My [24M] wife [24F] has her heart set on a house and thinks my reason for not wanting it is “stupid.”

A 24-year-old man and his wife are searching for a new home when she falls in love with a house that he is reluctant to consider. The issue? The man, a community nurse, had previously cared for a palliative patient in that house and associates it with emotional and professional memories he finds hard to shake.

While the house is ideal in every other way, his wife believes he’ll overcome the discomfort once they move in and make it their own, but he strongly disagrees. To learn more about their dilemma and the responses from others, read the full story below…

‘ My [24M] wife [24F] has her heart set on a house and thinks my reason for not wanting it is “stupid.”‘

Together for 5 years now, first year married. We bought our first house 2 years ago and are currently in the market for something larger. We’re in no rush and are waiting for the perfect house. Yesterday our realtor showed us a listing for a house that my wife absolutely fell in love with. It’s a house I’ve actually been in before and it is **really** nice.

I work as a community nurse and one of my palliative patients from a few months ago lived in this house. While the house does check all of my boxes off too I fear that living in it will constantly remind me of my work in that house. Drawing up meds, doing assessments, rushing over to their house at midnight multiple times after they called my pager frantically,

calling 911 during an emergency situation , and eventually returning to pronounce the patient’s death all over the span of a couple months. My wife thinks that I’m just being silly and once we move in, renovate, and make it our own I won’t feel that way anymore. I strongly disagree.

I’ve been doing my job for 4 years now and while you certainly become “desensitized” to the work there’s still certain cases and patients who stand out.. and this was absolutely one of them. The house checks literally all of our boxes (under our price range, perfect size, large property, and ideal neighborhood) so she’s really insistent. I don’t even want to go for a viewing of the house.

Here’s how people reacted to the post:

savethetriffids −  We bought a house that I knew as well. I was friends with the previous owners and was in the house a lot. Mind you it wasn’t a traumatic experience but I strongly associated the house with the previous owners and felt like a permanent guest in someone’s home at the beginning.

But then we renovated, painted everything, and moved in our own furniture. And instantly it was my house. I don’t even think of the previous owners anymore. The transformation was surprising and within a few weeks. I think your wife is right. You can make the house your own.

futurecrazycatlady −  I don’t think it’s necessarily a stupid reason, I’ve heard much worse. However, realistically when do you think you could expect to have another chance at one of your ‘dream homes’ again? If it’s one every few months, I’d just skip this one. If not taking this one realistically means having to wait a few years to have a chance at something comparable, then I’d give the ‘see if I can make it my own’ a chance.

DFahnz −  You had a patient die just a few months ago–that’s traumatic. Do you get any emotional support for things like that? Therapy through work? What do you do to take care of your mental health? Because I’m more concerned about that. Your wife is right, a house can be remade in its owners’ image.

Your brain can also be remade for the benefit of the person it’s driving. If the thought of even seeing the house is this painful for you then you might want to talk it through with a professional, not with her.

UnlikelyAward −  I think your wife is right and your previous memories would fade, however they wouldn’t fade completely. You’d still remember what happened there. It might help her understand your perspective if you go to the viewing with her and she listens to you describe the things that happened with the patient, assuming you can do so without violating privacy laws.

It’s one thing to say, “I don’t want to live in this house, I had a patient.” It’s quite another to say, “This is where I they were that first time I had to rush over at night. They were curled up in a cot in the corner, wheezing…” It will be unpleasant, but it will get the point across.

Ladybroken_heart −  I am also a community nurse and spend a lot of my time with palliative patients. There have been a few where I’ve gotten professionally close with the client and family and when driving past their homes during shift I pause and think about them.

I don’t know how I would feel if my partner wanted to moved into a home where I had been heavily involved in patient care . I can totally understand your concern about constantly being reminded of work. cooking at night and suddenly remembering filling up syringe drivers on the counter. or watching tv on my sofa and looking over at the corner where the hospital bed sat.

i wouldn’t be able to feel like i could settle down that plus watching way to many horror movies would probably make it a no from me. However I can also see the flip side that if it was a nice case and the patient passed comfortably and the family was kind it might also be nice to fill it up with love and life again.

maybe painting the walls and changing the carpets will help and once you put your own stuff in the home you might feel differently you’re also young and might spend a long time in this house, it may slowly start to feel more and more like home as you grow in your relationship and maybe start a family the memories of who owned it before will fade and you will have new memories to replace them with.

But I really do feel it boils down to how much of a hard limit this for you. If you can articulate to your wife why this isn’t good for you mentally and can explain yourself then I feel like that’s enough of an excuse to not want to live somewhere. There are plenty of reasons people say no to perfectly good houses and they are always valid. There will be other houses.

tealparadise −  I could see this go either way. It comes down to the fact that if one person doesn’t want a house… you don’t buy the house. Even if you totally disagree with them. But your wife will now pick apart any houses you look at & blame you when they come up short in comparison. So if you want to hold your ground here, be ready for it to affect the entire home buying process.

auryn1026 −  I agree that your wife is right and that once you make the house your own, the association will fade in time. Do you really think this is a patient who will stay on your mind for years to come? If the answer is yes, do you think you could try to re-frame the experience in your mind??

Instead of ‘this is where my patient had respiratory distress’ and ‘this is where my patient died’, think ‘this is where I was able to provide the best care I could to someone who really needed it’ and ‘I’m glad I could be the person this family looked to for support in the worst time of their life.’

This is an event that just happened and the house is somewhere you will stay for potentially 30+ years. The memories of this patient WILL fade and so will the emotions associated with them. I think if the house is as perfect as you say, you should make an effort for your wife’s sake.

Jerry_Hat-Trick −  “I can’t ever see myself fully relaxing here.” There are all sorts of reasons to reject a house, and all are valid. “Bad vibes,” is one of the best reasons to reject one. The real problem will be can your wife get over it quickly or will this be something she romanticizes as ” the one that got away.”

imtchogirl −  Oh man! I totally support you. Doing the kind of work you do means that you have a huge amount of compassion fatigue. Still, to everyone who says just get the house, they’re missing out on an essential piece of well-being for caregivers: work/home separation. No one wants to live where they’ve worked.

Talk openly to your wife about it and about her attachment: tell her you have attachment too, but to work, and talk about what you did in that house, the death. Talk openly about your need for separation and for your house to be a calm, relaxing place. This is a totally normal need. People choose not to buy houses all the time that have “bad vibes”,

and this is much more concrete feelings than that. More importantly, she needs to respect your opinion and veto in the house buying process. This one simply isn’t for you. If you want to be really petty you could call it the death house anytime it comes up.

PragmaticSquirrel −  I’m with you. I’m not hearing “trauma” like other commenters are reading into it. I’m hearing “distaste” and “it will make home feel like work.” I get that. Someone might not want to live in the office building where their former job was. It makes it feel like you’re coming “home” to a job location. It *might* fade, in time. But yeah, it might not.

And if it’s really nice “as is”, do you want to spend $50-$100k to completely rehab and change things so it feels different? “Phew, this is the room where every day I’d have to wipe their b**t and help them back into bed. I’d want to completely redo this room – tear down that wall and put a new wall over here.”

Make it concrete and real for her and make clear how expensive it would be to change everything so it’s entieely different. “This brick facade is such a reminder of rushing here middle of the night to administer emergency meds- I’d want to tear that off completely and replace it with siding.” Etc. I think she’ll eventually get it, hopefully

But I also worry about you and your relationship. It sounds like she’s saying “get over it your feelings aren’t that important.” That lack of listening and validating your feelings sounds unhealthy. Is she like that for other decisions?