House move

[Sliverofdarkness]

Have just moved house, and my husband and I can't stop arguing and crying. He is saying now we should never have moved and it was all a big mistake. Was in our last house for 10 years, had our kids there as babies, so many family gatherings etc. We only moved for a more convenient location and more space with a bedroom for each of the kids. We've spent a huge amount of money but certain things about the house are worse than the old house, like the kitchen and a lot needs to be fixed. Feeling very depressed, we were all crying when we saw our old house empty during the move, kids were crying. Does this pass? Was talking to my old neighbours who weren't exactly friendly when we were living there and started crying... Help

Yes, it does. We moved for better location and bedroom each for DC but new house needs a lot of work to make it how we want it and sometimes I regret it slightly but I have to remind myself of all the positives and overall that feeling of omg what have we done is gone and we are all happy. Youngest DC still a bit sad when we drive past the old house though weirdly eldest ASD DC who was crying when we left has taken to new place fine. It is overwhelming when you have just moved and nothing is really organised - getting a couple of spaces sorted has made a big difference to us. Hopefully you can get excited about changes you can make (kitchen upgrade sometime?) and that it feels like home soon.

All the crying seems a bit OTT, however it can take quite a long time to settle into a new home OP.

My DH and I moved to our current home two years ago, and while it has made life a lot easier for us, because we're both disabled and are now in a bungalow, it has taken us until quite recently to settle. We moved from a very rural location where to do absolutely anything, you had to get in the car, to an estate in a large village, where we have all the facilities we need both now, and as we get older and have to give up driving, so in many ways it's ideal, but I absolutely hate looking out and seeing other houses, even though we're literally about 1/2 mile from acres of forest, which we can go out and explore on our mobility scooters.

Difficult though it may be, the only advice I can give you, is to give it time. You WILL eventually settle down in your new home, and hopefully, given time you will make the home the way you want it, with a new kitchen that you've been able to chose for yourself, rather than someone else's choice, etc. You'll get used to different neighbours, and the kids will get used to new schools, assuming they've had to change. You will also make NEW memories in this house, just as you did in your last one, but all of this takes time. So instead of crying and mourning the old house, start making plans for the new one. Even if you can't afford to put in a new kitchen for a while, start planning how you would like it to be. Maybe start some new traditions in the new house, obviously depending on how old your kids are, you could make it a new tradition to have something special for breakfast at the weekend, that you wouldn't have had at the old place, or maybe there's a cafe or McDonalds or whatever, and you could make Sunday a day to go out for breakfast if you haven't done that in the past. If the area is totally new to you, go out for family walks at the weekends, as you always see far more on foot than you do in the car, and see what you can find, are there play areas hidden away that you didn't know about, try and find new, fun things to do, and try to be positive.

At the end of the day, you chose to make the move for a reason, presumably spent a lot of money on moving fees, etc., so now you have to settle down and make it all work.

Good luck in your New Home OP, with the right attitude you'll soon get used to things.

Yes this is a thing, it has a special term “buyers remorse”. Totally normal.

Realistically all you can do, unless you seriously want to put the new place on the market immediately and move back to your old place (which I assume now has someone living in it and still has the issues which made you want to leave, plus you’d lose £££ in stamp duty) is grit your teeth, put your big girl/ boy pants on and start sorting the new place out. Have a strong word with your DH as well- you’ve got to approach this with a positive mindset.

If you feel the same in a year that’s the time to act. And usually unless you’ve uncovered a disaster like subsidence or murderers for neighbours, this won’t be the case. I’d assume you knew things would need doing to the new house and it was priced accordingly so this can’t be a shock, surely?

This is absolutely normal and I think everyone feels like this when they move. We moved a year ago and it was the same.

The thing that helped me was reading on here from someone who said they’ve moved a lot and they’ve cried every time they’ve moved in to a new place and every time they’ve then come to leave that same place. I cried leaving my last house and also cried moving into it too and remember thinking it was the worst house ever and I had made a huge mistake. Never in my wildest dreams when I moved in initially did I imagine being sad leaving it, but when the time came I was because I had made it home.

I also think things that need fixing are not exactly visible in the small amount of time during house viewings and that means people are often left with repairs to do that they weren’t expecting and that is annoying. We certainly have had that experience.

I also hate disorganisation and not having spaces to put things which really affects my stress and I’ve struggled to deal with that too to be honest.

The thing that helped me was making one bedroom (wasn’t the master) acceptable (I.e fresh lick of paint and clean but not immaculately done up) and set that up nice to live in very similar to the set up of our old bedroom. Then we cleaned and unpacked the kitchen and 1 bathroom and then we felt a bit more normal.

But honestly don’t worry about feeling bad it’s very common and it will pass!

It's absolutely normal to feel this way, most people feel bad about it. You've got your old house tweaked to suit you so it feels like home, but of course there are things you can't improve on so you have to move. The new house hasn't had all those tweaks and improvements and so doesn't seem remotely like yours, like home. It takes a bit of time and adjusting from you all to feel more settled but it will come. The thing for you now is to model an appropriate behaviour for your kids, so dab those tears away and adopt a brisk and positive outlook. You know you will get the house nice, your kids will like having their own space, etc. Look forward, not back.

Change and chaos is hard when you move house. Start looking forward to doing the projects to make this house amazing.

Moving house is so stressful. It sounds wonderful when you are thinking about it as you have images in your head of picture perfect rooms etc but in my own experience the reality is very different. Just calm down and try to relax and not let it all overwhelm you. Once you accept it is an overwhelming situation I find it helps a bit. Try to see the positives

It will pass. We all cried leaving our old house. New house felt like a nightmare for a good few weeks. Lots of stress and arguing. I love my ‘new’ house now and don’t ever want to move.