Can anyone relate to feeling upset about leaving a much-loved home?

[SadHouse]

I feel so pathetic. Dh and I have been in this house almost 20 years. We've done a lot to it. The only reason we're moving is the area. It goes through periods of being rough. It's been ok for a good while. But it's getting rough again.

We're not getting any younger and can't be done with it.
We've found another house and in the process of buying. It isn't dependant on selling ours but ours is on the market.

I'm looking at our beautiful home online that other people will live in. It's breaking me.

I feel guilty because I have a friend going through an awful time. And I'm crying over bricks and mortar.

Luckily I'm not at work for a week so can have my mini breakdown without it affecting work.

Can anyone relate? If I could transport our house to the nicer area we're moving to I would.

I think losing a lot of close family whilst living here may have added to my upset. Lots of good and bad memories tied here.

Me i can relate!
I howled my eyes out all the way up the motorway when i left my first house. I was late 20s, had lived there 8 years and had my eldest 3 DCs there. Id decorated every nook and cranny of that house and it was gorgeous. It sold for just over twice what we paid for it and meant we could buy a cottage in the country with a big garden and give the kids a better life - get them off an estate which was going down hill.

I hated to think about who was going to be in my house and if they'd keep it nice ! 😩

And! I lived in said cottage for 8 years as well - again i'd renovated and decorated it myself and it looked like a picture. But i split with xh and we had to sell. Que 😩 all over again ! 🙄

I live in a nice big house up the lane from 'my' cottage and walk past it often. I side eye it. It's still mine in my heart and it pains me.

There was a thread similar to this, a few weeks ago. Somebody was contemplating downsizing. I don’t want to repeat myself to the point of tedium, but I do feel emotionally attached to places.

I was not happy growing up but I felt the loss of my childhood home very greatly. I can’t really explain why, except that I felt very much attached to it. I then lived in different places but the one that I think of most is the one that I lived in for around 18 years before I moved to my current home. That also meant a great deal to me for many reasons. I’m happy where I am but I look back at aspects of that flat with nostalgia that borders, at times, on pain.

I love my house now. I know I will not be able to live in it as I get older and become infirm. I remember hearing of a lady I knew who locked up her door for the last time when she moved to go to sheltered accommodation and she said it broke her heart. That is how I will feel when I leave here.

I think that some places get under your skin for a variety of reasons and because of what they represent to you, as well as because of what went on there and the memories.

Having said that, there are other places that I’ve been to, where I’ve not lived there, but they also have a strong hold over me. It will be interesting to know if there are people who do not have this attachment to places. I think it’s to do with security and my own identity as much as other things.

So, yes, it’s entirely understandable. It seems to me that one has to look on these things as the stages in the journey of one’s life. I appreciate that sounds trite, but it is thinking that way that enables me to accept change and to move forward.

Thanks for replying @HoppityBun and @Laiste . I'm usually fairly tough and this has made me feel so weak. I don't agree with hiding emotions though and have taught (now adult) dcs to be open about theirs.

I can relate to side eyeing the house. A neighbour in the next street has mentioned keeping in touch and coming back over for parties etc. I can just see me having a few beers amd knocking on the door to see if the new people are looking after it. No I wouldn't go that far. Hopefully

I never get attached to homes
I have lived in some beautiful houses/ apartments but they are simply bricks and
mortar .
I adapt very quickly to new surroundings

Yes, dc and I still sometimes look at pictures of the house they were born in (literally, home births) and wish we were back there. 500 yo farmhouse, in the middle of thousands of acres of forest in the Med.

I miss it so much. It was so beautiful.

I know the feeling. I still have a little weep. I can’t look at old photos without welling up.

I don't get attached to houses. I loved all the houses we've lived in and they've all been very different. I don't regret moving on at all. What makes you think you won't love your new home as much as the last one?

Yes. I had to sell because of divorce. I still dream about winning the lottery and making whoever lives there now an offer they would be daft to refuse.

