Selling The Castle

So, yesterday the not-quite-yet-ex-husband informed me that he was planning on selling the house that we had brought together, returned to together after we became man and wife, and the home that we had brought our three children home from the hospital to. It had been valued, he had found a buyer and agreed a sale price. Now, I should probably be mad at the fact that he had not consulted me about any of this (and, in the past, I probably would have been) but, to be honest, I'm not quite sure how I feel at the moment.

On one hand, it is a step nearer to closure on our relationship but, on the other hand, I guess I feel at little bit sad that the home our children grew up in will no longer be their home with their father. They adjusted pretty well to their mother living in a different place, which also became their home, probably because they still had the additional security of the home that that they had grown up in. Now, that is going but neither of us are ready to tell them yet.

Unlike most marital break-ups, I was the one who left the matrimonial home. This was down to several reasons:

1. I was the one who ended the marriage and perhaps, in some way, I felt guilty.
2. I didn't want to disrupt the Munchkins any further that it was necessary.
3. He refused to leave (and I thought I was the stubborn one!)

So, I left the house with a bag containing enough clothes to get me through the week at work and nothing else. The rest of my belongings I retrieved from the bin bags in the front garden, about two weeks later, where they had been unceremoniously dumped by the not-quite-yet-ex-husband who had also changed the locks. (Why do all spurned ex's feel it necessary to do this?!) He did, however, do me the courtesy of informing me that was where my stuff was...so that I could collect it before it was stolen!

In the following weeks, more of my belongings (books, CDs, DVDs...and our wedding DVD!) were returned in dribs and drabs when he dropped the Munchkins off, in order to erase me from the house. However, I am painfully aware that, whilst I had my material possessions, the sentimental items such as the Munchkins' memory boxes remained in the house.

To be honest, I never really liked the house and it never truly felt like a home, apart from the people in it. It was a disaster from the moment we had our offer accepted. Our moving in date was delayed time and time again and we ended up sleeping on an airbed at his mother's house for a while, with all our belongings in storage.

Shortly after this we decided to fit a new kitchen. Having had them recommended to us, we decided to go with Kitchens Direct (Google Vance Miller or the Kitchen Gangster if you want to learn more!). Items arrived damaged but were replaced, the delivery drivers smashed the front of our new fridge freezer, and we made some rookie mistakes like paying their fitters 50% in advance. The result?! We were left with a half-installed kitchen which we then had to pay someone else to finish installing.

Following this, I came down with a mystery illness which left me with Post-Viral Fatigue Syndrome which left me virtually bed-ridden and unable to work in the eight months leading up to our wedding.

At one point, we decided that we had outgrown the house so we decided to sell it in part-exchange for a new build...until the survey suggested that there was possible evidence of subsidence which obviously dropped the price that they were willing to pay, leaving us unable to afford the move.

Of course, there were obviously happy times in the house, especially bringing our three daughters home from the hospital and watching them grow up into the confident, intelligent and well-mannered girls that they are...but I will never look upon the house with the fondness that I know many people have for their homes.

So, here we are and all I can do is wait to see what happens next. What belongings will he give me from the house? How much will he decide I deserve from the sale? And most importantly, how will this impact on the children?