I've been living in "their" house for 10 years. BM only lived there around 1 year so I've been there a hell of a lot longer. My SDs were 5 and 18months when I married their dad so the youngest sure doesn't have any memories of a family unit being there and SD15 has very little memory of it.

When I moved in, I went through all the junk she left and tossed what I didn't want and I actually kept a few of her things that I thought were neat and that SDs might like to have one day, a few things are still on display in the house now! LOL We painted all the rooms, moved all MY furniture in and I redecorated to my taste. It really didn't bother me too much because it's just a house, DH and I and the kids make it a home and to me there's a big difference.

We no longer live in DH/BM's marital home. We did for about 2 years & it was incredibly unsettling. We have yet to buy a home. We are renting for now, & the move made the biggest difference in the way I felt in our situation. In "their" home, I felt I had no say in moving things, in organizing things, in re-doing things, etc. I felt like taking anything out of it's place was me interfering or inserting myself where I had no right to do so. DH never said anything to me about it. He told me I was free to make the changes I wanted to make. It's just that everything there was "theirs" at one time, & depsite the fact that I did the laundry, I fixed the meals, & I did the cleaning, I never did reach a point where I felt comfortable there. I always felt like a guest needing to ask permission to do things there.

Having been there, I'd recommend you opt for the renting. DH misses the garage he had at "their" house, but it turns out when he left that house he freed himself from a lot of the ghosts he had there.

When my SO moved in with me and got his stuff from storage, one of the things that showed up was a very nice sheet and comforter set that happened to be the same size as the bed that we had at that time. We both took one look at it and put it in the 'Garage Sale' pile. No way was I going to be sleeping on the same sheets that they did when they were married....

Sheets are a lot easier to replace than a home, though. One thing that I did was hang all the pictures of the skids that the ex took, then I took my own pictures of them and had them printed at Walgreens as replacements. They were still nice pictures, but I didn't have to think about HER everytime I looked at them.

I am.

It doesn't really bother me, because nothing of her remains here, & I have already spent more time in this house than she did.

We have also done extensive remodeling since I have moved in, as well as rearranged bedrooms, so nothing is the same.

I moved in with DH into the home that they bought together. At first I was ok and then when we got married, the only thing I asked for was a promise that we would get our own house before we had any kids. DH agreed. I hated every moment of living in that house - every member of DHs family at one point lived in that house and acted like they still did - they would just walk right in until I started locking the doors, BM carried on her affair in that house in fact would move her BF in when DH was out of town - It just held so many bad memories and so much baggage.
I got pregnant and we were in no condition to buy a new house so I remodeled - instead of nesting, I hired a contractor with an amazing crew - they worked on my house for 5 months - I had everything painted, the popcorn taken off the ceilings, the master bath gutted to the studs, crown molding installed, new windows, new french doors - everything in that house got touched. They finished a week before my due date and the crew guys were amazing - The weeks DH was on the night shift they would come at 1pm and work till 9pm or so, I of course was exhausted and they would quiely finish up while I went to bed, let the dog in and out and lock up the house all while I was asleep - I loved them!
We finally were able to buy a new house and had one built but in this market - decided to keep the old house - we're renting it out to a friend of ours who is an awesome tenant. I love the new place but dang I miss the old master bathroom - It was exactlly what I wanted in the space I had and I'm already formulating a plan to remodel my new bathroom - I know I'm crazy

Paint, new carpet, heck even new bathroom hardware - there is so much you can do inexpensively to make it your own - rearrange the furniture, pick up new pieces if you can. Add new space - a deck or even an outside sitting set. Just change it all up!

Hopefully your DH/SO is on board with this - mine took awhile to convince but I'm sure my raging pregnancy hormones didn't help - make it your own. Look at it as a blank canvas

I lived in "their" house for three years. It was three years of HELL! I couldnt wait to move! I hated everything about it. When I moved in - we painted, redid the kitchen, master bath and all flooring. It still wasnt good enough for me. I felt her presence everywhere. Plus, the fact that the ex told everyone that "that bitch (meaning me) was living in her house" drove me insane. My DH told me when they moved in he never changed the locks from the previous owner, so BM still had a key to the house! (and she's crazy) I finally said put up a for sale sign or else! We got sooooo lucky that it sold and now we're in our new home that's twice the size of the old one. I am so happy I could bust a gut!! I'm just waiting for BM to take us back to court for more CS, because she wants to know how we could afford this place and not give in to her demands for more money!

