Gender Differences in House Hunting

Ryan and I have been house hunting for most of this year, and looking quite seriously for the last few months. This has been a learning process, to say the least. To begin, it's the first time that either of us have bought a house with someone else. We've had to learn to understand not just what criteria are most important for ourselves, but also for each other. We've had to factor in our needs as a unit, and plan for future needs as well.

This dynamic alone has made it very difficult for us to find a home that we both love. A few weeks ago after another exasperating weekend of driving and looking I finally said "We're never going to find a home that at least one of us won't rule out for some reason." That set us in motion to formalize our search. We came home and made a list of items that were "must haves" for both of us, as well as lists of "would like to have" and "would be fun to have." We thought this would simplify things, but for the first couple of weeks, it didn't seem to be helping at all.

Then I realized why. Ryan and I could enter the same house, walk throughout the whole thing, not say a word to each other, and walk out with radically different impressions of what we'd experienced. It was as if we'd seen different houses.

It began to dawn on me that men walk into a house and see a structure - 4 walls, a roof, a foundation, layout - construction and materials. Women walk into a home and feel its soul. We walked through a home one day after completing our list and I had to admit Ryan was right - it satisfied all the needs we had put on the list. And so Ryan grew frustrated as I explained that I could never live there because the house felt very sad.

What women experience in a home can't be quantified with words on paper. It's ethereal. Ryan jokingly added "must feel right" to our list after that house, accepting that some things I can't explain and, while he may never understand them, he can respect them.

We signed a contract on a new home this week - and I'm certain our real estate agent is ecstatic to finally be done showing us houses and answering our incessant questions!

Like most things in marriage, this was yet another learning process for us. We learned more about each other, we learned more about ourselves and we learned more about "us" and who "we" really are.

Here's to the individual differences that enhance and make our lives richer, together.