Merging Households Pt 1

The Hoss Lady

The Month of May was all about transitioning from houses to apartments to houses... lots and lots of moving parts. So, I got to learn a LOT about the importance of communication and how to talk out issues when it comes to merging households.

Also, join me in the Month of June for a daily challenge where we take one room and work on it a few minutes every day. I give you the task, and you do it. It's going to show you that we can do these things consistently and build the muscle of being a super tidy person!!

Transcript:

Becky, The Hoss Lady: You. Hello. Welcome to the Haas Lady podcast, where I help you declutter your life and your home. Hello, everyone. It's Becky, the Haas Lady Hoss Home organization. Simplifications specialist. I hope everyone had an amazing month of May. I took a little month off from podcasting so that I could do some crazy stuff. And I will admit my month of May was a bit chaotic. And I'll explain, because it does tie in perfectly with our topic today. But real quick, for those who are just now joining us, let me introduce myself. I am Becky, a newlywed no longer single mom of three amazing people, and now a new step mom to two more amazing people. So I quit my nine to five career in order to help people everywhere get organized and have a better quality of life. I consult with individuals and groups online. I do in person decluttering and organization services. So I have made it my goal to help people, particularly busy women, professionals, moms, empty nesters to declutter their lives by letting go of things and organizing their homes, by making intentional plans and create long lasting habits. In a nutshell, I want to help you. So I'm happy you're here today, listening, and I hope you can take from this episode at least one thing that will get you started on the path to living your best life. So welcome. So why was my month of light, why was my month of May totally chaotic? Well, it has become a major transitional period for me, my three children, my two stepchildren, my ex husband, my new husband, and everyone in between. See, I got married in March. And for those of you who haven't really followed my story, I was dating my now husband for a couple of years long distance. And by long distance, I mean a super beautiful two hour drive down a winding country road. And so, in order to get our lives less separate, we married, and I moved to a new state, and there was a lot of dispersing that needed to happen. Where would the kids go? What will we do with my apartment? What furniture will we take? How are we going to turn a three bedroom house into a four bedroom house? Whose dishes will we use? What do we do with two vacuums? All those questions, and so you have waited for this episode, and I'm glad I waited to make it, because let me tell you, I learned so much in this process, and I am so happy to share that with you today. So, without further ado, how to Merge Households, part one, because, yes, there is enough to do two whole episodes. Do you live in the Nashville, Tennessee, or Huntsville, Alabama area and would really love to have someone come in and help you get your house organized. Declutter those closets. Clean out those garages and attics. Guys, I am so excited to say that I, Becky the host Lady Am, now offering in person and virtual decluttering sessions. And you can find all the information on my website www.thehouslady.com or forward slash. Not sure which. You know what I mean, declutter. Check it out. Hope to see you soon. Okay, so real quick to clarify this merging of households does not have to mean getting married with children, that kind of scenario. This could be for empty nesters maybe whose children move back in for adult children who may have lost a parent and now they have inherited all the things. Maybe it's friends who take on a roommate or maybe even taking in a parent who now needs to be living with other people so they move in with you. And basically what it all comes down to is communication, plain and simple. You got to talk. You got to ask questions. You got to be honest. And you have to compromise. You have to be willing to bend and support other people's wishes because change is hard. It's hard for everybody. But it will be even harder if you bottle up how you truly feel and let things fester. Okay? So for some context, our situation was like this. I lived in my apartment half the time with my basically adult children half the time, and then I would live with my Joe the other half of the time while my basically adult children lived on their own or stayed with their father. So I would drive back and forth multiple times a week on that glorious two hour country road trip. And I did that for two years. It was killing me financially and mentally, but I was doing it because I knew that my son needed me to do it. My apartment was zoned for a completely different school from where his dad lived. And as long as I kept my apartment, my son could go to the school he really wanted to. And my Joe lived in a house that was in the school zone that his daughter needed to go to. And he was basically a full time dad, so he didn't have the luxury of coming back and forth and back and forth. And that was the sacrifice I was willing to make so that my kids could go to the schools they wanted to, that his daughter could go to the schools she wanted to. Anyway, we got married and my husband lived 2 hours away, right? So I could not keep up that commute and the expenses of that apartment and everything else. So I had to make the decision about leaving that apartment and what