My partner is divorced and has struggled to pay off debt since his divorce. Then we met and we moved into a brand new half duplex and I loved it but it was more than we could afford with his child support payments and my car dying, and we slowing were racking up more debt. This last weekend we moved into a 1977 manufactured home in a dumpy trailer park because our rent is $600. I can’t stop crying, my mother is horrified and can’t believe I agreed to move. Yesterday I stood outside and had a complete breakdown while I told my partner he could have everything I own, but I was taking my clothes and moving into my parents spare room. We had a huge fight and said I was being a spoiled rotten brat. He said he’s trying to start a life with me so we can pay off debt and buy a house and he can afford a ring and to get married and I’m choosing to run away. He told me he would live in a cardboard box with me as long as he had me, and he feels like this old trailer isn’t so terrible.
But I feel depressed, I feel grossed out by the trailer, I can’t believe this is my new home and I feel trapped and I can’t stop crying. We are probably gonna have to live here 4-5 years, and I’m so depressed by that thought that everything just feels really really dark.
Have you ever moved into a dingy less than ideal house so you could have a better future? How did you deal with it? Cause I’m not dealing very well with at all.
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I’ll be honest. I commend you for trying, but there’s no way I would do it, especially at our age and due to his debts. How long have you been together anyway?
I don’t think I could do it… even if it was $600. Unless it was 6 months only… sorry you are in this situation. : (
I’d move back in with my parents, too. Is there any possibility he just wants you to stay so he has someone to share the costs with? He should get his life together before dating anyone.
When you say more than we could afford is that because you are helping pay off his debt? Could you afford something better on your own factoring only your costs?
If it was my only choice, I could do it out of necessity, but yeah I’d be miserable and try to get something better as soon as possible. My living arrangements influence my mood a lot so to be that affected for 4-5 years, yikes.
I have been unhoused before. A trailer of any kind would have been amazing at that point in my life.
Any home can be cleaned, organized, and made livable. If you love your partner and want to make this work, find a way to make this place shine while you both get your finances together. It sounds like there’s financial instability on both sides and this is what’s affordable for you both.
You have a home, I don’t get what the big deal is. Just use it as motivation to work hard and pay off that debt. I don’t get what you’re so grossed out by. I mean if it’s moldy and falling apart and unfit for living, then yeah, but if it’s… just a trailer? Who cares? Tons of people live in trailers. Good people. I’d live in a trailer for $600 a month in a heartbeat, and I live in a rental house in my favorite neighborhood. I know you can go back and live with your parents but they aren’t gonna be around forever. If you were in an apartment of equal quality, would you feel better about it? Do you just have a weird stigma about trailer parks?
It sounds like, maybe you two aren’t compatible? I could and would live in filth as long as I had my little family, I would do anything to get to a better situation, but they are my happiness and that’s all I really need.
Yep, I’ve lived in a pretty crappy shared house because it was the best option at the time. I’d rather live in a trailer than have debt. It was very worth it, though gross at the time.
I have. I bought paint from the clearance rack at Home Depot, rented a carpet shampoo machine, and did my best to make it clean and homey. I joined the local buy nothing groups and watched Craigslist for things that would help make it feel nicer and more like a “home”. Granted the park it was in wasn’t super terrible, only lightly trashy.
One word of caution, depending where you are in the world, budget for summer. Trailers are NOT well insulated and running AC can be an astronomical expense. Especially if you have any compromised duct work under the trailer. I once had an electric bill that was $575 for a single month (this was in 2011 when I lived in Florida, I imagine the same amount of use would be higher today).
I moved into a tiny dumpy apartment after my divorce 6 years ago and I love it because it’s mine. It’s clean and I decorated it cute. It’s safe. It’s mine.
It’s rough.
My husband and I lived in an okayish rented flat, it was a great home and we loved it. Cheap but totally okay.
After my mother passed away and me inheriting half of her house we talked about moving into the house I grew up in to support my father and not having to pay rent anymore.
Let’s say it this way: I didn’t visit my parents very often due to living far away, but I didn’t remember the house being that bad.
From the 1950s, never renovated, never anything really repaired, full of trash. My parents are/were hoarders and after I had moved out it all became worse and worse.
I can’t tell how many tons of old ugly furniture or trash we removed. And the house still is full of shit. We renovated the upper floor where we are living. Started renovating the ground floor for my father who has an actual living room for the first time in his life now.
Working on the basement, found lots of black mold while working our way through 120m² of trash higher than our hips.
It’s a nightmare. We had to go in debt to finance the move, a used car (didn’t need one in the city and now we’re in the middle of nowhere without infrastructure like a supermarket) and basic home renovations. Can’t pay off debt plus rent, so we have no other option than suffering through this and making this dumpster fire to a place where someone can live.
My biggest regret is having moved back here. Yeah, I have a better job here, more room, a garden (once it’s not a jungle anymore), and I’m happy seeing my father more than once a year, but it’s still not worth it.
Don’t move somewhere like that.
I’m sorry you’re in this situation. On one hand, I grew up in a gross house (and as a result would never be able to move back home even if my parents weren’t abusive), so I get not wanting to live like that.
