DH has moved out

[Passa]

We purchase our house earlier this year. We’ve spent more than we would have liked but we can afford the monthly payments.
However, we underestimated the refurbishment cost, we budgeted £60k but it’s going to be closer to £100k+ : new kitchen, new wardrobes, new beds, new flooring and paint. The house is very dated and needs updating but DH has become increasingly bitter at the cost and placed the blame s on me. He’s had to sell his ISA and employee shares to fund this, and has regularly resorted to calling me names. He stayed in thr spare room for weeks but finally moved out back to his parents.
i don’t know what happens after this - will the house be sold off? We are sitting on a very significant loss if we sell it now.

The vote was too close to call, so she is probably as confused as ever. I hope the couple can sort it out.

The vote being that close is concerning. Half the mumsnetters on this thread think it fine to spend money they don't have on things they don't need. Are they really so enamoured of designers.

How big is your kitchen?!?!

We put a new kitchen in a couple of years ago. L-shaped kitchen and island, quartz worktops, new floor, lighting, new electrics consumer unit, appliances, ceiling skimmed, painted etc... We assembled the kitchen units ourselves (not exactly difficult so saved money) but the rest we had fitted. Total cost £10,500. We used DIY Kitchens and local independent tradespeople do to any work.

Who was project managing the renovations?? Very poor project planning, and from what you've said about your DH's reaction, you might have been a little too demanding about it.

And surely if you've now finished the renovations, it will be worth more?? Or did you not research that either?

By the sound of it, you've jumped in feet first without doing some basic calculations. If the relationship isn't salvageable then yes, you will probably have to sell at a loss.

I wonder if it is all about impressions. They see a house - and old house - that they can afford, and buy it. Then friends want to see what they have bought. That is when the 'rot' sets in, and impressions seem more important than how much they can afford. It is understandable, really. It depends who their friends are. If they are richer than them they may be wanting to impress, and that is their first wrong move.

It could be why the DH got cold feet. Perhaps he suddenly realised that the whole thing was just to impress and the friends are not worth selling your soul for? They have eyes bigger than their bank balance.

It is hardly different to why people wear designer labels. They want people to believe they earn enough to be able to afford them.

It makes you want to knock their heads together.

Again, I think the hundreds of house renovations on TV appear to be more doable than they actually are. They give couples buying their first home hope that it can be done - like magic. Sometimes those renovations take months, but that isn't always spelled out.

If there was a TV show telling people exactly how it is in the renovation lark, it would bring them nearer to earth, but that is unlikely to happen.

What's more important is helping them pick up the pieces. Too late for judgements. The deed is done.

Trying to compete with others is never a good idea. You wanted to own your first home. You saved up the deposit and got a mortgage? You found a property you could make your own, without realising the cost.

Did you want to hold your housewarming party too soon? You talk about the price your friend paid for her kitchen, and that gives the impression that you might have been impressed by what they had achieved and wanted the same. How do you know it isn't harder for them to redo the kitchen?

Do you think when your friends invite you round to see their homes they are not in the same mess you are in? 9 of 10 says they are, unless you make friends with very wealthy people, that is.

Don't go through life trying to compete or impress others. You will see they are not worth it. Put friends aside for a while. Make up with your DH and see what you can save from the tangle. Tell them you are too busy sorting out your house to go to parties or wherever they go, then sit down and work out whether you can continue what you have started, or cut your losses and try again.

Everyone rises and falls in life. It is what life is. Everything you experience is a learning curve - a very good learning curve. The worse the fault, the more you learn from it and the more you can guide your family through it.

Don't forget that. It is important. Try to redeem something good from every disaster that comes your way. Look back at experiences, not in anger. I don't know if you do old fashioned things like knitting, but when you make a mistake, you can just unpick it and knit it up again. You can even decide the mistake was meant, unpick the lot and start knitting something else. Not everything in life is like that, but learning which can be salvaged and which cannot, is life.

Other couples are the same as you.

I inherited an avocado bathroom two houses ago. It stayed there. I wasn't one of those people who cared all that much. How much time is spent in a bathroom? The kids mess it up anyway, whatever colour it started off as.

Haha we left the avocado in one bathroom because of the kids. Just moved the loo, an ancient electric shower, built fitted cupboards. Some new tiles, wallpaper and curtains.

I wonder if coloured bathrooms will ever make a comeback.

I sold my parents’ avocado bathroom suite for £250 to a couple who were doing up their mid century house.

Depending on how much you've spent on beds and I'm guessing a lot of completely not urgent stuff like that, it will all be money you've sunk in with no return. Fitted wardrobes maybe but minimal. The garage should have waited. I understand bathroom(s) and kitchen but spending more on them that you will recope on the house is madness. 20K would have done the job but you wanted "the best". Floors yes, but everything should have been added up before any work was done. I get it, you don't know the costs but you should have added them up.

