What Takes Up All The Room?

Over the years I’ve supported women grieving the loss of the family home for many different reasons. For some it represented the evidence and reward of their best efforts as a homemaker. For others it was an important sign of a successful financial life. For still others it was the most tangible connection to the life they thought they were in. Losing that physical place was another heart-wrenching part of a bigger loss.

Clients can take a long time to get past it. But some take no time at all.

I lived in a 3000 square foot two-story split with full basement and double attached garage. When my then husband and I separated I moved into a 1200 square foot two-story townhouse with two bedrooms. It had a small windowless finished basement that I used to store most of my ex’s stuff that he hadn’t taken yet.  Somehow I had more than enough living space in this smaller home even when one of my sons lived with me. I eventually ran a business from that townhouse, too. There was never a time I felt I needed more space. And I was happy every single day I lived there.

I am not alone in this experience.  

Every day I read about women living in small apartments, cottages, and townhouses after divorce and living happily with the things that give them comfort, inspiration, and a sense of belonging. They are happy. Some thought it would be a temporary move and they would find larger quarters when their finances evened out. But after that settles they never move. They are at home, happy, safe and sound.

Many of those women are going from bigger and sometimes more impressive houses to smaller less impressive houses without feeling cramped or short-changed. So, it makes me wonder what was taking up all the room in larger marital homes?  Sure, some that is the stuff of raising children and maybe even building businesses. But that’s not all of it.

I’ve come to think that a secret life created, maintained, and protected can take up a lot of room. The stuff of that one family member’s secret life is a presence—an invisible one but a presence nonetheless. The lies, the abandonment of partner and children, the blameshifting, gaslighting, arrogant silencing and contempt actually take up space in a home. You just don’t see it the way you see your mother’s china in the cabinet and your children’s first baby clothes in the closet. That’s because those precious things can be contained in one place. What the perpetrator of covert abuse houses in your home is like septic waste back-up and black mould creeping down the walls from a bad roof. It keeps coming and growing, infecting and contaminating every space it can take over. There are rooms we just stop going into and spaces we don’t like to use. An “emptiness” moves in and becomes a squatter in our own home—ironically taking up the space meant for life memories and hopes and dreams.

In my situation I Instinctively I knew that in order to sell our family home I would need to get him out of it.  I needed get rid of the bad energy he dragged through it every day that had set up shop here there and everywhere. So, he moved into an apartment and took what he could fit. I would store the rest in my townhome basement.

Since his covertly incestuous mother was also “present” in our marriage all the time (see MY “mommy’s boy” blog in list of contents above the latest blog—I was alerted by a reader that there is a whole other site/blog with the same title that is a porn site) I needed to get rid of her energy too. I literally burned things in the fireplace that she had left with us as “gifts.”  I took a hammer to some knik knacks from her that were not welcome in my new home and that I didn’t want to infect anyone else’s either. I carried a lit candle through every room in our house and made use of my faith tradition to invoke the light of Spirit to shine there. The house felt very different when it went up for sale. Happily it sold quickly for full asking.

So, what takes up all the room in your house?

Whenever you are ready to leave the “family home” behind please look forward to the surprise of a smaller, less impressive and less expensive place becoming your home. Ensure in your own way that you leave behind what is ugly and hurtful that just takes up all the room. When you unpack you might just create a better home where you (and any others who live with you) will be safe, comfortable, and content in ways you don’t expect.

Remember that you (and any children who move with you) were the very best part of the home you are leaving or thinking about leaving. Your love, energy, humour, commitment, honesty, creativity, grace and wisdom go with you and will bless your home wherever it is. Even if it’s rough for a while, this is what our children will remember about any home they live in—you were there for them and you also showed up for yourself.

With you,

Diane.