[quote=CA renter][quote=jpinpb][quote=walterwhite]It does seem like a not unreasonable insurance policy. I see it more as a gift to my wife, since I almost never buy her anything expensive (she never even got an engagement ring fer crying out loud. Since this house speaks to her , I can kind of view the extra high price of this house as a kind of gift.[/quote]

There you go. How’s that saying go, a happy wife is a happy marriage.

I like BGIG’s view on real estate as a form of insurance.[/quote]

Yep!

Buy the house for insurance and for your wife, and be done with it. Don’t be a jerk to her, either, if it should fall in value. Your marriage is much more important than fiat money or housing equity, especially when you don’t really need to sell in your lifetime.

Sounds like you have a good thing going (wife, kids, jobs, etc.), scaredy. Relax and enjoy…at least you got 50% off. That sounds pretty darn reasonable to me.

Good luck![/quote]

Scaredy, I agree with what jp and CAR are saying. I think I get what you’re trying to say, and based on that and what you’ve posted on Piggs many times before, it appears to me that perhaps there’s some serious ingrained pathology here. Before anyone jumps down my throat, I’m not talking mental illness. But lots of people out there leading “normal” lives – family, work, school, friends, etc. – deal with some very real fears that prove to be incapacitating when encountered in a particular situation. Yours definitely has something to do with spending money, and, in negotiating this house purchase, you have met your Waterloo.

As evidenced by your posts, I suspect you love your wife and family very much. If, indeed, you’ve been”afraid” to spend money during the entire period of your relationship with your wife and have agonized over almost every purchase, she’s probably a little burned out by now (certainly understandable). If you honestly and truly love your wife, and want to keep your marriage in the best of health, buy this house. Not for her, but for BOTH of you.

I sense that you are trying to separate yourself as much as you can from the purchase itself, and, if you have serious and legitimate doubts about the property or the deal, that separation is warranted. However, if those doubts exist, you need to voice them NOW, and provide evidence of their seriousness. If problems arise later, your emotional separation will not absolve you from having avoided the responsibility of being a prudent homebuyer.

However, I’m definitely getting the feeling that you really like the property also. One way to help making sure is asking yourself if you would still take ownership of the house if someone else (Warren Buffett, let’s say) was paying for the property. If that would produce a resounding “yes”, then the house is not the problem.

So, again, if you like the property, buy it for all of you. However, I don’t expect your fears are going to resolve following your taking up residence. If anything, I think they will be exacerbated. I don’t think that you will allow yourself to enjoy the home. Worse yet, you will blame your wife for both your fears, and also for every little thing that goes wrong with the house (normal everyday maintenance-related stuff). Life will not be pleasant.

I think that you should find a counselor that can help you confront your fears, and put them in proper perspective. I wouldn’t expect miracles: there are lots of reasons for these types of fears, some emotional (compensation for some other perceived shortcoming), some physical (brain chemistry imbalance), some environmental (experiences growing up), and sometimes a combination of all three with a splash of something else entirely thrown in. But there are some really effective therapies out there these days. Just be sure to set a reasonable goal – something like being able to feel confident in making significant financial decisions and also living with those decisions.

Despite plentiful evidence of hyperconsumerism during the bacchanalian 90s and 00s, you’re not that unusual. In fact, I’m fairly sure that there are plenty of you out there. But it doesn’t mean that much of the population can understand what you are feeling. It’s the rare spouse or significant other who can respond patiently to fears that they don’t understand. So my advice, in equation form, is:

Buy the house (and maybe some Xanax to get you through the purchase period)
+
Get some counseling (from a *qualified* counselor)
=
Mutually enjoyable and rewarding experience for you, your wife, and your children in a beautiful new home