But what did you expect him to think and feel when you rejected him for a nicer lifestyle, especially after you BOTH contributed to the financial situation that landed you in the trailer in the first place? If your mother finds the idea of living in a trailer park “horrifying”, then I can see how he ends up calling you a spoiled rotten brat over this, even if it’s not kind or productive. What does she think your other option was, staying in a place you could not afford?
You seem to know what you need to do here, but know that this is basically the end of your relationship if you go (unless you are inviting him to come with you?). If my husband and I had to take a serious downshift to make up for some jointly created losses and he left me alone in it to hide with his mommy at her nice house instead? I’d divorce him the second his car pulled out of the driveway.
I have lived in shitty housing. I dealt with it by remembering why I was doing it – because it was allowing me to build something more stable for myself. I painted and hung a lot of photos. Hung out at a lot of parks. Patronized the shit out of the library. I know my husband can hang with that if we need to, because he grew up poor and restarted from scratch in his 30s. It’s actually a big part of why I married him – beyond the love, I trust him to not create a bad situation in the first place, and I trust him to buckle down right beside me if we have to scrap our way out of something.
If you don’t have children, mortgage, or marriage with this dude, then your focus and energy should be poured into improving YOUR financial future. Pay off your debt, seek a better paying job (which could require a move), or pursue education/certification for a better career.
Even if you do not mingle finances, living together with man when you are not stable is not ideal. His troubles become your troubles (drain your mental energy). You have to clean, cook, and manage for a household with children (even partial custody affects you) instead of just you. Women tend to take most, if not all, the burden of invisible labor and mental load for managing a home.
Focus on you! Your goals, your dreams, your family, your friends. Do what’s best for you.
Question: how were your finances/debt before the relationship? Like if your car had died the week before you started dating, would the repair have put you in debt?
I’m concerned that if his debt has pushed you into debt too you need to seriously rethink the whole relationship.
You feel your living situation is downgraded, that’s why it feels depressing. I have lived in someone’s garden shed before. Long time ago when I lived in Denmark, I had been kicked out of an apartment I used to rent with my ex BF. As an Asian girl with limited Danish and Swedish, I couldn’t find anything closer to work and school. An Iraqi immigrant and his family in Sweden took a pity on me, and let me live in their garden shed. I used to take a bus to and from Sweden to Denmark everyday just to work and study. Thanks to that generous family, I wasn’t destitute and homeless for a while. When they came to Sweden years ago, it was the other brown immigrants who helped them. They said they simply extended the kindness others have shown them. I cry as I type this from my past. I wouldn’t have been where I am today without kindness of others.
Yes I have, but shitty housing is often what’s affordable.
But if you two want to make it work then put some elbow grease into making that dingy place a home. Clean, paint, add plants, or whatever.
Ask your parents if they could help with some money to clean up the place.
Yup, just kept my mind on the long-term goals. Not saying it wasn’t hard sometimes, but we did it. Living in such a small, shitty space for years really showed that we loved each other – you couldn’t do it with someone you were incompatible with IMO.
Are you married to your partner? If not, is that something you two have discussed? If you aren’t married and it’s not something you plan on doing, then you aren’t obligated to live with him. Sure, if you want to continue the relationship then go for it, but you don’t have to live together.
Our first living quarters together was in a second (third?) hand trailer house. Compared to our friends in a much newer apartment, we had more space, less rent, no neighbors sharing a wall, washer/dryer, parking just outside, etc. We saved a lot of money living there.
Adjustments in standards of living can be difficult especially when the adjustment is large. I went from a 2200 square foot ranch-style home with hardwood floors and a fireplace, on acreage, with a big kitchen and lots of sunlight, to a double-wide trailer with fake wood paneling, a burnt orange carpet, a tiny kitchen and a tiny garage that I can’t even fit my vehicle in. I didn’t love it at first. I didn’t even like it. I wasn’t excited to move in. There’s so many things that I miss about my former home, but you know what? It’s just a house. I could have technically afforded to rent something nicer and more to my liking, but the financial stress wouldn’t have been worth it.
Is it a dump? No. Is it a massive adjustment in my standard of living? Yes. Is it my forever home? No. It’s clean, my landlords are nice people, and it’s what I can afford at the point I’m at in my life. I am more than willing to live in a “less than ideal house” so that I can pay off debt, not have to stress about the rent, and get myself to a better financial place.
Look, this isn’t your forever home. It’s not your favorite place, and it doesn’t have to be. What it is, is a roof over your head while you get yourselves to a better financial situation. Having a pretty place to live that you can’t afford to live in without racking up more debt is often not the best choice. If you have to live in a place that’s not ideal, do everything you can to make it yours. Clean it, pick out nice furniture, do some interior decorating, do whatever you have to do to make it feel more like home. I’ve done lots of things to make my place feel more like home, and now it’s cozy and warm and I don’t even see the burnt orange carpet anymore.
This is all with the caveat of that I am the one choosing to live there because of my situation and I don’t have to live there because of someone else’s financial situation, so that might be making things harder for you. Were you able to afford to live in a much nicer place no problem before you were with your boyfriend, but now you’re being significantly impacted by his debt? Or is this a case where you’re both in massive amounts of debt and tried to live in a place you couldn’t really afford in the first place?
Would leave and go back to my parents house. Living with some dude + in a trailer + he already has kids?
This situation likely won’t get much better, once you accept the lowered standard of living.