Holding our horses
I think we have decided to slow down. I am just not ready to plunge ahead and move in the next couple of months. It's too soon. So we are slowing down, with the likelihood of going through this process in the spring.
It's been hard: I have so much invested in being supportive of DH, and though he says "It's not time to do it if you're not ready," he also has said that he is sad and disappointed. I feel terrible about that, but I'm not sure what else I can do.
I'm also realizing that in the last few weeks I have been sliding into a depression. I don't think I'm in a good place to make a huge life-changing decision. I also think -- wow, the last 18 months have been absolutely nuts in our lives (fire, decision to homeschool, illness, marriage issues that I haven't discussed here). I need to stop and rest for a bit.
So I have to think about what it means to be supportive of DH while still trying to figure out what I need. I wonder if he is sad in part because longer-term goals are not really a part of his reality/experience. Either it happens or it doesn't. You get what you want right now, or you don't get it.
He has mentioned some short-term things he can do at minimal expense to have some of what he wants (get separate electricity to the garage so he can have a shop in there), and there are also lots of things to do in order to get the house ready to sell and get our finances clear. (That is part of my issue with making a sudden change -- the amount of work is enormous and I will shoulder a big part of it. Whatever his desires are, I am the only one who has been decluttering this week, even after deciding we should probably wait!) I think if I really want to be a "guardian of the dream" I will need to be active in keeping those things going, and prove that "not now" doesn't have to mean "not ever."
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Follow your gut.
Please do not buy a house if you are feeling rushed or in any way uncomfortable. It sounds like this is very important to your husband and of course you must make sure that he is happy and contented with his life. I do not know your specific situation but buying a home is a huge undertaking with enormous repercussions if done improperly or in haste. You are making a decision that will effect every sphere of your life-most importantly your financal situation. It must be thought through, honestly discussed between you and your partner, and truly agreed upon. Because blame for any unhappiness because of the decision to purchase or not to purchase a new home cannot be applied to either spouse.
My husband and I bought a house a little over a year ago. I was pregnant. We were living in a small apartment. We decided we needed a house in the country with a big yard. Well, we got exactly what we asked for: a big, 200 year old house with two cottages on 5 acres in the middle of farmland.....and every dime we make goes into feeding this monster. When I think about how much money we could have saved for our retirement or our children's education I become physically ill. But, we made our bed and we are sleeping in it as gracefully as possible. The stress has not negatively affected our marriage, thank goodness. We've figured out how to manage the enormous expense-we rent out the cottages and one of the main house bedrooms to artist friends of ours-but we both wish we had taken our time and really thought it through. We were in such a rush! And, we were being so childish. We saw that all of our friends had pretty homes and we wanted one too. It was a very hard and very expensive way of learning a very important lesson.
So...if it feels wrong or rushed then it is wrong and you are being rushed.
you're not being unsupportive Shaun
you're just trying to make sure that the timing is right so that the dream doesn't turn into a nightmare, which is could so easily do if you rush it. I've said it before but I'm good at repeating myself till I'm blue in the face - if the change is right for you all (and it must be right for ALL of you) then it will be there if you give it a few months or a year. It can only be improved by letting the idea mature a bit. Something like this should never be rushed or it could all blow up in your faces, and as Samantha mentions above, you could end up with a money pit instead of a dream.
Dreams are only the very start of the journey, the trigger... after that you should both be putting in solid work to make sure it all goes as well as you could possibly want. That doesn't take away from the dream - spending time on perfecting the dream before you rush at it will make it even better.
Hopefully you can find a phrase or two in there which will make DH feel better about waiting! I know men aren't good at waiting. Once the decision is made they'll rush at hings like a bull in a china shop, and inevitably they'll be surprised when it doesn't all work out perfectly. Keep the dream alive but put it into a slower gear so you make it to the finish line all in one piece.
Kerri.
Slow burning dreams
Shaun, we're also trying to cope with large, long-term, dreams having to be kept on the back burner (if that's not a mixed metaphor too far). It's very frustrating, but it has also given us a chance to refine our ideas a lot, and work out which elements of the dream are really important to us, and which can be let go of. There's a Quaker idea about service that I find quite useful for our situation. If you're asked to serve your Meeting you have to think both whether it's the right role, but also whether it's the right time for you to take that role. So one of the ways I think about achieving Right Ordering is to make sure I pay attention to both of those aspects of a situation.
Oh, and trust that the right time will come
Zillah
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