Yeah, I know, and I feel kinda bad because everyone’s guessing, but I really feel uncomfortable with posting too much personal info online. His job is in northern PG County, and mine is in northern Fairfax County.
That’s a tough (and not super compatible) want list you guys have.
My advice - for what it’s worth - is if you think you might find yourself feeling resentful if you move far from your job to get his big garage and short commute, or if you quit your current job and have trouble finding a comparable one out in his preferred area, don’t effing do it. That sort of thing will poison a marriage post haste.
You guys might want to sit down separately (and I mean in different rooms if possible - and no consulting during the process) and actually, physically, write down a list of things you want in a house - be specific, be detailed, think of everything you can think of. Don’t list “location”, for example, list “length of commute” or “proximity to X”. If you’re listing specifics about the structure - like number of bathrooms, for example - do you want two FULL baths or just two places-of-peeing? List what you want the rooms for. Once you’re done, rank your personal lists. Once you’ve ranked them based on how important they are to you, rank them again based on the level of feasibility of changing them.
Then - and only then - sit down together and compare the lists. Then you negotiate - and be sure both of you promise to do it honestly. This is why you make the lists separately. That way each of you has a list of what you, personally and independently, most want out of a new house - and it may well shake out that having a large garage is his number 1 and having a short commute is yours. Then you can look at each other and it’s a reasonable compromise that he gets his garage and you get your commute and you go on down the lists. Tiebreakers on level of importance go to the one that is most difficult to remedy after purchase, and any property that doesn’t have either both or a possibility of fixing one gets stricken.
This is what my husband I did (although less formally) for a year or so before we launched into our our most recent house hunting expedition. As it turns out, our individual wishlists weren’t really all that far apart (thank goodness). He got more of his total overall wishlist than I did - but the house we’re in the middle of buying checks most of the boxes off both the lists, and the things I was less fond of are at the lower end of the “how big a pain in the ass is this to remedy” spectrum (I hate the flooring and the kitchen needs some work to make it work for me, but not major-remodel work). For comparison, our first runner up house had an absolutely perfect layout and a flawless kitchen, but lacked the spectacular view and hillside location of the one we’re buying - the first runner up also was closer to my office. Overall, I liked the first runner up slightly better - but my husband absolutely loves the winner and I was willing to compromise on layout and kitchen with the assurance that we could put fixing some of my issues with the kitchen on the short-term list of Shit We Gotta Do.
What if you commit to six months of earnestly trying to find a good job over there–a job you won’t resent taking, but that rather would add to your life and feel like an opportunity all on its own? If, after six months, no such job appears, it will be pretty safe to say that no such job is likely to appear and you can move forward with that knowledge.
If he’s not a fan of the gun laws in DC, I’m sure he’s aware that the gun laws in MD are not much better. VA is the only reasonable place if that is an important criteria.
Thank you, everyone. One thing I love about the Straight Dope is how it attracts people who say what you need to hear, not necessarily what you want to hear. And while I don’t like what a lot of people are saying (essentially, you won’t get even close to everything you want), I really appreciate your efforts in helping me to identify priorities and find a realistic way forward.
A few things to say to this. Firstly, if I were to find a new job, I think I’d prefer to get a general idea of the job market in the area but not specifically apply to new jobs until I had moved. That way, (1) The job wouldn’t be a limiting factor in deciding where we live (though if an area didn’t have a good job market, that would be a limiting factor, (2) I wouldn’t have to deal with a bad commute indefinitely while we continued to search for the perfect house, and (3) I could move and do all the other associated errands without having to worry about a new job. (Because asking for a few days off to move and get settled in is much more palatable to an employer who already knows your work ethic.)
My husband did agree to take on the mortgage and support us for the short term if I were to quit my job. That way, I could afford to be more selective.
