Not caring what happens to my dad's house...am I horrible?

[Floppysphonics]

We lost my dad earlier in the year and are now selling his house. My sister keeps telling me what a lovely couple the buyers are and how they will love it and look after it.

I have two reactions to this and neither is what I expected. Sometimes I just don't care what happens to it now, apart from it being sold for a sensible price. Sometimes it actively upsets me to think of someone moving in and improving it.

Either way, I genuinely don't care about the buyers beyond the fact that I want them to be straightforward and pay what they offered.

Am I being disrespectful to my dad's memory? Or is it normal to feel like this?

I guess the other thing is, yes, these people present nicely, but actually, neither of us has the first clue about what they are actually like, or how they will treat the house. We just know how they behave when they are buying a house and presumably it's a good idea to be pleasant.

Of course it's normal. Your emotions are all over the place and you probably don't have the energy to be bothered with this right now.

When the house is sold and someone else is living there you will detach from it mentally.. and emotionally.

Some people do get emotionally attached to a house, especially if it’s a chidhood home.
I couldn’t get attached to my mum’s house. I never lived there ( her decorating choices were questionable too).
Sorry for your loss.
I saw the sale when she died as another administrative task to be done in a never ending list of bureaucracy when someone dies.

Everyone's different, OP, and there aren't any rules. You're not being disrespectful. It's only a house.

Sorry for your loss.

I think I'm in the process of detaching now. It feels like a shell now. It's not my dad's house anymore because he's died. A bit like as soon as he died, he didn't look like himself any more. I would like my dad back, all the good and annoying parts of him, but his house? If we can't keep it, and if he's not in it, then I don't really want to think about it any more.

I haven't felt emotional at all until now. And the actual putting on the market didn't hurt. I guess I am feeling the loss now that it's getting real. Maybe thinking about the people buying it makes me sad that their journey starting was made possible with dad's journey ending? Don't know really. My sister didn't have much to do with dad when he was alive. Perhaps she's not so ready to let go? Or maybe more? Blimey...

I'm selling my parents house at the moment, and I've been surprised at how little I feel about the house. I'm happy that the people who are buying it actually want to live in it (or at least they say, but they do only live a few doors up currently).
But they will be changing it massively, and I think if I was going to be seeing the house I might be more upset at that, and in a very strange time that I didn't get the closure of a funeral for either of them, the house going will be very final, and my last tie with the town I was born and grew up in is gone.
So, I don't think it is disrespectful or unusual at all to feel as you do

Some people have an emotional attachment to houses, places, possessions and people. Others it's just he people. Neither is wrong. I'm the kind of person who doesn't have much interest about things beyond photos and letters, I would always prioritise memories and I couldn't give a FF who inherits what or gets what jewellery or family heirloom. It doesn't bring the person back. It's just stuff. I know a lot of people are different from that. But neither position is wrong

I guess I'm halfway between. There are lots of things of dad's that hold memories for me. But the house itself stopped doing that stopped doing it once he died and I knew it would be sold.

I'm sorry for your loss OP.

It's just a house at the end of the day. Like you say, what made it important to you is no longer there. I often think it is easier to make a clean break than to hang on. To me it would be more painful to see the house a few years later, with everything different.

Yes-this exactly.

Sorry you lost your Dad.

Not at all horrible to think/feel the way you do about the house and the buyers.

Your sister has different thoughts/feelings. Could just respond in a bland way if / when she mentions the buyers. Notice any irritation but try not to act on it!

I think I care. I just don't want to know. And I have to let go rather than have an ongoing "relationship" with the house.