I was going to do. So it came time to do the most important thing, communicate the most important thing and the hardest thing. So I sat down with my ex husband and my son, who is 15, and we told him straightforward that he got to choose. He could choose any option he wanted and there would be no hard feelings or anger, and that there was not a wrong decision. The right decision was whatever he wanted. So we gave him three choices. He could move in with his dad, go to a completely different high school across town. He could move with me to Alabama and go to a completely different high school in a whole new town in a whole new state. Or he could stay with his dad, and his dad would look for a house in the school zone he wanted, and he could stay at the school he liked. So obviously, he chose number three. No brainer. I mean, did it hurt? Well, **** yeah. It was kind of a gut punch. I had been the sole caregiver of that young man for his whole life. But I also knew the past year was tough. And having a bedroom at his dad's, having a bedroom at the apartment, and having a bedroom at Joe's, it was the opposite of stability. And was it an easy option for his dad? No. His dad had to put the house up for sale and then deal with all the drama that came with that. So what about my apartment and my two adult daughters and my roommate who lived there? Well, the roommate had already voiced her option to move up north after she lost her job. So my daughters, well, they were ready for a change as well. But again, we had to sit down and have that conversation in person, like real people. What do you want to do? What can you afford? What do you want to take with you? What can we sell and donate? And all the details were starting to sort themselves out as my oldest decided to move into her own apartment so she could finish college. And my middle daughter decided to move with me to Alabama and move in with me and Joe for a fresh start. So let's do some math. One apartment equals my junk, my two daughter's junk, my roommate's junk, and some of my son's junk. Right? One house that I used to live in, all of my ex husband's junk, some of which was still things I was hoping to get after the divorce but couldn't take with me to my apartment, but whatever. And some of the kids drunk and some of his roommates junk. Yes, there's another person in this equation. One new house in Alabama equals all of my Joe's stuff, some of his ex wife stuff, because he bought the house from his ex wife. And most of my stuff that I had been slowly moving in to merge with his stuff over the past few months. One new apartment that my oldest daughter got to live in when we leave the apartment. One new house my ex is buying for his stuff, my son's stuff and his roommate stuff. One house up north that my roommate is moving into whilst my niece is moving out of and into her own house with her mom. Oh, my God. Guys, I don't math. That's what I do. What I do. But all of this was happening in the month of May, so you can see why I've been kind of out of sorts all this to say, the number of moving parts in this life transition is enough to make even the most even killed person a little bonkers. So communication was the most essential role in this whole thing. I constantly asked questions about what everybody wanted, what they liked about the situation, what they didn't like about the situation, what were they comfortable with, what were they not comfortable with, and so forth. And since I was moving into Joe's home, which used to be his ex wives, at first I felt weird about changing anything because I didn't want to insert myself like that. After all, this was the home that Joe's daughter grew up in. But then we just had to have those conversations. So when I'm sitting up the kitchen, I asked them what changes I could make and what changes were off limits. And they were kind enough to point out the few things that they wanted to remain the same, and then the rest was kind of fair game. And Joe already had all his furniture already, so I didn't have to move much or bring much with me. So I did ask about bringing a couple of pieces that I knew I wanted to keep, like my mom's dresser, my grandmother's rocking chair and sewing table and things like that. And he was cool with it. So I asked him about his knife set. I was like, do you want to keep your knife set? Like, do you love your knife set? And he was basically, I don't really have an opinion about my knife set, so I took that as, hey, I can bring my knife set instead of use his. However, when I brought mine in, I realized I actually liked his better. So I'm putting mine in the yard sale. And that's just kind of how it was. I was a little anxious to ask him about things because I didn't want to remove his items and replace them with mine. I wanted to make sure that he was still represented in his house and that the things that he bought that were important to him were still there. And in my mind, he was going to go crazy angry over the knives or get offended that I wanted to ask him about the knives. Obviously, he doesn't get angry about stuff like this. So I was, in my mind, creating a really stupid story. And then when I asked him, and he's like, I don't have an opinion about the knives, it was like, okay, so I'm going to use my knives. But then his were better. Blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. So when I first moved in, joe had a lot of nerdy decorations around the house. So I asked him if we could make one room in the house, the nerd room, and move everything into that office. And I think at first he was hesitant, but once