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I keep trying to make a short post, but can't seem to adequately explain my situation succinctly. My relationship has been really rough lately. A lot of it is focused around our new house. The short explanation is that my partner hates it and wants to move and I love it and it feels more like home than any place I've ever lived. But it's a lot more complicated than that. My friends think my partner is being controlling and emotionally abusive, but I want to get some other options on how I should approach the situation.
Some basic background: we are an unmarried gay couple (important to only note that you can call me "he/him" also). We have been together 3 years, both are in our early 30s, and have no children. When we met, I was living in the city and loving it and he lived in the suburbs and didn't like urban life. He bought a new house soon after we met, so it made sense that when we agreed to move in together that I left my life (but not my job) in the city behind to live with him.
I was aware of his controlling tendencies from the beginning. There was a point for instance two months in that he asked when I would move in with him and I said I wasn't ready to think about that yet. He broke up and wouldn't speak to me for 2 weeks. And on a smaller scale I've always been aware that I'll be willing to do things with him that I don't care for but I rarely get the same in return. But I've always stuck it out for his better qualities. Because when the relationship is at its best everything feels right with the world.
I came to really like his neighborhood, and his house. It was still sort of urban for a suburb and the houses had a lot of charm. But then one night 2 years in he sat me down and said he wasn't happy with us. That he didn't feel we had enough in common and that he didn't think I was putting in enough effort, both romantically and in sharing work around the house. He wanted us to either get into therapy or go our separate ways.
That thought got put on hold though, because the next day someone attempted to break into our house. A week later our dog sitter had something stolen out of her unlocked car while at our house, and then the sump pump clogged and flooded the basement. I maintained those were minor setbacks, but it was enough for my partner to want to sell, so I gave in and the house went up for sale.
The house hunt process was long and rough. There were many arguments. I felt like I was doing my best to come up with a compromise while he was only interested in his wants. Anything that was on my list was dismissed as not existent or out of our budget. I wanted a house with some sort of character in an interesting neighborhood, with reasonable access to my commuter train, a place where I can walk places, have parks where people hang out, etc...basically our current neighborhood. He wanted a brand new house with a big yard and more modern floor plan, and to stay close to family. We had a hard time making that intersect. There were a limited number of places that satisfied location for both of us, and there were no new houses in those places. The best neighborhoods were more costly so we would have had to settle for a fixer upper. The new houses were being built out in farm fields or behind shopping centers in sprawling places I didn't want to live.*
We finally found a house that we both loved. But it was in our current neighborhood, and nearly 100 years old. But it had the big feel and generous yard and grand appearance that my partner wanted, we both liked the floor plan. But we fell in love with old listing photos from a few years ago; it was being sold as a foreclosure and was a little rougher for wear. But it was also the cheapest house of it's size and quality we could buy anywhere, and although my partner had some misgivings for it not being new or in a safer location, he agreed it was our best compromise.
But ever since move in our lives and relationship has been a rollercoaster. Some of it is definitely caused by the house: work has been more costly and taken longer than anticipated; some things have needed work that we didn't expect; our budget and expectations going in weren't adequate; contractors have been a pain to work with. Sometimes things just wouldn’t go well, but it's been far from the house on Money Pit. As I said I love the house. As a preservation architect it has also given me a new sense of purpose as I get a chance to learn new things and have projects of my own.
He on the other hand has a much more complicated relationship with the house. Starting a couple weeks after move in he was already threatening to put it back on the market. He couldn’t stand how much of a mess it was. I thought it was only because we hadn’t unpacked fully and he was just stressed by the disarray. But he comes back to that every time something goes wrong. When we are picking things out and making plans though he is really into the process and a lot of the work we have done so far has been very tailored to us. How he feels changes from week to week and even sometimes day to day.
If I summarized how he feels it is this: he is unhappy because we’ve spent a lot of money and time fixing up the house. We had to do necessary repairs first so he hasn’t gotten to spend as much time making the inside the way he wants. Having the inside not put together bothers him a lot. He dwells on every little imperfection. So as much as he can he has pushed forward with doing work as fast and as often as possible. This had lead to us spending more on the house each month than our budget can allow. It also means that there is constant work being done and we don’t get to relax at home as well. This has put a lot of pressure on him at work, since he works in sales off of commission. He feels the need to make more and more to be able to keep up with our spending. And because he is spending all of his time either working or working on the house he feels that there is nothing else to his life. That he doesn't get to have vacations, and do fun things, and have other nice things besides the house. And so he is unhappy with everything.
