my parents sold our childhood home. I was 16 so there were issues with leaving my friends as well, and not getting to go to the sixth-form college with them I'd always assumed I'd go to, but a lot of the grief was for the house itself.

Still haven't really forgiven them kidding

struggling100 · 08/01/2014 10:17

I believe that many people are very emotionally attached to places. They matter. It can be very difficult to think of a place that we associate with so many personal memories inhabited by another person, with different memories. That feels like a loss, and you are grieving for it. This is normal and natural and you should not feel bad.

However, there is another way of looking at it: place is not the same thing as space. The place of your parents' home is the house plus your emotional and fond memories of it from the past. That is an intensely personal thing, and no-one can take it away from you. The space is the bricks and mortar of the house. Even if the space changes - even if it is remade by a new family so that they can build memories of their own - the place in your memories will always remain yours. You don't have to revisit the house physically to be able to revisit it in your mind, emotionally. It will always be a part of you.

Hopefully the new house that your parents buy will become a new place with new and equally positive memories attached to it. So perhaps you are actually gaining a new, positive place, to sit alongside the home of your memories.

specialsubject · 08/01/2014 10:22

no, not a normal reaction for a child. Bit sad really, but hours/days of crying is ridiculous. No-one is ill or dying.

is this a 'grow up' situation or is something else wrong?

specialsubject · 08/01/2014 10:23

I mean 'not a normal reaction for an ADULT' !!

Schoolchauffeur · 08/01/2014 10:46

I can totally understand how you feel OP- it is a big wrench to lose a part of your childhood in this way. BUT, and it' is a big but, please don't weigh your parents down with how sad you feel about it. I say this from difficult recent experience with in laws.

In laws decided to sell their house having lived their for 44 years. They just weren't enjoying their retirement as the garden was huge and needed lots of work, constant house upkeep, had to drive to even buy milk etc. it was a huge wrench for mother in law, but she fell in love with a great house in the centre of a nearby village. She and FIL were very practical about the whole thing and threw themselves into gutting and updating old house to get best possible sales price . They were sad on moving day, but the new house has transformed them. They spent a year doing everything they wanted to In it, have made loads of new friends in the village, walk to the pub and shops, save money by hardly using the car etc.

DH was sad but equally practical and positive for his parents, taking a week off to help them declutter, sell antiques, ebaying and boot fair etc. SIL however ( aged 46 at the time, married in own house nearby) threw a massive strop, tried to push us into buying half the house so it was kept in the family ( and she could live in it!), dithered about sorting out the mass of her stuff which was still in the house, criticised the new house, kept going on about how terrible it was for her etc. DH in the end had to " have a word".

Can you try and have a last lovely weekend there, take lots of photos of family, dig all the old albums out etc and have a nostalgia day? DH organised this for his parents and this year we gave them a big album with all those photos in, plus some from the housewarming party we persuaded them to have in the new place. They loved it and are so happy they now say they can't imagine why they didn't move sooner!

I know it is hard, but please try to be happy for them in a new chapter of their lives.

fluffyraggies · 08/01/2014 10:52

Oh bless. I felt the same when my parents left the home i grew up in (my dad had lived there 60 years by the time they left) and moved to be near me in the country.

The thing is - and this may seem harsh - but the house you remember as a child would gradually fade as your parents get older and use less of it/struggle to care for it/furnish it with gadgets and aids for the elderly anyway. So the home you knew would gradually be changed to something different from your memories of it even if they stayed.

Your memories are precious to you and are safe in your head. All things change, and the house and it's occupants are just an ongoing story which changes too.

[flower]

fluffyraggies · 08/01/2014 10:53

or even

greenfolder · 08/01/2014 11:34

Be glad that this is happening now. They are actively choosing where they want to live. And presumably sorting themselves out to downsize. My oil didn't do this.their family home of 50 years with huge garden had to be emptied and sold after they died. We all had happy memories slightly diluted by months of sorting,cleaning,deciding and so on. Their house in need of complete renovation has been sold to lovely couple with young boys that fil knew and it makes us happy to think of new life being breathed into it.

WilsonFrickett · 08/01/2014 11:46

I do get its a wrench but you need to change your thinking to see this as something really, really positive for your parents.

Think of other situations where 'the family' home has to be sold:

illness
bereavement
divorce
bad financial planning meaning there's no money to keep it up
a beloved garden going to wrack and ruin because the parents aren't fit enough to keep it going
An elderly couple living in one room and a kitchen because they can't afford to heat the rest of the room.

Now think that your parents have made a positive choice to stop this happening, they'll live out the rest of their lives in comfort in a home more suited to their needs, and a new family will be happy there.

In the nicest possible way, time to move on my love.

laregina · 08/01/2014 11:52

Um yes and no. My mum lived in our family home for 35 years so only recently moved. I was fine about it; she wanted to move on to somewhere more manageable (it was a big house with a massive garden) so it made sense and I enjoyed helping her find somewhere new.

Come the day of the move I helped out and when we had loaded the last of her stuff onto the lorry we went for one last wander around the garden with the new owner. And I looked down the garden back at my childhood house and suddenly felt so emotional I couldn't help bursting into tears . I am not the crying type and my poor mum was so shocked she didn't know what to do with me

Murdermysteryreader · 08/01/2014 13:17

Get a grip. You've still got your parents - be grateful. Would you rather have the hassle of trying to get them to move into a smaller place when they are too old to deal with it. Be glad tht they are taking positive action while they are still able. Get a grip. They've not died!

Murdermysteryreader · 08/01/2014 13:18

Get a grip. You've still got your parents - be grateful. Would you rather have the hassle of trying to get them to move into a smaller place when they are too old to deal with it. Be glad tht they are taking positive action while they are still able. Get a grip. They've not died!

RalphLaurenLover · 08/01/2014 13:25

When my Grandpa passed away I was told from the beginning we'd have to sell it. I still cried as we packed everything up and closed the doors one by one. It may be just bricks but I felt the same I didn't want someone living in his house walking around on his carpets with there shoes on knowing he took them off at the door, or the fact they'd most probably strip the wallpaper that had been there for over 20 years. I suppose for me it was also the fact he certainly wasn't going to be there.

I still drive by and they've still got his net curtains up and it actually took my a while to stop feeling angry because they'd changed it. I considered moving in with my DC and renting it from my mother but looking back It was for the best I would of kept it exactly the same the way he did when my grandmother died and you don't really move on.

Cry for as long as it takes, feel a little bit angry and you'll soon feel --normal-- again

YNbu