When my husband, Janek, announced that he wanted to sell the house, I felt like my world was falling apart.
Our lives have always been in sync with nature. The house my husband and I built twenty years ago was our place on earth. Surrounded by fields and forest, with a small garden full of flowers, it became a symbol of everything I loved. It was here that we raised our children, organized family gatherings, spent evenings by the fireplace. Every board, every stone had a value to me that could not be measured in money.
That is why when my husband, Janek, announced that he wanted to sell the house, I felt like my world was falling apart.
„We can't live here any longer, Ania– he said one evening as we sat in the kitchen. “The house is too big, the kids are gone, and I feel more and more that we should move to an apartment in the city. It will be more convenient for us.”
I looked at him in amazement. “Janek, what are you talking about?? This house is our life. How could you want to sell it??”
“Ania, it's just a building” he replied calmly. “We can't stay stuck in the past. In the city we'd be closer to doctors, shops, everything. Here everything is so”hellip; distant.”
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This house was more than just a building. It was the place where we started our life together, where our children took their first steps, where every corner reminded us of memories. How can you leave all this?
“This isn't just a house, Janek” I said with a trembling voice. “It's part of us, part of our family. I can't just give it to strangers.”
Janek sighed. “I understand that this is difficult for you. But Ania, we have to think practically. It's getting harder and harder to maintain this house. You yourself often complain that the garden requires so much work, and I don't have the strength to constantly repair the roof or replace the gutters.”
His words were logical, but I couldn't accept them. For the next few days, the topic of home came up in every conversation we had. Janek argued that it would be easier in the city, that we could start a new chapter. I always replied that I didn't want a new chapter, that I was happy here, in the place that had witnessed our entire lives.
The worst moment came when I came home one day and found Janek talking to the real estate agent. “We're just looking at options,” he said, seeing my astonishment and anger. “We haven't decided anything yet.”
“We haven't decided?” I exploded. „Janek, this is my home as much as yours! How can you even think of making a decision for me?”
The agent quickly disappeared, and we began the fiercest argument of our marriage. Janek talked about practicality, about the house being too big for us, about it being just a place. I shouted that it was more than that, that we couldn’t just leave our memories behind.
After that argument, we barely spoke to each other for several days. Each of us locked ourselves away in our own thoughts, in our own pain. I spent hours looking at the garden, at the fields that stretched behind our house, at the photos that reminded me of what we had built here together.
I don’t know how this story will end. Janek keeps insisting that we should sell the house, and I still feel like I can't. I feel like a part of my identity has been taken away from me, like they're trying to rip out the roots I've put down over the years.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm too stubborn, too attached to the past. But when I look at this house, I know one thing – it's not just a building. It's a place that holds the whole story of our lives. How can I let this go? How can I let everything I love become just a memory?
The house was supposed to be forever. And now I feel like I'm on the edge, trying to hold on to it, even though I know I could lose it. And this feeling – the feeling that I am losing my place in the world – hurts more than anything I have ever experienced.
See what else we have written about in recent days: From life. “After my husband left me, I found out that he was leading a double life”: Was our entire marriage a lie