I moved in with DH. His ex lived here for a about a year with their two kids. When the ex left, she took everything and the daughter; left the son and an empty house.

But, I feel that the skids feel like this house is more theirs than mine. I know for sure the 22 y/o sone feels like that. I've been here since March '10 and although I've done things to make it more homey and more my style; and although DH always says this is my home, too, I don't totally feel like that.

I should have bought my own house. I don't even really like this house so much. I put money into building another bedroom and garage and lately I've been thinking of moving out (see previous blogs).

In a nutshell, it does bother me to some extent.

Well, sort of.

My DH did live here when they were together, but they were never a family unit. I'll summarize their relationship by saying that she actually went after someone else for child support before my DH . . .

So we are the only "family" that has lived here. We've also redone all of the floors except for three rooms, painted most of the walls, gotten all new furniture . . . So pretty much made it "ours" more than it was ever "theirs".

I live in the same house as they had, but we are changing everything and all of her stuff is out. I don't mind it one bit really I like the house we live in

I am lucky that one of BMs major gripes with me being with DH is that he wouldn't buy a house with HER but he did with ME! So, lucky for me, I never had to go through that torment some of you have.

She also is stupid enough to think she deserved better than what she already had. She has been in 5 different houses in the 11 years I've been with DH. Any time she gets extra CS, she gets a nicer/bigger house. Then when it gets decreased or doesn't go up as she expects, she gets a smaller/cheaper place. Bleh. We have owned our (paid off) house for 6 1/2 years and I wouldn't trade one bit of cracked plaster for ALL the places she's ever had!

I'm kind of on the other side. My DH moved into my house that I shared with my ex. DH and I only planned on being there for a year or two before buying one of our own but then DH was laid off and has yet to find a suitable job.

I know it bothers him sometimes and he's made some changes of his own. Especially in the yard and the garage. He gripes all the time about how my ex never took care of the "man" stuff around the house.

It's really too small for our family of 6 but it's cozy and the mortgage is cheaper than anything we could rent in our area. We haven't done a ton of remodeling (allthough I have a long list) just because money has been tight but we did replace some of the appliances and we were able to purchase a big screen TV and nice entertainment center. DH was single dad with kids for 7 years before we married so he had a house full of his own stuff and we have blended his with mine while adding lots of "OUR" stuff along the way.

Well..I don't live with DH, but he does have the house "they" shared. He had the house before he married her and he has it still. It's now paid off and we are remodeling the house to make it "ours". It didn't take too long after we got serious that I started replacing all the furniture in the house little by little. Even the kids bedroom sets (of course, SS was still in a baby bed when we started dating, so obviously...his stuff had to go!) After replacing the dreadful couch and paying it off, we tackled DH's bedroom...replaced everything they shared! My style is everywhere!!

Thank God I don't that would be on my list of resentments this morning!!! ugh!!! We just bought our own new house, we both lived separately before. Neither of us had furniture except for a couple if things that are special to us as individuals. We are purchasing and have purchased all new things for our new home. FH had storage (pretty big unit) he started to go through the stuff and realized it was all crap he didn't want in our life together, he asked if we should offer it to BM and I said no! No way in hell you paid storage for two years make some of your money back in the garage sale. He said, good idea!

If I were you, I would clean as in scrub the shit out if everything., paint, paint, paint, purchase new items little by little sell the old crap of "theirs".

I live in "THE" house. Its not tooo bad because she bm was to busy with other things to decorate so my everything in the house like the wall paper and curtains were there when the bought the house.

Right when i moved in my sd, who has a big mouth, so I didnt take it wrong told me that our bedroom was set up just like it was when her mom was there. Lets just say, I changed it that coming weekend.

haha

But, there is a for sale sign in the yard!

I am. It was difficult for the first few months, for a few different reasons. I didn't have much of my own furniture to bring into the picture, so I felt like I was moving into someone else's house. There were some hangings and decor that BM didn't take with her, but were very obviously things that my fiance didn't come up with to decorate with.