I do think it’s conceivable to find a job that challenges me in new ways and perhaps pays more. But I would lose the reputation I’ve built up. My manager, and other people at the company, consult me about proposed changes to procedures or quality improvements, and it has taken me years to build up this kind of trust. Sure, I could go about building up my reputation again, but it still means several years of being back at the bottom of the heap.
I guess what gets me is that I know it’s hard to find a job you love, so if I quit it and couldn’t find another one that I liked, it would be really hard for me to know that I gave this one up.
Oh that’s a good point. I wonder if pointing that out would make VA any more palatable to him.
That’s not how new jobs work, though. Not great jobs. From what you’ve said, you’re effectively and informally functioning as a much higher-ranked, more expert role at your current job than what your job description actually says. So go look for a job that matches what you actually do, not what your current job description says. Look for your manager’s job. Aim really, really high–even if you lack the technical qualifications, you’ve clearly got tons of experience. The worst that can happen is no one nibbles. And if you get offered a job that’s really just your old one with no reputation, then say no.
If you get a job like that, where you’re making 25% more, and where you go in as an experienced specialist they are glad to get, you don’t have to slowly build a reputation–you just have to maintain one. And it is perfectly normal for a person to need a few days off when they are moving.
That’s a very good point. If I get a job where determining the direction of the company/team is actually part of my job, then I’ll still get to feel important but I could also get paid more. I’m not sure what you’re referring to in your first sentence, though, when you say “that’s not how new jobs work, though.” What’s not how new jobs work?
I hate it when people give unasked for relationship advice on the internet, so I’m going to try to be very objective.
Your husband wants:
- To keep his not-street-legal car
- A large garage where he can work on it
- A short commute that doesn’t require him to cross a bridge
- In a jurisdiction with the kind of gun laws he wants
Part of what he needs to ask is how what his spouse and life partner needs or wants fits into this set of criteria. And you need
- Not to have a long sitting commute because of your health issues.
And you want
- A “real” house, not a condo or a townhouse
- In a “nicer” neighborhood
- With a “not cramped” living space
- To keep your job
You’ve already conceded on some of these wants and you have even partially conceded on your one need.
I can look at this criteria and offer my opinion on how they should be balanced, but that wouldn’t be of any help to you because I’m not in this relationship, but I think that the two of you need to sit down with all of this laid out and be very frank about how decisions like these are going to be worked out.
Don’t despair! I thought I would never find a place my husband and I agreed on. There were times when I thought everything would fall apart because we’d never find a place to live. But with enough time and enough looking and sharing or honest thoughts, we started to find options.
Frankly, though, it sounds ridiculous to me that you should be asked to give up your JOB for the sake of your husband’s car.
(I promised myself I wouldn’t do this, but—) or his gun.
Thank you for this. The first time I read this, I was astonished to discover that yes, there were actually things that I wanted, and someone listened to me well enough to discern those. I actually didn’t realize until reading it the second time around how disparate the wants were. Also, just want to clarify that the “real house” is actually one of his wants. It was initially my way of not going into the whole garage issue (but then I realized that it’s hard to get the most accurate advice while leaving that piece out). I don’t want a condo, but could live with a townhome. But if we got a townhome we’d need to do something else about the garage.
A townhome in a new urban style development is pretty likely to have a decent-sized garage and/or be walking distance from houses with street parking + garages, whose owner might be willing to rent out the garage.
Well, I’m glad it was helpful. I’m no professional, so these things can’t have been that difficult to perceive.
The final content of the lists is really up to you to determine. You don’t need to explain it to us.
We don’t have any children either, so we don’t have to take into account the needs of helpless and needy mini-humans—I couldn’t imagine having to make decisions in those circumstances.
Making decisions like this between two people is hard enough, and, speaking as a husband, sometimes guys like me need some kind of a wake-up call to the fact that we’re no longer living for just ourselves.
I moved my toys into storage and into the basement, because the house where my wife was more comfortable and happy didn’t have room for me to spread it all out like I was used to, and I don’t have any one thing as big as a car that’s illegal to drive.
