Housing Conflict

I can recall a recent disagreement I discussed with my husband a few weeks ago.  Earlier this year as a family we considered selling our house in North Dakota and moving back to my hometown of Las Vegas NV (a lot warmer and closer to family). We are now in a spacious townhome/complex but the cost of rent and utilities is overwhelming. For about 6 months our family has been searching for a spacious house to buy and invest in. We decided to look at a house about 50 minutes’ drive in a small town outside of Las Vegas. And another house considerably farther than the first, as we looked at the first house it was a 3 bedroom 1 bath house built in 1988 with a good amount of property for a great price. I was not really excited about the house because for a household of 5 I felt the square footage was a little tight. Plus the house needed a lot of landscaping work and we would have to add renovate the house a bit to include another bedroom and bathroom the next house that was farther was built in 2005 was a 4 bedroom 2 bath house the square footage was awesome but didn’t have enough property for what my husband wants to do with the house. I really wanted the house with the 4 bed room 2 bath house and it was nicer and newer. My husband wanted the cheaper house with quite a bit of property. I found out that the newer house already had 4 bids and we would have to really compromise to get the house but the smaller house left more room in the budget to build.

As you can guess it was the house that I liked vs. the house my husband liked. I asked the realtor if she had any more houses we could look at and she said the market is a little dry. My husband got into an argument because he felt I really didn’t like any of the houses we previously looked at (cheaper and needed work!) vs. (higher end of our budget and little to no work)

(Which one would you choose?) Needless to say my husband really didn’t want to talk to me because he felt I was being snobbish. Considering what I’ve been learning in this class the strategy I took to let my husband know I was listening to him and considering his feelings was compromise and the productive conflict. I encouraged us to put an offer on both houses (a leap of faith that we will receive the house right for our family and the right budget) and see which house will accept our offer. I also explained to my husband that if we got the cheaper house with a lot of property the first thing we will do is get with a contractor right away to expand a bedroom to a master bed and bath. (Sharing a bathroom with 5 people is difficult) and the end result of our compromise is that we may be moving into the cheaper house with quite a bit of property. We have not heard anything yet but probably this week.

I decided to side with my husband (and to make him happy) to pick the house that I didn’t really like. I’m trying my best to focus on what I want done to the house (if we get it) and pick out designs. It’s difficult for me to put my wants aside and accept the needs of the other person. I thought to myself “he always does things to make me happy” and it seems I hardly do things that “make him happy” so we will see. I’m hoping for the best. I remember by O'Hair, D., dO'- Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012) that “productive conflict does not necessarily mean a successful resolution of conflict” (O'- Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. 2012 p.221)

Reference

O'- Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.