Sometimes I can’t but stare at you in disbelief

REVISION: from the comments and emails I’ve received it appears that the following is indeed not a reaction restricted to Italians, therefore, I apologize to Italians for my rash words and would ask my readers to mentally substitute “some people” where they read “Italians”. I don’t want to change the text itself because otherwise none of this would make any sense (if it even did to begin with). Thanks!

Fair warning: this is going to be one of those posts where I rag on Italians, so if you’re Italian please stop reading. I realize that I’m half Italian, married to an Italian and live in Italy, but sometimes the cultural difference is just too much for me and my head wants to explode so I vent on here, this is, in fact, why I started this blog.

So anyway, I’ve mentioned before that the husband and I are going through a rough patch and we’re at a place right now where we don’t know what will be of our future or whether we even have a future together or not. This has, of course, come up with people, granted not an awful lot, because thankfully very few people we know in “real life” actually read this blog, but the most significant question that any Italian has asked me as soon as they heard we were thinking of separating was “but what are you going to do about the house?”, this from my therapist, to friends, to family members.

Seriously? Seriously??

It’s a fucking house. Ask me how we’re doing, ask me what we’re doing about the kids, but don’t ask me about the house, because that is so far down my list of what’s important right now that it absolutely boggles my mind to think that anyone would be worried about it.

Yes, we’re buying a house, but guess what, the kids and I are going to be wanting to not live under a bridge if the husband and I separate. And if, in the future, it turns out the house is too big, or I want to move somewhere else or whatever we’ll sell the house, or we’ll rent it, we’ll do something about the house, but it’s so not a priority when you’re thinking of breaking up your family. How can they think it would be?

It’s just a house.

WTF?