How to Find Your Dream Home (Without Injuring Your Spouse)

I'll never forget the moment when my fiancé looked across the truck cab at me and asked how I liked the house we'd just looked at - the seventeenth one, consecutively, that day. We'd been driving around all over the area that we hoped to find that "perfect" home, only to be exhausted from comparing terrazzo tile to painted paneling.

"So," he asked with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "What did you think about that last one?" I could tell from the look on his face he was silently praying, making a deal with God to give up at least three Sundays of next football season to go to church, for me to just make up my mind on a place we could both agree on. Possibly even four, plus a playoff game.

"It was too," I replied cautiously, my lips pursed. "Drab."

"Drab?!" he choked out, pulling the Ford to the side of the road.

"Yeah, drab. The house just wasn't right. It was just too... plain." For the first and only five second period of my life, I rendered the man speechless. Five houses earlier I had complained the house we had looked at was too fancy for the very simple two of us. I think if he, a man who has never once laid an ill hand upon a woman, could have throttled me at that moment he would have.

It has been said buying a home is one of the most stressful things a couple can do together, and a true test of the relationship. Every detail can be scrutinized and squabbled on, and that can make the process even harder. But, there are a few things that can keep finding your dream home from becoming your nightmare.

One tip is to discuss what you want in a home before you start your search. Each of you should sit down and make a list of things that are vital to you in a home. Compare them, noting which items match the other's list. Then, pick three items off your own list that are the most important. Have your partner do the same, and agree to stick to looking for those three things, plus any matching interests, above all else. This narrows down the search, and can make compromising on a home much easier.