I’m going to offer an entirely different perspective. Sell it,(short or whatever), throw away the mattress and the bed linens and rent for a bit. Get completely detached from the former in laws financially, hopefully they get all their money back, because you have a lot of holidays and events where you will have to deal with them, fighting them now will just screw up your karma and your christmas.
You mentined you had 35k, a stable income, and joint custody with your now ex-wife. Keeping that place sucks for a few reasons. The ex feels comfortable in it, which means she will feel at home visting and know where everything is and probably has a key or knows how to get in. She may have friends that are your neighbors, these are now to be considered spies. It’s better she feels like a stranger at your new place, knows nobody, doesn’t know where a guest’s car would be parked or which car is out of place. Because on nights she has your daughter, you might get lonely and find a fellow divorcee, she will not like it there. She will ask if that is the same bed and if your linens are not masculine, she’ll know another woman picked them. It sounds silly, but it will happen. Don’t find a replacement wife, you can do this by yourself a while, it’s better that way. Plus don’t you want to start fresh, do it yourself, decide yourself. It’s liberating, cleansing, and apartments wont kill you for a few years.
Your daughter will be fine, life is an adventure, and let her help pick the new place and eventually the one you buy, let her pick her room. Love the crap out of her, avoid getting babysitters for nights out, keep your social life and any future ladyfriends from her and your daughter will be just fine, no matter where she lives. Tension between her two sides of her famiily will worsen things.
No matter how it feels right now, there will come a day when this is all behind you and there might even come a day when you find a potential new Mrs. French, however my other piece of advice is make that day a long way off. And I can guarantee, she wont want to live in the pace you picked out with your ex. Women are usually the ones who try to keep the place and it makes them crazy and broke trying not to change their standard of living, but accept it, own it, it’s actually much more fun even if you have less. Everytime I mow my lawn I miss my condo.
You know what else is prevalent in rentals… newly divorced women!!!
Or take the money out of your 401k, but give those people back their money, you didnt spend all your money on their daughter, you spent it on your wife. Don’t take what isn’t yours, even if you can, even if it’s legal. Doing the right thing, getting neagative people out of your life or minimizing their impact, well, it’s priceless.
Having travleed the road you just set foot on, let me tell you, it gets better from here.
