House drama, continued

So, last night we officially withdrew our offer on the house and today...

the (seller) ex-husband....

....suddenly....

.....decided to accept our offer.

We sort of expected this to happen, so we weren't terribly surprised. But we were disappointed and frustrated. If a week ago he'd accepted the offer, I'd be talking about our first showing right now.
Of course, his accepting the offer now only reinforced our sense that #1 we were being strung along #2 it IS a fair offer #3 we were stuck inside something much bigger than just the house #4 the rest of the process was not going to be easy.

So, we're sticking with our decision to walk away.

We know the house needs some work, and we were willing and even (surprisingly) looking forward to it. We were going to make this house our home. We were going to shape it and craft it into what we wanted, much more so than we have in our current house. (We happen to love the house we're in now the way it is. So we've painted one room. Otherwise, its pretty much unchanged since we bought it.) We could see our kids growing up there, having camp outs in the big back yard, eating dinners on the enclosed porch.

Unfortunately, the seller(s) completely alienated us by their indecisiveness and constant delays. We were always being asked for "just a few more days" and then being told the ex-husband wouldn't budge and then being asked (once again) for "just a few more days".

I suspected that their refusal to budge was a ploy to try to get us to move up our offer. And the ex-husband, at least, must've thought eventually we'd accept his offer. He might've even thought that we were "calling his bluff" when we withdrew our offer. And I'm betting he's stunned that we're not gobbling it up now that he's (oh, so graciously) accepted our offer.

But, (and I love, love, love that my husband and I are on the same page in this sense) it was never just about the money for us. We offered what we thought was fair. We were honest in what we were willing to pay and we were more than patient in waiting for their decision. We were not playing games, we were not trying to force their hand in anyway.

We just offered what we could do. And once we'd had enough, we'd had enough. Now, we'd pay even less for the house. Our time and our energy is worth something too, and they've used up the time and energy we were willing to spend on this house.

And we feel really good about our decision.