<prompt> Human: My wife and I both have decent jobs with little debt her student loans. We currently rent a small apartment that is very inexpensive. Weve been looking to buy a home, but the real estate market where we live tiny town in Northern New England is either homes way out of our price range or homes that need a lot of work, with everything in between either not for sale or snatched off the market before we can make an offer. Ive been in construction for almost 15 years and know a lot about houses, everything weve looked at has had a major issue that we cant afford to fix. She falls in love with every house she finds online and it always ends with a major blowout fight when I try to point out the potential issues we may have. Weve looked at 10 houses, each time ending the same way: give her the bad news, then she hates me until she falls in love with another house, repeat process. Its gotten to the point where I am seriously reconsidering my marriage and it is one of the most stressful things Ive ever been through. Has anyone else been through this? How did you deal with it? I feel like I have to make a choice between my marriage or a serious financial setback. Edit: Thank you all for your help, youve made me realize things that Ive been too dense to realize myself. Im glad I came here for help and will be re-evauluating this whole process as well as my life in general.Assistant: Are you guys at the point where you can actually afford a house in your area? As someone that just went through the real estate gauntlet fuck you Somerville and Cambridge it sounds like the house you can afford and are willing to deal with doesnt exist. If its gonna be stuff that is mostly cosmeticeasy to fix its gonna get snapped up by an all cash contractor trust me we had this happen 6 times and you cant afford anything that is out of your price range.I think you might need to sit down and talk about whether or not house hunting is actually a thing you should be doing right now. It sounds like the only thing you MIGHT have a shot at is a short sale and even those are rough.Would you be able to afford another 40-50k on the sticker price if you wait 2-3 years?Human: We can afford around a 200k house have enough for down payment with emergency fund left over, unfortunately the town is so small that there is nothing decent for sale around that price. We could move but I have an established business here and she has a great job. We could easily afford more than 40-50k in a few years, but she will leave me if we dont get a house by the end of the year. After re-reading all this, Ive realized that the others are right and this probably isnt the place for this post. Thank you though!!Assistant: but she will leave me if we dont get a house by the end of the year. Holy crap, do not buy a house with this women!Human: LOL, shes threatened it but I dont think she actually would. The problem is we have a few friends who have gotten lucky finding houses and I think its just a case of her wanting to Keep up with the Joneses. FML.  <response>: If she gave you that ultimatum, your marriage is over right now. 