But while the house may have triggered all of this I just don’t believe it was the full cause. First because he was feeling unhappy before we bought this house. He would push himself to make more so he could spend more before we bought the house, and often get stressed when he didn’t have good earning days. Many of the high costs of our renovation have been driven by his desire to make things perfect and beautiful now. He has also been one to spend first and figure out the means to pay it later. We didn’t need to spend 20k stripping the paint of the woodwork in the house, we could have freshened up the paint and done that in 5-10 years. And then we wouldn’t be scraping up funds to fix the roof. There’s been a whole list of such decisions, none of which are aimed at preparing the house for resale if hats what he really wants. And we have quite a bit of free time but we loose so many nights and weekends when he is in a bitter mood and doesn’t want to do anything.
He wants to sell the house and build the perfect new house that he wanted from the start. And it doesn’t seem to matter to him that I don’t want to live in the builder subdivisions he keeps pushing on me. Nor can I explain that with our debts and how we have been working on this house that we will likely leave with less cash than we went in making it difficult to build a new house. I feel we would be best served by slowing down on the work, paying down some debts, getting some smaller projects done and seeing how things feel in a year or two.
But I fear that the overall atmosphere is too hostile for that to happen. When things get bad, or he gets upset, he blames the hous first then he blames me for letting all of this happen. He stops being affectionate and he stops talking to me. Sometimes he says that the house makes him want to kill himself, and a few times he has just moved out for a week. But he eventually comes back or gets past whatever is bothering and things return to normal. Sometimes though it makes me fear coming home because I don’t know in what mood he’s going to be. I’ve been moderately successful at agreeing to look into what it would take to build a new house and hold out until we finish our current projects, but other times he only wants to talk to me if I’m ready to agree with his point of view.
So this is where we are right now. We had several good weeks but then he purchased a new wall oven right before Hosting Easter. Something happened with the delivery and they didn’t show up. We got it all figured out but meanwhile he had yet another meltdown where while I was trying to help him through from work he told me that he hated me for ruining his life and said that if the house doesn’t go on the market this relationship is over. I just don’t know how much more of this I can handle.
I was aware of his controlling tendencies from the beginning.
None of this is because of the house.
Y'all had a shaky relationship all along, but for some reason you kept plowing forward because you mistakenly thoughts that the busyness of buying a different house would "make everything better," i.e. distract you from the fact that you two are incompatible.
You can't take much more of this, but you probably will.
BirdieBelle, thanks for the reply. Yes the house belongs to both of us. And the mortgage, taxes, utilities are paid for equally. One of the points of contention though is that he makes more than I do, and so he has paid more of the renovation and repair bills.
BirdieBelle, thanks for the reply. Yes the house belongs to both of us. And the mortgage, taxes, utilities are paid for equally. One of the points of contention though is that he makes more than I do, and so he has paid more of the renovation and repair bills.
Well, it's gonna be ugly no matter what.
I'll be honest. Your boyfriend sounds extremely high maintenance and moody, which is hell to live with. Life is just too short to genuflect the whole way through. Why do you think it's ok to constantly subjugate your own thoughts and feelings just to keep the peace?
My friends think my partner is being controlling and emotionally abusive...
I was aware of his controlling tendencies from the beginning.
... two months in ... He broke up and wouldn't speak to me for 2 weeks.
I've always been aware that I'll be willing to do things with him that I don't care for but I rarely get the same in return.
... he didn't feel we had enough in common and that he didn't think I was putting in enough effort, both romantically and in sharing work around the house.
I felt like I was doing my best to come up with a compromise while he was only interested in his wants.
Anything that was on my list was dismissed as not existent or out of our budget.
How he feels changes from week to week and even sometimes day to day.
He dwells on every little imperfection.
And so he is unhappy with everything.
... he was feeling unhappy before we bought this house.
... it doesn’t seem to matter to him that I don’t want to live in the builder subdivisions he keeps pushing on me.
When things get bad, or he gets upset, he blames the house first then he blames me for letting all of this happen.
He stops being affectionate and he stops talking to me. Sometimes he says that the house makes him want to kill himself, and a few times he has just moved out for a week.
... he told me that he hated me for ruining his life and said that if the house doesn’t go on the market this relationship is over.
I don't see how any "good parts" can make this ^^^ worth it, OP.
Doesn’t sound like he was ever “happy” with the house, just compromised based on what he had to work with. I would need his side to actually make any real determination.
This isn’t about the house, the house and the issues coming from it’s involvement are just examples of why he feels the way he does (and likewise yourself)
. Would you say he finds you hard to deal with often?
I think many people watch hgtv and assume remodeling a house is all glamorous and shopping for granite. 95% of a remodel is dirty relatively mundane and hard work. If you don’t enjoy getting dirty and being handy then you will pay top dollar for quality contractors.
I would assume your partner absolutely hates the dirt and chaos from renovation and just misunderstood what it actually would take. I wouldn’t say he is being controlling just a bit naive and “soft” about dealing with it all.
Fight or flight instincts kick in and he likely leans toward flight.
He's clearly not into this relationship. Is he picking fights for an excuse to leave and have you not chase after him?
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