I Ignored My Gut and Bought a House I Hated with My Ex. Here’s What I Learned.

In 2012, I was freshly engaged and living in an apartment complex with a lease about to expire. My now ex-husband had moved back in with his parents after a big breakup and was ready to get out on his own again. So, we decided it was the perfect time to look for houses to buy.

We headed out with a Realtor and looked at probably 20 homes. All of them had issues I didn’t want to deal with — from a flooded basement in one to a moldy attic roof in another. After so much hunting, we happened upon what seemed like a gem: a renovated summer cottage with a full basement, huge yard, three-season porch, and garage in a beach community.

The house needed some help. The basement had a tendency to flood, the plumbing was old, and the floors were far from level. Plus, it was slathered in wood paneling and the siding outside was an awful bile yellow. I wanted to pass on it, but my husband insisted we move in. We didn’t have enough time to be picky, he said, and he would fix it up. (Spoiler alert: He didn’t.)

So, against my better judgment, I bought the house. And unsurprisingly, I ended up hating it. It was fine for a few months, sure, but once it became clear my ex was happy with how the house was and had no intention of working on the things he promised, I became more and more miserable in the home. I felt isolated, overwhelmed, and annoyed.

Long story short, we divorced and I sold the house. It was stressful, but even though I was frustrated almost 24/7, I learned some important lessons about buying a home with a partner.

If I had been up front about not liking the house, even though we were cutting it close on moving dates, we could have discussed it and figured out how to move forward — even if that meant asking for another month on my lease, and ending up not buying the cottage house and looking for another instead. 

Instead, we moved in, and the things I didn’t like about the house came out in time. They came as a surprise, too, which caused some extra tension. And because it wasn’t feasible to just leave the house, we stayed for six years — because homeownership is a big financial commitment.

I’m all for compromising in my relationships. It’s essential to work things out and grow together as a couple. But compromising means both parts of the pair have to make some concessions. My ex more or less bullied me into buying the house because he wanted it right away and had no interest in my opinions, and I was too much of a people pleaser to voice many of them. 

Were I in this situation now, I wouldn’t be afraid to push back. Maybe we would have bought the house, but only moved in after a contractor had a go at fixing it up. Maybe we would have requested the sellers take down the wood paneling first. Maybe we would have looked for a similar style house, but one that’s in better shape and in a better location. There was plenty of room for each of us to budge.

The first thing I should have listened to was my gut. My intuition was telling me not to buy the house, but I did anyway, against my better judgment. It was the first indication for me that I was ignoring some deal-breakers about the house that really mattered to me. 

If there’s something you absolutely know you don’t want in a house — for instance, slanted floors with peeling tile in the three-season porch like at my old house — listen to yourself. Compromise on small things, like the cabinets being a color you don’t like. But the major things for you? Don’t let them slide, or else you’re setting yourself up for misery.