Making a big financial commitment

bogeyd6 · 2016-04-29T17:15:44+00:00

Hey there?! Thanks for the post. We are removing it because this is more written for /r/askmrp and at mrp we expect reasonably well written posts with background.

I know you from many months ago on the reddit and I am glad that you decided to work on the MRP process. If you want to fill this post out a little bit more with background and structure you can post it again.

Redneck001 · 2016-04-29T17:16:56+00:00

If you don't want to buy a bigger house, don't.

You don't have to explain yourself. Just say no.

There's a book somewhere about Saying No and ...

2gunsgetsome · 2016-04-29T18:19:05+00:00

If you haven't, get through WISNIFG.

I have actually been in a similar situation recently.

[Mini FR]

We rent (and I'm happy as a clam doing that for lots of reasons), but my wife has been dropping comments every now and then suggesting a timeline for when "we" might want to buy a place. My internal answer is "no fucking way am I buying a house ~~with~~ for you while I'm in the middle of my MAP, you aren't responding to my satisfaction (yet), and I'm OI if we'll still be married in 5 years."

Here's the actual conversation we had:

Wife (looking at the internet one evening): "Oooo, look at this place! And this one! Look at this (cultural hub we both like) right around the block! We should start thinking about when we might want to buy a place." (for context, I bring income, she doesn't... for now.)

Me: "Yeah, those places are nice [fogging], it would be cool to be closer to X [more fogging], and we can afford it [even more fogging]. I like the flexibility of our current situation [self disclosure, also a little powertalk]. What is it about our place that you think is insufficient [negative inquiry]?"

Wife: "We know this isn't the house we'll stay in forever. Don't you want the kids to be able to dig holes and build forts in the yard? It'd be nice to have a little more space too (maybe alluding to the real reason- projection of higher status?)."

Me: "You're right, we definitely won't stay here forever [fog]. I do want to dig holes and build forts [fog] so until things change, we'll just do that in a non-permanent way, NBD [workable compromise]. I'm not sure I want more space because it would just take longer to clean [self disclosure with a hint of DEER]."

Now for a move I'm proud of:

Me: "You know, I've been clearing out a bunch of the old stuff I've been storing in the basement and now I have tons of room for my weights. It's pretty nice to both have more room and not be burdened by accumulated things. I bet we can make the upstairs feel more 'adult-like' if we purge all the baby gear that no one plays with and the kids have outgrown. We could probably do a better job of organizing all this stuff so it's not avalanching out of the cubbies. Wanna go to IKEA tomorrow for breakfast and buy some bins? [BOOM. Reframe to my goal of less clutter]"

Wife: "Sure! I've been meaning to post some of this stuff on 'buy nothing' anyway. (sure you have...)"

(A couple weeks later) Wife gives away all outgrown babygear and packs up a bag of her own old clothes for my next trip to Goodwill. Livingroom is still a perpetual hell-mess, but I can get all shit into bins in about 5 minutes if I want to make it clean.

My next tactic (for when the house purchase conversation inevitably happens again) is to reframe around her timeline to return to work. [pressure flip]

If the pressure persists (while I'm still the sole source of family income), I'll [broken record] that I like the flexibility of our current situation.

Things to note:

At no point did I argue that her concerns were invalid (really because they aren't).
My statements were focused on me, things I want, and things I control.
I encouraged her participation in the solution. I stated what I wanted (less obsolete shit in our space) but not how I wanted her to make it so. Of course I had a method in mind (load up my pickup and head down to Goodwill), but she came up with the tactical plan for purging on her own.

Advice to OP: find a way to smoothly reframe the conversation to one of your other goals.

Title	Making a big financial commitment
Author	HowFrustrating
Upvotes	1
Comments	3
Date	April 29, 2016 4:24 PM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MarriedRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/4h06g1/making_a_big_financial_commitment/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MarriedRedPill/making-a-big-financial-commitment.200048 https://theredarchive.com/post/200048

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