I guess you feel that we're all ganging up on you but this could so easily have been avoided and your dh has now spent a whole lot of money for something he was prepared to take more financially seriously. And, I hate to say it, but I think you have been manipulative and I think your marriage is on thin ice. Some counselling, maybe, to have a look at his decision to run away and your spending well outside of your means and what that says about your manipulation and your marriage in general.

Comparison is the thief of joy. You've put it so well and much more kindly than me.

I moved to a house with a yellow bath suite. Never changed it, because the bath is the old cast iron and I don't want a plastic one. Probably yellow cast iron will be in again one day, or someone won't mind going without a bath while the paint dries.

I have better things to spend my money on. Now if there wasn't a bathroom at all, that would be different.

If memory serves, avocado was a lot darker when I lived with one.

A friend bought a doer upper with three dark chocolate suites.
She absolutely hated them but had other jobs to do. Every fleck of dust showed on them, every day.
She would have swapped for pink or green! It was late 80's.

Have you given a full sincere apology? You got massively carried away and he was forced along for the ride. Hold your hands up and ask what you can do to fix things.

I’m in my 40s, lived in this house for 10 years and it’s still not finished. Most people can’t afford to renovate a whole house in one go.

i can see how it could end up costing more than 100k. We had a small extension not that long ago and it cost a fortune, and we’ve done the decorating, door hanging, in built furniture, skirting ourselves. If I’d had the money I would of absolutely paid for all of this, as we still haven’t done all the skirting boards or cupboards!

You haven't mentioned being upset at presumably the love of your life walking out on you, your worry seems to only be about the house. Renovations are stressful, anyone can argue about them, but walking away is a huge step. You seem to understand that you got carried away overspending, but you attribute all your DH's upset just to money rather than how you've treated him. It doesn't sound like you love him at all. You need to really think about your relationship rather than your house; imagine you both lost the house, jobs, money - picture yourself looking at him; do you want a life with that man? If you do, then look honestly at how you've dismissed his input and go to talk things over to see if you can sort your relationship out or if you're too late.

So, the house needs updating, but are the areas that need updating livable and usable? Because if they are, why could you not put off the updates until you saved money for them, rather than put your husband in the poorhouse? I get the sense that a lot of this remodeling was unnecessary, but you had to have a perfect house, right now, and now your husband is broke. I sure hope he gets the down payment back out of it when you sell, because if he's smart, your DH will be your exDH in short order.

I didn't get that impression so much from the OP. I thought she was genuinely concerned that her husband had moved out. In fact, that was probably why she bared her soul to us all.

Why else would she post and ask what to do next?

That, is unnecessarily unkind. What sort of encouragement is that at this late stage? You cannot credit a stranger with the anger you would feel in the same circumstances.

She probably did think it could happen right away. Perhaps she thought life was too short to wait. Only after the effect did she realise the enormity of what was being done. Now she wishes she hadn't gone so far.

For you to hope that her DH divorces her is not very constructive, is it?

No one puts anyone in the 'poor house'. It was a joint venture. He pulled out to show his - probably anger - in a demonstrative way. If he is given to anger and tantrums - and the OP has never mentioned that - then that is a different thing entirely.

Does she have to? would you be upset? The fact that she has told us, admitted her mistake - if it was a mistake, that is, nust show emotion, and it doesn't come across as happy to me.

How about each of us just gives our own advice? You think it's reasonable to be more upset about losing a house than losing a DH, fine, you respond on that basis. I'll stick to providing the advice that I personally think is most helpful to the OP.

OP could you sell the new furniture and buy second hand to recoup a bit of money?
Are you sorry for getting carried away and want to repair things with him?

So having an instagram worthy house was more important than financial security and your husband’s mental health and you are still more worried about loosing your house over loosing your husband????
jesus Christ !!

Not at all. I did not think that she was more upset about the house than losing her DH. I am surprised that you or anyone would think that.

I think that she is very upset. How can anyone turn the whole emotion around and interpret her post that way?

Has she lost the house yet? I am responding to you, but have not checked if she actually says she has.

Her DH walked out on her and she thinks it is because she overspent and he finally confessed that he had no money left, after being as enthusiastic as she is over the purchase of their first home.
.

I do not agree with you.

Until he walked out, this was a project they were doing together - buying their first home. He possibly was just as enthusiastic as she about impressing their friends and family.

His walking out was sudden, and the OP is looking for reasons why he did that, and as many women do, is blaming herself. That is something mumsnet posters usually abhor, yet here you are condemning her instead of being positive and helping her sort her way out of a maze she doesn't understand fully.

It is not always the woman's fault.

I suppose I have to accept the inevitability that someone would start an argument over something I say. It usually happens. Why any poster would voluntarily pick up on a post just to argue the toss and show themselves up is a mystery.

Is it the start of filling up 40 pages and ending the thread, because for the life of me I cannot see anything for you to complain about.