My parents split up when I was 18 and our family home was sold in the divorce. I was absolutely heartbroken. Our home was beautiful, we had an immense garden with rockeries and a huge tree swing. I still think about it now and still feel pangs of heartache when I drive past it.

Oh I totally relate to this, totally. There's so much of you, your family, your friends tied up in a house. I will feel the same when I have to leave my home, I'm dreading it already. You're not alone!

In the process of selling my childhood home after my parents' deaths - I don't need it and don't want it. It's 200 miles away from where I own my own home with my husband - the home my 13 year old was born in and a home I love. The thought of not being able access the home I lived in from 0-18 and spent the equivalent of YEARS worth of time in on holiday after that is breaking me though! Solidarity!

Yes I love my home but dh wants to move and it’s not what it was, new neighbours are irritating

Another one here to who would hate to have to leave her house. I live on my own, and (touch wood) I feel so safe here, it is my happy place. I have terrific neighbours, everything is close by as are family and friends. Oh hell, I just am glued to the place - ridiculous as that sounds, and only want to be taken out in a box!

I think for me it's the sense of security. I feel if I ever did move, I wouldn't feel the same safeness I feel here, and would worry a lot about the possibility of difficult noisy and anti social neighbours and how my quality of life might be affected.

I'm older now and going into the later years, so my circumstances are obviously not the same as a young family moving for more space/safety etc. for them and their children.

Yeah I’m not a crier but I cried the night I accepted an offer on my home, and I couldn’t sleep all night. We are in a terraced and are moving to a detached but I love my neighbours and will miss the chats on the street, and I’m also leaving a lot of friends in the village. We’re going for a lux home that I’ve done up to a full renovation project that we won’t be able to afford to do for years, so living with bad seventies decor. I know it will be ok in the end but I’m still really sad. This is my house and I’m buying with DP so there’s all the risk of joining our finances thrown in to boot.

I can relate. It took me a couple of years before I was ready to move after DH died, that place represented so many happy memories, it felt like he was in the bricks and mortar, it was the one place I felt close to him but I did it. I don't have any wise words of comfort but I do understand the feeling.

Please get legal advice and a deed of trust to be absolutely clear about expectations for contributions and for division of assets if you separate. Be clear who contributes what, in terms of renovation materials and work, expenses and living costs and specify how the increase in value will be allocated and on what basis. Treat it like the business venture that it is, because you will not get the benefit of matrimonial legislation if you split.

Hope for the best: Plan for the worst.

Everyone gets upset when they leave a home they love OP. Why on earth do you imagine they wouldn’t? People get attached.

already in motion! We are getting that tied up before anything goes through.

Yeah no way I’m giving up my equity without protection. We’ve been together thirteen years (lived together for twelve) but it’s still a jump and I’m very risk averse.

Sorry did I ask if aibu? No, so do one. Also people have posted saying they don't get attached. I've moved from houses without a backward glance.

Just had a friend over. She said how well the EA had photographed my house. Said it looks like a show home. Bit of a backhanded compliment 😅 She's a lovely person though so I know she meant well.

Many people do genuinely mean ‘show home’ as a compliment, weirdly, rather than ‘weirdly staged with small furniture to make the rooms look bigger’. Let yourself feel the feelings. And you’ll take the memories with you…

I don't think i have ever been attached to any houses/flats we have lived in probably because we have moved so much. Our childhood home wasn't nice. My parents current home is nice enough but doesn't feel like home because I barely lived there and dad passed away 4 yrs ago. Feels different since. As an adult i have moved at least 6-7 times. Current house is 6 yrs in (second longest so far). I look online all the time for another house to move to. I like our house but would happily move. It's not how I want it and our neighbours are not for us.

What a silly response, you clearly haven't read the whole thread where there are posters saying they felt the polar opposite 😒

You sound a bit like someone I used to work with. Although she was always wanting to move. I said she should live in a motor home or house boat. She said she would but her dh wouldn't.

Yeah, it's very sad leaving a loved home. Most people naturally attach to their living spaces if they are there for some time.