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It’s important to save for retirement, but it’s also important to be on the same page with your spouse about what you plan to do when you retire.
In this story, one woman dreams of traveling the world when she retires, and she thought that’s what her husband wanted too. But now, he’s set on building a house on some property he bought.
She was okay with the house idea at first because she thought they’d still be able to afford to travel, but the project keeps getting more and more expensive. She doesn’t want to be a part of it anymore, but her husband still thinks it’s a good idea.
Now, she’s wondering if she should back down and stick to the plan of building the house.
Keep reading for all the details.
AITAH for backing out of home build with husband?
My husband (55m) and I (54f) have been married about 6 months we live in an HCOL area.
Before our engagement he bought some land in another state with lower living costs.
He talked about building a house on it and how we could “live the high life” with much lower expenses.
Initially he said it would cost $600,000-800,000 to build the house and if I would go 50/50 with him and I said that would be OK.
But now she’s not so sure about this house idea.
We are both aging and only have so many work years left.
I do not want to be house poor and I do not have a pension, I have to save a certain percentage of my pay every month to make sure I have money to retire.
He does have a pension due to government job.
I still want to afford to travel and enjoy life. We’ve always had fun traveling together when we were dating and he always talked about spending our golden years traveling and enjoying our years of labor and saving.
Her husband really wants to build this house.
About 4 months ago I had a bit of a panic attack because I felt like the cost estimates were really piling up and I told him I didn’t think I could afford to build with him.
He sat me down with a spreadsheet with expenses for the house and showed me that it would be a total cost of about $1M-1.5M and if each of us sold our houses we could probably still afford it (we were renting our pre-wedding homes and are currently renters ourselves).
I felt pretty strongly we could just buy something for that price or cheaper and pushed back be he reassured me we could still do this without financial jeopardy.
I wasn’t remotely happy about this situation but felt like we could stretch to afford it.
The math isn’t mathing.
This week he asked me to sign a joint loan with him as now building the house is going to cost closer to $2M-2.2M.
I broke down all the numbers knowing what each of us has set aside for a house and based on our salary I couldn’t see how either one of us could afford this unless we spent every penny earned towards the loan.
I showed him the numbers.
We’d barely have money for utilities or food if we go this route, definitely no travel or going out. If either one of us lost our jobs, we’d run through savings lightning fast to pay bills as 1 person’s salary doesn’t cover the loan payment and I can’t even afford half of the payment.
She thinks there are better and less expensive options.
I don’t think what he wants to build could sell for $2.2M based on surrounding housing prices.
I showed him several homes between $1M-1.5M that were bigger than what he wanted to build in nicer areas and several very nice homes well under $1M.
As an older couple, I don’t see why we need anything fancy even, just a regular 2-3 bedroom place with 2 baths.
But her husband still wants to build the house.
I told him that I just cannot commit to this because I can’t afford this amount of money and that he needs to scale things significantly back or we should look for a home we can easily afford.
He is currently angry at me because he spent all money on the land and plans to build with or without me.
He’s been ignoring me and giving me the cold shoulder. AITAH?
Her husband seems unwilling to accept reality. Maybe he should get a second job to afford the house if he’s so determined to build it.
Let’s see what Reddit suggests.
This person urges her not to sign a loan.
Another person agrees that they don’t have enough money to build this house.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a girl who thinks her family is doing too much in criticizing the tidiness in her small space.
This person is worried about their marriage.
Building this house sounds like a bad idea. I wonder why her husband is so set on it. If there are other nicer houses for less money, why is he so determined to build this house?
They really do need to get on the same page if they want their marriage to work.