Nor do I fortunately have some kind of affinity for owning lethal weaponry that restricts my residential options.
My wife did offer me the basement to myself in exchange for choosing the smaller house in the better location—and I think she regrets that because she has an insatiable need for space too!!—but, hey, we both compromised, and I hold her to it. I don’t allow any of her stuff in the basement.
I was going to suggest one of the nicer suburbs in PG County until I saw this. I have no clue what the gun laws are in MD. But the better parts of PG County have much more affordable housing anything on the other side of the Potomac.
The bad parts of PG county, on the other hand… well, choose carefully if you go the PG route.
Ooh - if you can get your mindset away from a detached house, there ARE townhouses with 2-car garages. If you have a small parking pad / driveway in front of the garage, you can park the real cars there and put the fixer-upper in the garage. And there’ll be less upkeep with a townhouse.
Maybe not. Townhouses tend to be in densely populated areas, with HOAs, and street parking can be limited-to-nonexistent. Someone nearby with a garage is probably using it for their own stuff and won’t be likely to rent it out.
I know if I was to move again I would try to find out if there is any landfills near by . Some people brought a house that was $600.000 plus and they didn’t know a landfill was very close and that is was giving off hydrogen sulfide . I spoke to the new owner and she said the realtor said nothing about being able to smell hydrogen sulfide from the landfill. I called a realtor and pretended to be interested in buying a house very close to the landfill and asked if there was anything I could be concerned about and I was told “No!” I asked about landfill and the woman acted like she knew nothing about it. It been in the newspaper for 11 years . The people that brought the $600, 000 plus house didn’t live there very long . So I would really make sure there are no landfill that needs to capped off close by. This is becoming a real issues in my state .
New, urban-style townhouses with two-car garages near rail lines around here are also insanely expensive. Condos in those developments start at around $600,000. The townhouses are at least $1 million at the places I drive by.
That can be worth a lot, having management that knows and trusts you. Not to mention, continuity regarding benefits like accrued vacation time, 401(k) vesting and so on. *
I wasn’t thinking that you should quit your just just so you could move closer to your husband’s work, by any means, just that if you ever want or need to make a change, it’s worth considering the availability of appropriate jobs that will not make your commute worse than it is.
With your husband’s oddball work schedule, it sounds like more often than not he’s not going during regular rush hours. If he’s the one going to MD and you’re the one going to VA, that’s a pretty strong incentive to stay on the Virginia side of things.
As I said before, the outer-loop beltway into Maryland (assuming coming from, say, Alexandria, and going into Prince George’s County) is NOT bad in the morning - my husband does that every day and he can see the parking lot that is the Inner Loop. Yeah, there’s a bridge, but it’s the new wider Wilson Bridge. That’s not to say traffic doesn’t utterly SUCK sometimes, but by and large it’s much better in that direction (and the reverse, when coming home at night).
If you are working in Virginia, I’d actually advise against PG County simply because of that traffic backup.
You might want to spend some Sunday afternoons going to some open houses somewhere to see what’s out there at the various price points.
For folks who don’t grok “inner loop” or “outer loop”: Outer loop means you’re travelling counter-clockwise. Inner loop means clockwise.
- which was a topic a few years back when our contract was in shambles and the new prime contractor tried to hire a number of us away from the subcontractor we worked for. A colleague joked “Aw, c’mon, won’t you take one for the team?” to which I said “I’d happily take one for the team. I will not take fifty thousand for the team”. Yeah, the benefits I’d have walked away from by leaving that job would have required me to demand 50K more than my current salary - and I simply was not worth it to them, so the discussion did not get that far.
New jobs aren’t starting all over from scratch, like back to entry level. You take your experience and credibility with you.
I just saw this DC Transit Stop map today. I’m sure you’re already familiar with the trends, but hey, it might come in handy.