he saw how I had everything displayed, he really liked it. Plus, as a compromise, I bought him a set of Star Wars paintings that actually looked like a mountain scene until you look closely and see that there's ships and stuff in the background, which is hilarious. And those I put in the living room because they're the perfect balance between the artsy that I like and the nerdy that he likes. That was our compromise. So those are two examples of don't be scared to ask because you're imagining they're going to react completely different than they will. And two, it's okay to compromise. My point is this talk about it. You may be super attached to an appliance or gadget or decoration and so is the person you're talking about to merging households with. If you have room to keep both, keep both. If not, make the decision to talk it out. What stuff are we going to use? What are we going to do with the others? What are we going to do with the duplicates? You're not going to be able to assume anything. If you're willing to take the chance to assume someone is okay with you throwing out their coffee table so that you can bring in your coffee table, then you should also be willing to let them throw out something of yours without being asked as well. So a few things to really consider when sitting down to have these conversations. You're going to be scared. You're going to feel anxious or worried about hurting their feelings or you're worried and scared that they will not like your ideas or not like your stuff and only want to keep theirs. Remember, these are stories in your head. None of this is true because it hasn't happened. You're creating this scenario in your mind, so just talk about it. You won't know if you hurt their feelings or if they get upset until you talk about it. And I guarantee you most of the time it's not even a problem or issue and you're going to have to make compromises. Listen to the other person. Put yourself in their shoes. If you can't compromise and get rid of your Twilight painting of team Jacob and team Edward with you in the middle that's hanging over the couch, then do not get upset when they hang their Bud Light neon sign right beside it. It's going to be a crazy vibe. But you know what? If you can't compromise, you got to live with those choices. But really, if you can't compromise, this is when you really need to dig deep into what's going on in the actual situation. Are you being stubborn? Are you being petty? Do you feel like you need to keep things just because you paid good money for it. Do you feel like you might be afraid of getting rid of something? Because what if this living situation doesn't work out and you have to start over and you have no belongings to your name anymore? These are all very good questions and the best way to answer them is to just answer them on paper. I love to journal, I love to get things out of my head and onto paper. So this is the best time that you can literally just sit down and communicate with your own inner voice? Why are you having a hard time sharing space in the kitchen with your roommate? Why are you worried about the future and your belongings? What's the worst thing that could happen? And how do you really see yourself coming out of it? Because if you're worried that this situation won't last and you won't have all of your stuff that you once had because you gave it up in order to move in and merge households, you have to remind yourself that there was actually a time when you didn't even own these things and somehow you did manage to acquire them anyway, right? So, yeah, I didn't even get to the good stuff about how to actually decide what to keep and what to store and what to do and all the duplicate things you're going to have to do when you merge households because that is what's going to happen next week. And I just wanted to make sure you understood that the most important thing you have to do before you make any decisions is to talk things through. Talk with the people involved. Journal about your own hangups and your own concerns. Talk to your inner voice, write about what could be the worst possible solution and then give yourself room to create better solutions because nothing is as bad as we make it out sometimes. And don't be afraid to talk to those that are involved. If you don't speak up because you have issues, you get to either get over it and think nothing more about it or you can talk about it and come up with a better solution. Remember, no one can read minds, not even Team Edward on that painting in your living room. No, seriously, don't ever assume an answer. Just ask and work it out. The more you ask questions about those trivial things that you're getting yourself all worked up about, like, which vacuum are we going to use? The easier it will be to talk about the big issues in your life. This is just the practice, guys. This is the little stuff. Don't make it into a big stuff kind of ordeal. So that's it for now. Next week, come back and let's talk about the actual how to make those decisions together. Because now that you've talked it out, now we can start taking action. So have a great week and don't forget, we don't put things down. We put things away. So let's get to it. Hey, guys. Thank you so much for listening to my Host Lady podcast. My name is Becky, and I cannot wait to share more ideas with you to help you get your environment and your mind to a more organized space. If you are interested in working with me one on one, visit my [e-mail]. If you enjoyed the podcast, leave me a review and share with your friends. Until next time, let's get to it.