Also, SD (who was 3.5) would ALWAYS bring stuff up. There were some pink towels and every time we'd use them she'd say, "Those are MOMMY's towels" or SD had a brush that was left in her bathroom and would say, "This was MOMMY's brush." And when it was spring time SD would point out the birdfeeder and say "Daddy, remember when MOMMY put the birdfeeder up?" Or she'd say, "Daddy, remember when Mommy used to live here?" It was really difficult to stomach all these little comments...and she wasn't doing it to be mean to me, she was just bringing up memories. The last time SD said something (about the white and pink spatula I was using), my fiance got kind of mad at her, and said, "Whatever Mommy left here in this house is no longer HERS. She left it, it's MINE, and STEPPINGUPS now." I haven't heard a word since. I was so glad that he finally said something and that he got that stern with her so she'd understand.

Another hard part was finding things...all the time. Pictures, perfume bottles, a pair of underwear way back in the closet, a maternity dress that was hidden behind the dryer, a Christmas ornament of their little family, etc...it never seemed to end. I had a few cry fests about how I wanted DF to clean things out so I wouldn't have to ever see them again, because it made me feel like I was just taking her place...also at the time I kept wondering why he hadn't cleaned out all the stuff. The answer is that he just doesn't notice things! The worst thing I ever did was find some video tapes. I put one in, watched about 10 minutes of it, and was so sick that I couldn't handle it anymore. I vowed to never watch them until I was completely in a good place with being in "her" life....and I still never have. I'm sure we will one day when the kids want to, but hopefully that's years from now. I told DF not to toss them, as the kids will want them some day.

What has HELPED the situation is that DF helped me to clean out cupboards and linen closets of all things BM. Also, we've painted walls and put up new decor all over the house. It's taken some time, but now I feel like it's MY house and there's really barely anything left there that BM would recognise. And 2 years later, something of BM's still creeps up from the depths (we replaced our kitchen flooring a couple weeks ago and under the fridge were a ton of pictures). Now I can just shrug it off.

Somehow, make your house YOURS -- whatever you need to do. Paint, rearrange, etc!

Oh, no, no, no. Could not do it.

I'm on the way other side of this watching and I must say I do find amusement in it. no offense to all you SM's, if you are living in 'their' house you are strong than I probably would be.

My ex kept the house and he and his wife live there. SHe has done no more than I would expect - new master bedroom addition, new paint all the way thru, removed any and all decoration I left. If she felt the need to rid me I understand it, however it wasn't necessary. I never liked the house too much, it was just a house to me. I left a fair amount of decorative items because I didn't want the kids to feel as though I emptied the house completely. It is still their home also and I wanted it to still feel like home.

The times I've been in since she moved in I haven't had a lick of feelings towards the changes they've made. I just don't care. It's not my home any longer.

I will say my ex has gone to great lengths to support her on making it her own home. I certainly hope she doesn't feel that I stand in the way of that in any way, even old memories.

Living in "his" house has been very hard. But, I have redecorated all but one room. That room is his family room. I don't spend much time in their cause I hate the decor. I told him he has 6 more months and I am going to town on that room. We have had done a lot of remodeling and painting. That helps. Also, she never really did anything with the decor. I stripped wall paper that was hideous in three rooms. Now, it is finally feeling like "our house". Their is still a pile of pictures in a closet that he won't deal with. I am planning on it, just want to give it more time. Personally, they are the kids pictures for when they are older.

Trust me, though when the last kid is 18 this house is being sold as fast as I can. I still own my own house up the road and we will sell both and move far away from BM living down the road....Just 5 more years.....

I did live in DH's house that he shared with BM for about a year. It was very hard. I felt like it was tainted with BM - EVERYWHERE! I found myself getting resentful when skids would mention memories that I knew BM was a part of. "Remember that Xmas when ....." and it would really bother me even though I knew it shouldn't and that I was being ridiculous! I started repaiting all the rooms, rearranging furniture, changing decor, etc.... to make the house mine and not at all like hers. It helped but didn't fix. My DH was never opposed to selling the house but it was pretty weird due to a whacky addition and he had tried selling it in the past with no success. Thankfully I know several realtors and asked them to keep me in mind if they had a buyer who would like the house because we would sell. It worked! It took a while but we moved out and I am SO MUCH HAPPIER! Also, DH is very happy and said he didn't realize how much that house bogged him down. Skids still mention the house sometimes and miss it - which is fine.