Will the marriage survive the houses build

Which is exactly why I insisted on the big 120,000 litres instead of 2 x 24,000 litres ... we are currently on tanks totally 190,000 litres and were the only ones last summer who didn't have to truck in water multiple times - at nearly $500/truck

 

Lizzie, take him up the road the Spicers Estate Retreat for a few days, and have a nice feed at Botanica.

That should calm him down a bit.

Then tell him how it is...

 

Most engineers I have worked with over the years seem to live by the motto: "Don't confuse me with facts. I know what I'm doing". Good luck - you're going to need it. It's all your fault anyway. You married him!

 

OMG - don't I know it!

Whenever he's designing something - either on a reno or equipment for around the farm - it's so overthought and overdesigned. Almost as if he goes out of his way to make things more complicated than they have to be.

Usually, by the time he's designed and made some convoluted method of doing "said task", I've finished the task in question already.

 

New one opened only half a dozen doors down called Bistro Artisan - really really good!

 

LOL, sounds familiar!

Can you get him in charge of all garlic stuff instead? I assume the overthinking stuff won't hurt here... maybe

 

Bloody process engineers... so focused on details and hardly ever see the big picture. Actually that's true of most engineers (I used to be one). Just find stuff to keep him busy, check the plumbing sizing and layout, pump sizing and specs... areas of his expertise.

Here's what my wife always does to me... works nearly every time.

"If I have to live with 'X' for the rest of my life, and it makes me miserable... just remember that you have to live with me!"

I once countered with "Well actually I don't.. " Resulted in 3-days of total silence.... who knew?

Your build looks great by the way! Keep your blinkers on and just block your ears when hubby starts whingeing.

 

hahahaha - by the time he "built" his planting machine (that didn't work, by the way), I had half the garlic planted by hand anyhow. If he'd spent the time helping me plant by hand, we would've been finished.

Yes - focusses and stresses to much on the irrelevant detail (I'm sure the truss supplier knows how to build a truss without me telling him) instead of big picture

 

Sounds like a nightmare telling someone what you want and then sitting back while they build it for you. I dont know how anyone's marriage could survive such trauma.

 

hahahaha - actually - the builder and I have an excellent working relationship

 

On a serious note.

If your husband has been fine with the arrangements with previous renos, I wonder what has changed?

Does he have more 'skin in the game' because it is a 'forever' home? Is he older and a bit concerned about future earnings?

If this is the place you will both live when you retire, maybe he cares more this time? Are you moving into another phase in your relationship, where the old 'givens' need to be rethought?

If he really cares about some of the decisions, in a way he hasn't before, I'd be finding out why.

 

Haha this is too funny Lizzie - I showed this thread to my mother who is married to an aeronautical engineer (my dad). Oh my, now that her build is completed (and miraculously marriage survived), she can laugh at the similarities but at the time it was not fun for either of them! It's like engineers all come out of the same mold. All I can say is - good luck!

*PS he also felt the need to instruct the truss people how to build and install trusses... and walls, and windows and slabs and foundations and the roof... the whole works. He designed the whole house from scratch, not having ever had anything to do with building or renovating, ever!

 

Years and building/property tend to do that.

 

Yeah, cut him out of the picture and shack up with the builder !

 

Can you distract him with some other job, get him designing something, so that he's occupied & not in the way, on the decision making days.....or go for a coffee with the builder to discuss what you want, so it's out of sight of Hubby

 

We have always fought like cats and dogs on reno's - this is just upscaled because it's a full build.

On this house I had to fight for the kitchen layout, the bathroom layout, the second bathroom, tile colours, deck size, wall colours, exterior colour, garden hedge ... basically everything ... which then sold under a pre-market bidding war for a very healthy profit.

Sold 21 Elliott Street, MEREWETHER NSW 2291 on 08 Jul 2010 for $850,000

This one I had to fight for the pool recoating and retiling (was green pool with terracotta tiles), timber flooring, new staircase (old one was narrow and ugly), rendering of the chimney breast (wanted to do the whole house but lost that argument prior to selling - new owners immediately rendered), carpet colour ... again basically everything. Would've like to have done more, but we moved due to work.

23 Woodward Street, Merewether, NSW 2291 - Property Details

Just about every other reno is the same battleground and very tiring ... current house I have no professional photos for as sold "off market" for top price yet again

 

Sorry if I sounded whingey ... we seem to go into every conversation with guns blazing from the get-go, and it'd be so nice to have a friendly back-and-forth discussion instead ... we're both guilty and I'll just have to re-train "us".

The great side of having these heated discussions is that we do end up with the best result in the end, because we really make each other think of alternate options ... except for the times where one of us gives in to early, and then we regret the result ... wish I could by-pass the guts of the process and just get to the good ending tho

 

Me and my wife are building our own place. But we are doing all the work ourselves. We've been doing building works for different projects for about 5 years straight.

We have only ever had heated discussions when there have been issues outside of the build. My wife gets bad anxiety so can be a bit overwhelmed some days. So coming into the build already overwhelmed is always going to end in tears.

That happens maybe once every couple of months.

We have never argued about anything to the point of name calling or yelling. Even when we are knocking heads on something there is still enough respect and maturity in the relationship that we don't make it personal.

I would say we agree on 90% of build decisions. And we only really knock heads on 5% of the issues. Even then, if we werent building ourselves and getting physically exhausted from the long days of building work, I honestly don't think we would have any arguments at all.

Sitting back and making decisions is the easiest part of a build. I would so love to be able to do just that.